Where It All Began

To think this all began with a little film review on Social Media. I was still in school at the time and found myself watching “I Love Lucy” and listening to the old radio show “My Favorite Husband” in my spare time. I really do love Lucy, and I wanted to learn more about her, so I began to put my research skills to use and heavily invested in learning everything I could about Lucille Ball. When Aaron Sorkin’s “Being the Ricardos” came out, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, celebrating Lucy and Desi’s legacy excited me, on the other hand I felt very protective of that legacy and didn’t want the world to be mislead. I watched the film, found multiple inaccuracies, and I felt like people needed to know. So I wrote a film review on my social media. The review got numerous responses and people appreciated my insight and wanted more. That led into a film review blog, which has since been deleted from instagram, but still exists on this website.

Towards the end of college, I found myself also attending a lot of performances, and it became a regular part of my lifestyle. My mom recognized my passion for the local arts scene and told me, “Rachel, since you go to so many performances, you should write about those too! People love the arts, and maybe you can help them get excited about them again!” Following her advice, I created another social media blog called “Rachel In The Audience.”

Less than a year into “Rachel In The Audience,” I started to recognize that what I was doing was really special, and I wanted more people to read and engage in the local arts scene. For lack of better words, I felt really “ballsy” one day and decided to email all the local news papers, sending them samples of my pieces and offer to write about the arts for them. Two of them took me up on it, and the rest is history.

In hindsight, I remember my professors telling me that I wrote like a journalist, and that idea really flattered me, but I never imagined myself landing where I am today. This is my magnum opus.