Julia Evans Reed

She expanded the Delta Hot Tamale Festival from one-day to a three-day event, exponentially increasing the economic benefit to her hometown. Reed opened Brown Water Books, a bookstore in the historic Wetherbee House in Greenville. She was co-founder of Reed-Smythe, an online business supporting independent artisans. In 2019, she was named Cultural Ambassador of Mississippi’s Arts Commission. She served on the board of the Ogden Museum of Art in New Orleans, the Eudora Welty Foundation, and the Link Stryjewski Foundation.

Reed was married to John Pearce; the couple divorced in 2016. She maintained two residences, one in New Orleans and the other in Mississippi, on a property adjacent to her childhood home.

Reed was a columnist at Garden & Gun from 2011. She was also an editor and writer for Vogue magazine since 1988, where she wrote about politics and culture and profiled the Clintons and Bushes, also interviewing Oprah Winfrey for The Wall Street Journal. She was a contributor to The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, and Elle Décor, among other publications.

Reed wrote her first article for the Washington Bureau of Newsweek magazine in 1980, covering the story of her former Madeira headmistress, Jean Harris' murder of partner Herman Tarnower. She continued with the magazine as a contributing editor and columnist.

Julia Evans Reed (September 11, 1960 – August 28, 2020) was a Mississippi Delta born author, journalist, columnist, speaker, and socialite. Reed wrote several books on cooking, entertaining, and affluent southern lifestyle and culture.