"You’ve got a nice style and personality about you.” — George Carlin

Julie Seabaugh grew up on a farm in rural Missouri and discovered stand-up when Dave Attell performed during her senior year of college. Way back in 2003, she founded and edited the criminally ahead of its time print and online comedy magazine Two Drink Minimum. As a freelance journalist of 20 years she’s contributed to The New York Times, The L.A. Times, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, GQ, Variety, The A.V. Club, The Village Voice, The Huffington Post, Spin, Playboy, Vulture, Paste, Time Out New York, Time Out Chicago, and numerous other alt-weeklies.

Seabaugh’s coverage of modern roasting culminated in the 2018 book Ringside at Roast Battle: The First Five Years of L.A.'s Fight Club for Comedians, and her love of Mitch Hedberg led to producing/hosting 2020’s Hope on Top: A Mitch Hedberg Oral History for SiriusXM’s Comedy Central channel. With director and Emmy-nominated editor Nick Scown, she directed and executive produced September 2021 feature documentary Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11 for Vice TV. 2022’s 50 Years of the Comedy Store six-LP vinyl box set features her liner notes; her Positive Connections: A Brody Stevens Oral History debuted on SiriusXM’s RawDog channel in February 2023. The collection A Tight 20: Two Decades of Comedy Journalism is available now.

Among other writing highlights, simultaneous Bridget Everett Village Voice and Roast Battle L.A. Weekly cover stories ran on both sides of the country the week of September 8, 2014.  

Having previously served as A&E staff writer at Las Vegas Weekly, Seabaugh won a 2015 Nevada Press Association Award for a cover profile tracing the downward health spiral of The Amazing Johnathan. “It’s obvious the author is a wordsmith,” judges wrote. “Every sentence is well thought out. It’s full of lively adjectives and truly paints a picture of what the Amazing Johnathan looks like, what he’s experiencing and how he got to his current state. I felt like he was sitting next to me, boisterously telling his story.”

Interviewees over the years include Carl Reiner, Christopher Guest, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Joan Rivers, George Carlin, Don Rickles, Eddie Izzard, Drew Carey, Howie Mandel, Jimmy Kimmel, Key & Peele, Judd Apatow, Lily Tomlin, Mitch Hedberg, Seth Meyers, Wanda Sykes and Zach Galifianakis. Media appearances include NPR, Bloomberg Radio, The Bennington Show, The Doug Stanhope Podcast, Keith and the Girl, Industry Standard With Barry Katz and The Comedy Store Podcast.

Festival judging/coverage/panelist/misc. includes the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Just for Laughs Montreal, SXSW, San Francisco Sketchfest, New York Comedy Festival, Just for Laughs Toronto, Sasquatch, Grand Rapids' Gilda's LaughFest, Montana's Big Sky Comedy Festival, Austin's Moontower, Portland's Bridgetown, the Seattle International Comedy Competition, Riot L.A., Nashville's Wild West Comedy Festival, Atlanta's Laughing Skull and Skankfest Las Vegas.

Bachelor of Journalism degree (with Honors) from the University of Missouri, post-grad Certificate in Digital Publishing from NYU.

Photo credits: Troy Conrad