Vanessa has lived in San Francisco for the past four years.  Her passion is writing and media. After working for a couple of years as a freelancer, she is now a graduate student in journalism with an emphasis on new media.

Moving to SF after college, she quickly became a fixture in the local music scene (even though she isn’t a musician herself), helping found a record label (Dinner Party Records) and co-hosting a show on the local pirate radio station.

Now that she’s a student again, she mostly goes out on weekends and describes her social group as “a hodgepodge of different creative types.”  She says she can’t walk down the street in the Mission without running into someone she knows — which has turned out to be extremely helpful for reporting. Vanessa describes her social role as “the organizer.”   She has a knack for starting clubs and informal organizations:  she has created a Sunday Morning Newspaper Reading Club, several dance nights held at local bars, and a club for freelancers and others pursuing non-traditional careers.

She is also very into yoga and bike-riding and is (mostly) vegan.  She has been involved in the art scene, too, handling the press for a small local gallery and teaching silkscreening to activists and youth. She’s now learning digital video and photography.