Alexis Reaves

Alexis Reaves, a sophomore at the Blake Upper School, is a 2013 graduate of ThreeSixty’s Intro to Journalism Camp. She contributed her first piece on the digital divide in schools to ThreeSixty’s “Technology Issue.” Alexis is an avid reader and can almost always be found with her nose in a new book. Hometown: Minneapolis Favorite author: Marisha Pessl Favorite Musician(s): Richard Wagner Favorite Movie(s): Kill Bill Favorite places/things to do in the Twin Cities: Walker Art Center If you could interview anyone (living) who would it be? Stephen Fry. He seems like a very interesting person who it would be impossible to have a boring conversation with. What do you like about writing? Writing allows me to take ideas, ones that I know about and otherwise, and helps me interpret and understand them. Intangible things like social interactions and human experiences become easier to process when I can write them down and view them through my lens. What issues are important to you? Issues like the conveying of information by the media and the development of countries fascinate me. I discovered the former when reading an article in Vogue magazine about the rise of Al Jazeera and how American news organizations tend to be plagued with sensationalism, disinformation, bias, political punditry and are influenced by focused groups. The other is interesting since nations that have been left behind in the previous era are rising or stagnating, and the sociopolitical outcomes of such would be intriguing to deconstruct. What is your ideal future career? Ideally, I’d like to be a scholar in the humanities or a physics-related field. If not, I’d hope to work for a think tank or something similar. Whatever career I end up having, I plan to be active in writing. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? I would visit Paris during the 1960s. Between the French New Wave movement, Delon and Bardot’s prime and the student revolution, I feel as though I’d fall in love with the simultaneous chaos and innovation. What are your special talents? Juggling and playing the violin. What do you do when you’re not at school or journalism camp? Reading, writing and watching Doctor Who. I just finished reading two books. The first was about the possibility of multiple universes and the second was a detective novel about the death of a young woman in Austria. As for my writing, I’m working on several short stories and one novel. What else do you think people should know about you? It’s not really a matter of should, but need to.