[1] She went on to earn her master of fine arts in creative writing and was a GO-MAP Fellow at the University of Washington from 2010–2012.

[5] While at The New York Times, Young contributed to "Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek", which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing and a Peabody Award.

[6] Young has also written freelance articles for publications including The Washington Post and the Guardian.

[7][8][9] She also teaches creative writing in English and Spanish at Hugo House, the Port Townsend Writers' Conference, and the Seattle Public Library.

As an investigative journalist, Young specializes in reporting on topics such as the environment, missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW),[10] automation, education and social justice, gay rights, government malfeasance and corruption, climate change, worker's rights, and more.