Becca Thomas Loux

I wanted to be a writer since I could read (age 4) and more specifically aspired towards journalism since I knew what that was. Of course if I am being completely transparent I am referring to my discovery and obsession with Harriet the Spy, who uses her powers of observation and description concurrently to take down the enemies of her eleven-year-old world. A part of me admired Rita Skeeter when I read Harry Potter, but I wanted to have a sit-down with her about media ethics. I would have been very persuasive.

In any case, I pursued journalism as a young adult. I edited for The Hub, Davis High School's award-winning newspaper, and I recieved a JEANC (Journalism Education Association of Northern California) award in journalistic writing myself during my time there. I also worked on the school's yearbook and contributed a few times to our local publication, the Davis Enterprise. In college at UCSB, however, my life strayed on a different path. Although I did keep producing media as an integral part of Word Magazine's editing, writing and design staff, I was mainly focused my academic pursuits on learning about and solving the world's problems. I majored in Global Studies (and Comparative Literature since I couldn't stop taking intersectional reinterpretive Shakespeare classes) and got a job as a political organizer straight after graduation. In this position I published advocacy writing and worked with the media externally frequently as my organization would put on press conferences and participate in media events.

Professional activism taught me so much, and I will be an environmental and human justice organizer in my heart forever. But a part of me always knew that I was a communicator, and I came to forgive myself my journaltic aspiration. I am ready. I plan to save the world--and write it, too.