Blanca Torres has charted a dynamic course from her days at VSC to her current role at KQED, a public media organization in San Francisco. Blanca, who majored in English in the College of Arts & Science, worked at The Vanderbilt Hustler as a reporter, opinion editor, and news editor.
“Working on The Hustler helped me feel integrated in the Vanderbilt community through the journalism I produced and the relationships I created with my fellow hustlers. I loved learning about the campus and shaping discourse through all the pieces I wrote and edited. I gained experience in opinion writing that later came in handy when I became an editorial writer for The Seattle Times.”
Blanca now produces for Forum, a live, daily call-in talk show, and reports for the KQED newsroom. She’s also the founder and editor of K Onda KQED (https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda), a newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latino community.
After 16 years of writing for newspapers, including a stint as an editorial writer for The Seattle Times, Blanca made a shift to radio.
“I wasn’t expected to make a big shift like that in my career, but it’s been an amazing opportunity to grow as a journalist and learn new ways of telling stories,” she said.
What does Blanca do when she’s not working?
“Write fiction and memoir stories. I went to grad school for creative writing thanks to encouragement from one of my professors at Vanderbilt, Lorraine Lopez. I am working on a memoir about my mom’s life growing up in Mexico.”
