Shannon Heffernan is a criminal justice reporter. She has also reported on mental health, poverty, labor and climate change. She worked on the podcast "16 Shots."Heffernan's work has appeared on local and national programming, including "This American Life." She has received a Third Coast International Audio Festival Award, a National Murrow Award for best writing and a PRINDI for best writing, as well as awards from the Illinois AP and Chicago Headline Club.Heffernan's short fiction has appeared in Hobart, The Indiana Review and The Columbia Review, where she won the 2016 prize for fiction.