Together with NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, The Curve Foundation is excited to share the recipients of the second annual Curve Award for Emerging Journalists. The recipients of the 2022 Curve Award for Emerging Journalists are Leo Aquino, Priya Arora, Megan Mitchell, Holly Regan and Abbey White. The award provides financial support to emerging journalists whose work fosters fair and accurate coverage and elevates the voices of LGBTQ women.
The Curve Award for Emerging Journalists includes a $5,000 cash award and access to unique professional development opportunities. The awardees will form a cohort and work with mentors to build skills and foster an active support network. The Curve Award for Emerging Journalists will be presented annually and nominations for the 2023 award will become available next Spring.
Meet The 2022 Recipients
Leo Aquino (they/them) is a non-binary Filipinx journalist and poet living on Tongva Land (aka Los Angeles). They are the founder of Queer & Trans Wealth, a resource hub for anti-capitalist personal finance. They are committed to uplifting stories of BIPOC, queer, and trans people through storytelling. Follow them on Instagram @queerandtranswealth.
Priya Arora has been an editor at The New York Times since 2018, where they currently serve as a co-chair of Times Out, NYT’s employee resource group for LGBTQ+ employees. Priya is a former South Asian Journalists Association board member and has covered South Asian pop culture for more than ten years, with bylines at The Times, HuffPost, India.com, Brown Girl Magazine and The Aerogram. Their newsletter, “Priya’s Kitty Party,” regularly reviews South Asian streaming content. With a passion for telling stories and uplifting underrepresented communities, they also currently host “Queering Desi,” an interview-based podcast featuring South Asian LGBTQ+ people.
Megan Mitchell is an Emmy-Award winning anchor and reporter in Cincinnati, OH. Since 2016, she has anchored the #1 weekend morning news show. In 2022, Megan was selected to field-anchor the morning show from Los Angeles for 9 days during the Bengals’ historic Super Bowl run. Megan is an LGBTQ+ influencer with 1.8 million followers and diversity speaker, sharing her story of living an authentic life. She was named Best TV Anchor and Best Journalist by the Best of Cincinnati Awards and received 3rd Place for Cincinnatian of the year. Megan received a Power of Her award for LGBTQ+ Advocacy by the Human Rights Campaign of Cincinnati.
In her first job out of college, Megan was the morning anchor in Bismarck, North Dakota. She was the first reporter to break the story of the Standing Rock Reservation’s opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, which caused international uproar. In 2017, Megan’s work received first place out of every local news station in the country by the National Association of LGBTQ Journalists (NLGJA) for her documentary covering Two Spirit Native Americans. She received the award for Best TV News Reporter in the state from the North Dakota Broadcast Association and a dozen other local broadcast awards.
She grew up in Brookfield, CT and graduated from Emerson College in 2014 with a B.S. in Broadcast Journalism.
Holly Regan (they/them) is a queer and nonbinary writer, editor, artist, and journalist whose work explores the human experience at the intersection of underrepresented identities and altered states of consciousness. They are a native of Seattle, Washington, but live and work as a digital nomad, roaming the Earth in search of inspiration, connection, and community. Their work encompasses all that defies the binary, with a particular focus on plant medicine and psychedelics, queer theory and spirituality, food, and craft beer. They are a spiritual seeker who finds enlightenment in queer spaces and shared sacraments, from plants to pints; as an anthropology major and artist, they are endlessly fascinated by people and the multiple mediums in which they express themselves. They are also an avid reader, runner, cyclist, cook, and podcast listener, and can be reached at holly-regan.com, Twitter @HollyLRegan, and Instagram @hollyreganwrites.
Abbey White is a Brooklyn-based editor, reporter, web producer and fact-checker currently serving as an associate editor for The Hollywood Reporter. Their work is largely focused in the culture and entertainment beats, with an emphasis on stories that intersect with LGBTQIA+, race and disability-related topics. They have written news, features, reviews, opinion essays, interviews, lists and more, which have appeared in Billboard, Food & Wine, Entertainment Weekly, People, Business Insider, Vox, The Nation, Gothamist, USA TODAY Network, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Paste Magazine, 5280 Magazine, The Mary Sue, Syfy Wire and more. They earned their M.A. in Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and earned their B.A. in Liberal Studies with a certificate in journalism from Cleveland State University.
We are honored to share these five emerging journalists with you, and hope that their stories will help you stay connected to lesbian and queer journalists all year-round.
In the coming days and weeks, stay close as we profile each winner and share some of their personal stories with you!
