Soleil Ho has always had a lot of irons in the fire. For a decade, they worked as a chef while freelancing as a writer. In 2019, they joined the San Francisco Chronicle, where they served as the paper’s restaurant critic until 2025, nabbing a James Beard Award in the process. These days, when they’re not collaborating with chefs on cookbook projects, they’re helping to run COYOTE Media Collective, a Bay-area-based worker-owned newsroom. Ho shared candid insights and hard-learned lessons for the cooperative-curious with IIJ leader Shernay Williams, and discussed their career as a food journalist.
Shernay Williams is an instructor and coach for the Institute for Independent Journalists. She spent more than a decade as a journalist for television, radio, and print outlets throughout the South and East Coast before serving as a business coach, running a content firm, and in 2020, launching the Black Mompreneur.
The Freelance Journalism Podcast is a production of the Institute for Independent Journalists, whose mission is the financial and emotional sustainability of freelancers of color. Learn more about our work at theiij.com
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