The Field Foundation of Illinois is once again supporting Rebellious Magazine’s groundbreaking sexual health and reproductive justice work with a yearlong grant.
Special Projects Editor Princess McDowell returns to her role editing and coordinating coverage, leading a team that includes Sexual Health and Reproductive Justice Reporter/Producer Annabel Rocha and Sexual Health and Reproductive Justice Audio Producer Grace Del Vecchio.
The Field Foundation first supported our reproductive justice coverage in 2021-2022, produced by Reporting Fellow Samantha Stroozas, Sexuality Editor Jera Brown, McDowell and a diverse collection of freelance writers.
Special Projects Editor Princess McDowell
Princess McDowell (she/they) is a multi-faceted writer and editor from Dallas, Texas. Their career spans over 20 years in journalism, performance poetry and copywriting to both tell their unique story as a Black queer storyteller and craft stories for global and local organizations.
She is a two-time Pink Door literary fellow, and as a teaching artist has run workshops and collaborated with youth literary groups across the country, producing a book of COVID-related writings with high school students in 2020.
Princess has been a part of Rebellious Magazine since its relaunch in 2016, delivering biting columns and graphic novel reviews in addition to co-hosting the Feminist Erotica podcast. As Special Projects Editor, Princess works behind the scenes to curate diverse voices for Rebellious’ news coverage.
Sexual Health and Reproductive Justice Reporter/Producer Annabel Rocha
Annabel Rocha is the current Editor of Latino News Network – Midwest, leading Illinois Latino News and Wisconsin Latino News in statewide reporting focused on the Hispanic-Latino communities. She is a previous Civic Reporting Fellow for City Bureau and 2022 National Fellow for the USC Center for Health Journalism. Her project focused on period poverty, engaging with the community to conduct surveys about people’s experiences with menstruation and menstrual poverty. Rocha is a Chicago native with goals to continue amplifying marginalized voices through local reporting.
Reproductive Justice Audio Producer Grace Del Vecchio
Grace Del Vecchio (she/they) is an award-winning journalist from Philadelphia, based in Chicago. With a background in organizing and grassroots campaigns, they are currently a freelance reporter, producer and fact-checker known for creating stories that center community voices, focusing on LGBTQ+ rights, mental health, housing, policing and movements.
Along with producing audio stories at Rebellious, she is a research intern at Impact Architects and a fact-checker for South Side Weekly. She is a former producer on the third season of Change Agents The Podcast and a civic reporting fellow at City Bureau. She is also the former editor-in-chief of DePaul University’s student-led online publication, 14 East Magazine — which was named one of the country’s top online collegiate news sites by the Associated College Press Pacemaker competition.
In 2022, they graduated from DePaul University with Bachelor’s degrees in journalism and geography (with a concentration in urban planning and development) with a minor in Spanish.