Louie Opatz
Louie Opatz is a contributing writer at the University of Washington Continuum College, where he previously worked as a full-time editor and writer. Louie has worked as a barista, ginger beer delivery driver, baseball coach, FedEx shipping specialist, barback, communications director, teaching assistant, sports editor and bottling milk on a dairy farm, among others odds and ends.
He lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a writer and reporter for Streets Are For Everyone, a 501(c)3 that aims to improve the quality of life for pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers by reducing traffic fatalities to zero. Since 2020, Louie has organized and volunteered for SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, a nonprofit on the east side of LA that feeds, clothes, supports and empowers our unhoused neighbors as they struggle with housing insecurity.
Louie is a lifelong baseball player, which brought him to Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., where he earned his bachelor’s in English and journalism. He also holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing: Nonfiction from Portland State University. As a car-free LA bike commuter, he thinks most of life’s ills can be solved by hopping on a bicycle.