PR: TeenTix Press Corps Announces 2019/2020 Teen Editorial Staff

For Immediate Release

September 12, 2019

Media Contact

Mariko Nagashima

Press Corps Program Manager, TeenTix

mariko@teentix.org | 206.233.3959

TeenTix Press Corps Announces 2019/2020 Teen Editorial Staff

(Seattle, WA)—TeenTix is proud to announce the 2019/2020 Teen Editorial Staff. This year's Teen Editorial Staff (TEDS) is comprised of six teens: Anya Shukla, Joshua Fernandes, Kendall Kieras, Lily Williamson, Olivia Sun, and Tova Gaster. The TEDS are the leaders of the TeenTix Newsroom, and work to curate reviews and arts coverage for the TeenTix blog. Teen Editorial Staff members decide which TeenTix Arts Partners' events to cover each month, write an editorial about their curatorial choices, and assign teen writers from the Newsroom to review each event. TEDS members interface with TeenTix Arts Partners to set up press tickets for each review, and edit all Newsroom writing before it is published on the TeenTix blog. The Teen Editorial Staff is a group of skilled writers, editors, and leaders, who keep the pulse of the TeenTix Press Corps and the Seattle arts scene.

Statement from the Teen Editorial Staff:

“The goal of the Teen Editorial Staff is to promote our local Arts Partners while amplifying the perspectives of the next generation of arts patrons. The TeenTix Newsroom fosters arts journalism by teens, for teens. We are dedicated to elevating youth voices and encouraging young people to think critically about the arts and media they consume.”

In the first year of the TeenTix Newsroom (2018/2019), the Teen Editorial Staff published over 60 reviews of events at our Arts and Community Partners. Now in its second year, the TEDS look forward to providing even more opportunities for teen writers and sharing their perspectives on art in our community. TeenTix is excited to support these talented young people as they shape the TeenTix blog and create arts criticism that is relevant to their peers.

TeenTix pays teen editors a $50 monthly stipend, and teen writers $20 per review, in an effort to empower young writers and demonstrate that writing is a viable career path. TeenTix is proud to support young journalists and help nourish Seattle’s creative economy.

TeenTix’s mission is to build a bright future for our city by empowering young people to take an active role in shaping their arts community as audience members, critics, influencers, advocates, patrons, and leaders. The Teen Editorial Staff strengthens TeenTix’s mission and reach and represents a concerted effort to solidify the future of arts and arts journalism in Seattle.

ABOUT THE TEEN EDITORS

Anya Shukla

Anya is an 11th grader at Lakeside School, where she sings acapella and writes on the newspaper. She joined TEDS to support teens interested in arts criticism and find others who love writing just as much as she does. She’s also part of the TeenTix New Guard and is the co-founder of the Colorization Collective, a group that aims to highlight the accomplishments of teens artists of color.

Joshua Fernandes

Joshua was just an ordinary junior at Ballard High School. Like most people, the greatest art event he ever attended was seeing the best movie of all time, Spider-Man 2, when he was 2 years old. He attends Ballard High School, where he plays the stand up bass in his school’s orchestra and fiddle program, and makes movies in his school’s film program. However, one fateful day he got bitten by a bug that changed his life. The journalism bug. Since then, Joshua’s participated in KUOW’s RadioActive radio internship program, where he culminated a love of the auditory arts by making podcasts. Joshua still does all the things he used to do, but now he’s got to find a way to satisfy his hunger for stories. Josh took his experience in a more critical direction as a member of the Teen Editorial Staff, where he explored arts criticism. And after participating in AAJA's 2019 JCamp program, where he practiced photojournalism, he's even more committed to standing for truth and justice by amplifying the voices of artists of color through the visual and written medium.

Kendall Kieras

Kendall first discovered TeenTix when an article about TeenTix came out in their older sister's school newspaper. Longing to be like the cool kids, Kendall immediately ordered a Pass as soon as they turned thirteen. Since then, Kendall has been using their Pass to reap the glorious benefits of the Seattle arts scene through various improv shows and once, The Lightning Thief at The 5th Ave, which they are sure was the best night of their teenage life. In January of 2019, they joined the TeenTix Press Corps, where they were able to utilize their skills of being overly critical for free show tickets. In their free time, they enjoy wrangling children through their school's GSA and theater sports teams, playing stringed instruments, fighting the climate crisis, writing poems about uprising and 7/11, and having lots of opinions on the most recent season of The Bachelor. Kendall is entering senior year at Holy Names Academy, but will always be a middle schooler at heart.

Lily Williamson

Lily is a freshman at the University of Washington. This will be her second year as a member of TeenTix's Teen Editorial Staff, as well as on TeenTix's arts leadership board, the New Guard. Lily uses her TeenTix pass to see a wide variety of art, but is especially partial to visual art and art that highlights intersectionality. Outside of her work with TeenTix, Lily is an avid reader and musician.

Olivia Sun

Olivia is a senior at Interlake High School, where she is an ASB officer and captain of the varsity tennis team. She views the arts as a creative medium for learning about marginalized perspectives and provoking cultural conversations. She initially joined the TeenTix family as a student of the Fall 2018 Press Corps Intensive. In the winter, she joined the Newsroom as a writer, and now she is one of the six teen editors for the TeenTix blog. Through arts journalism, Olivia hopes to foster greater youth involvement in the local Seattle arts scene.

Tova Gaster

Tova is a senior at Garfield High School. TeenTix inspires her to grow as both a consumer of art and as an artist, and she loves the community and opportunity TeenTix creates! In addition to serving on the New Guard Leadership Board and the Teen Editorial Staff, she is also a staff writer for her school newspaper. Outside of TeenTix, she can be found at all-ages shows, at the library, or embroidering. She’s in book clubs, she’s your grand

About The Press Corps

The Press Corps promotes critical thinking, communication, and information literacy through criticism and journalism practice for teens. Since 2006, some of the city’s most talented professional arts critics from The Seattle Times, The Stranger, Crosscut, (and more!) have taught over 700 teens through workshops and intensives focused on arts criticism training, resulting in over 500 reviews of arts and culture events that live on the TeenTix Blog. When the Press Corps re-launched in 2018 after a short hiatus, the updated program was designed to include racial equity and social justice priorities. The Press Corps has an explicit goal of disrupting systems of oppression within arts media that have kept marginalized voices out of arts journalism. Since our re-launch in Spring 2018, the Press Corps has:

• trained 186 teens in the craft of arts criticism
• published over 60 reviews through the TeenTix Newsroom of events at our Arts and Community Partners
• published over 35 reviews through Press Corps workshops and Intensives
• established a Newsroom of 27 youth writers, led by a dedicated Teen Editorial Staff of 5
• worked with 12 professional arts journalists to teach and mentor teens
• held 4 arts journalism Intensive Workshops
• taught 3 multi-week workshops at public high schools

The updated Press Corps' program strategies center around accessibility - including tailoring class location and time of day, ensuring all Press Corps workshops are free to participants, and working closely with schools and TeenTix Arts Partners and Community Partners.

About The Press Corps Program Manager

Mariko Nagashima, the Press Corps Program Manager, joined the TeenTix team in February 2018. As the Press Corps Program Manager, Mariko oversees the Teen Editorial Staff and the TeenTix Newsroom, as well as coordinates all Press Corps Intensives and Arts Criticism 101 workshops. Mariko is also a dancer, teacher, writer, and general enthusiast of all things dance related. She moved to Seattle in 2010, after earning a BFA in Ballet from the University of Utah, and quickly immersed herself in the Seattle dance world. Mariko was the Editor of SeattleDances, a website focusing on critical dance coverage, from 2010 to 2016. She has performed with numerous local companies including Coriolis Dance and AJnC Dance-Theater, and teaches ballet to children, teens, and adults at All That Dance and DanceFremont.

About TeenTix

TeenTix exists to break down the barriers that prevent teens from accessing art in our community, such as ticket or admission cost, not knowing where to look for events, navigating transportation around the city, and feeling insecure around arts- going if there's no one in their lives already championing the arts. Our core programs, which have been developed in direct response to the barriers preventing teens from participating in the arts, include the The TeenTix Pass Program, The New Guard Teen Arts Leadership Society, and The TeenTix Press Corps.

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