Victoria Bruce

Victoria Bruce is an author, filmmaker and journalist who has spent her career in pursuit of fascinating, never-before-told stories. From a very young age, Victoria had a passion for rocks, mud, lizards and California coastal sea creatures. She also loved to read and write poetry, sci-fi and non-fiction. Her love for earth science led her to a degree in geology from the University of California Riverside. For her master’s degree she backpacked up Mount Rainer volcano to map out the places on the volcano most likely to collapse during a catastrophic eruption. Combining earth science and writing, Victoria embarked on a career as a science writer that took her first to the Portland Oregonian in 1998 for a fellowship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and then to NASA at the Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland to promote the space agency’s work on earth-related issues seen from their space satellites. In 2001, Victoria published her first book, No Apparent Danger, a true story of a volcanic disaster in Colombia and an unsolved mystery in the scientific community. The book made headlines across the country as Victoria exposed an epic fail of science, while the media made a culprit the star and ignored the legitimate scientists who were trying to mitigate a disaster. Her second project as a freelancer brought her back to Colombia when she heard the story of a fearless presidential candidate named Ingrid Betancourt. Ingrid was running for president and just as she started campaigning, she was kidnapped by Colombia’s guerrilla group, the FARC. Karin Hayes, her filmmaking partner, co-produced The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt. This brought Victoria and Karin their first journalism award, the prestigious Alfred I. Dupont Columbia University Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. The film appeared on Cinemax and premiered at the renown Slamdance Film Festival in 2003. After two more films, Held Hostage in Colombia, and Pip & Zastrow: an American friendship, Victoria returned to writing for her second book, Hostage Nation, Colombia’s Guerrilla Army and the Failed War on Drugs. In 2012, Karin and Victoria directed and produced We’re Not Broke, a film about corporate tax evasion with executive producer Charles Davidson, publisher of The American Interest. The film went to the Sundance Film Festival and was subsequently seen by millions around the world. In 2017, Victoria’s third book, Sellout, was released. Sellout received a stellar review in The Wall Street Journal. Victoria appeared on the Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal show to promote the book and its important topic, the complete dominance by China of American military technology products. Her latest book, Inspector Oldfield and the Black Hand Society, Victoria co-authored with William Oldfield, a story hidden in the archives of a family for over a hundred years. The story centers around Oldfield’s great-grandfather, a U.S. Post Office Inspector who captured the first international organized crime syndicate in America. Over the years and In between major film and book projects , Victoria worked many different projects as a writer, consultant and television host for Discovery Channel’s Pompeii: The Last Day. She is active in progressive politics and created an online news portal for her county called The Arundel Patriot, which seeks to promote progressive news and candidates. Also in between projects, Victoria became a mom to her daughter, Evelyn, born in 2004. Evelyn has been her most fun and engaging endeavor of all.