Virginia Montanez is a longtime humor writer who once spent the day as one of the most-Googled names in the country while appearing as the lead story on CNN's homepage when she was fired from her nonprofit Pittsburgh job after revealing her identity as the writer of the popular humor site The Burgh Blog. Montanez went on to publish a successful follow-up blog about Pittsburgh and then became the humor columnist for Pittsburgh Magazine before leaving to focus on writing novels. Her debut novel Nothing. Everything. is slated to be published in Spring 2023 by Brooklyn's Winding Road Stories.
She is the volunteer founder of Make Room for Kids at Mario Lemieux Foundation, a program that has placed hundreds of XBOXes in nearly every in-patient room at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
She serves as the vice chairperson of the Board of Directors of Write Pittsburgh, contributes to the Post-Gazette Forum pages*, and writes a quarterly history-focused column for Pittsburgh Magazine.
She is the creator of the artifact-mapping project Pittsburgh Remains to be Seen.
Her awards include the "Blog of the Year" from the City and Regional Magazine Association for her work with Pittsburgh Magazine, as well as multiple Golden Quill nominations and wins.
May 30, 2014 was named "Virginia Montanez Day" in the City of Pittsburgh by Mayor Bill Peduto.
She is a history graduate student (remote) at UMass-Boston, a single mother of two teenagers, and has been profoundly hearing impaired since birth.
*Not contributing during the ongoing labor strike