Aliya Hall, Chronicle Reporter
Originally from the Fern Ridge area, Aliya Hall always wanted to be a writer. In elementary school she started writing her own books, as well as make a one-page newspaper about the events that transpired during family vacations. Although she was convinced that she’d be a fiction writer (she completed five fantasy ”novels” in middle school and high school), she knew she’d be happy as long as she was writing.
Her love for journalism came during high school when she was a staff writer and managing editor for the school paper, The Falconer. When she wrote a story about her peers in the foster system, Hall knew that she wanted to pursue journalism as a career. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in magazine journalism and a minor in German.
During her time at the University of Oregon, Hall wrote for the multicultural magazine, Ethos, for two and a half years before her promotion to Copy Chief. There she wrote profiles and feature pieces focusing on underrepresented people and issues in the community, as well as on individuals overcoming adversary. Those stories gave her an appreciation for features writing, and providing a platform for people to tell their own stories.
When she studied abroad in Germany for the academic year in 2015 to 2016, she wrote guest viewpoints for the Register-Guard that included a foreign perspective on the election, sexual assault, and the refugee situation. Hall continued to write for Ethos as a foreign correspondent, profiling four refugees in Germany from Syria, Bosnia and Nigeria, as well as traveling to Bosnia to write a feature on the aftermath of the Bosnian War.
After graduating from the University of Oregon in 2017, Hall completed an internship in Salem with Capital Press, the West’s Agriculture Weekly, as part of the 2017 Charles Snowden Excellence in Journalism Program. From that experience on, Hall began to freelance.
Hall now freelances for the Capital Press as an agricultural reporter; the Register-Guard as a business reporter; the Fern Ridge Review and Tribune News as a general reporter; and The Creswell Chronicle as a general reporter and copy editor. She also has bylines at Oregon Jewish Life and Oxygen’s True Crime Network.
Hall lives in West Eugene with her cat, Benji, where she enjoys sitting on her balcony with a craft beer and reading true crime books. When she isn’t working, Hall plays ukulele and tries to travel as much as her schedule – and wallet- allows.
Although Hall aspires to work as a foreign correspondent, she is a big supporter of local journalism because community news matters. For that reason, she has joined the writing staff of the Fern Ridge and Tri-County areas, as well as Eugene and Creswell.
Hall is thrilled to join the Creswell Chronicle team, and to immerse herself in a new city. She looks forward to getting to know community members at events; feel free to come up to her and say hello or give her a scoop on interesting things happening in the area.
