I'm Julia. I am a writer and teacher-scholar-activist based in El Paso, Texas. I'm currently a Ph.D. student in the Rhetoric and Composition program at the University of Texas at El Paso, where I also teach First-Year Composition, and earned my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2020. I'm a lifelong reader and writer - but especially writer - working to support democratic critical thinking and abilities in students, faculty, and institutions far and wide while also hoping to sell my first book in the meantime! I've written just about everything you can think of, from novels (Thirteen of them! Though still unpublished.) and picture books to poetry, obituaries, food labels, fanfiction, grants, news and magazine articles, speeches, screenplays and scripts, songs, billboard and TV ads, social media captions, and Google metadata. I've also been lucky to write as a fellow/participant with the Prague Summer Program for Fiction Writers, Creative Revolution Retreats in Managua, Nicaragua, The Moth, La Semilla Food Center's Food Stories Institute, the Tom Lea Institute, and the Modern Language Association's Institute on Reading and Writing Pedagogy - which is how the Democratic Reading Project came to be!
While crafting fiction is my passion, I'm wholly intrigued by the development of writing, writing genres, and writing ecosystems and their profound impact on both groups and individuals, whether it's a school essay, an Instagram post, bestselling novel, or diary entry. It was this interest that encouraged me to apply for my Ph.D., teach First-Year Composition, and provide writing mentorship to children, teens, and individuals who are incarcerated through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, PEN America, the Society of Young Inklings, and WriteGirl. I'm also fascinated by the unique ways in which literacy develops in adults, children, and societies as a whole, which has landed me writing and research gigs with DOGONews, Youngzine, PBS, and Blossom Children's Media Group. I couldn't imagine myself not working within the realm of writing and literacy - something I hope to do at the policy-level post-graduation (and of course, hopefully by then I'll publish my own creative work as well!).
As a Ph.D. student, I'm still in the weeds about my potential dissertation topic, though I'm hoping to focus on genre theory, ecocomposition, and all things Mikhail Bakhtin in relation to the current academic censorship occurring in Texas and the nation as a whole. I seek to explore the kinds of writings and genres created in response to censorship, from policy and academic institutions to the response from faculty and students. This is what inspired the Democratic Reading Project.
The Democratic Reading Project is a pilot experiment that I will be testing with my first-year writing students over the course of the 2026-2027 schoolyear with the goal of helping them develop a strong reading praxis that promotes both democracy and liberation - something at threat in our current political landscape. Once it is live, you can view this project at kraa.io/democraticreadingproject for my 1301 course and for the second part of FYC, you can view this adapted project here: kraa.io/democraticreadingproject1302.
I aim to use this space to journal about my experiences with this project. To clarify, this will be strictly anecdotal and pedagogically focused reflections. I will not be seeking IRB or researching students - all data will be strictly protected. Instead, I'd like to write about my own teaching experiences and reflect on my adventure promoting the democratic, liberating experience of reading with my students.
Getting Started - June 17, 2026
Today was the last day of the Modern Language Association's Institute on Reading and Writing Pedagogy (Wisconsin), which was offered in a virtual format this year and drew in both established and emerging scholars from across the country to discuss reading praxis and AI literacies at access-oriented institutions. Teaching at UTEP, which is an R1, Hispanic serving, open access institution along the U.S.-Mexico border, has privileged me to some of the ways AI, reading, and writing are being taught at AOIs, but applying to participate in this Institute will surely be one of the best ideas of my teaching career. I had the opportunity to meet with faculty and graduate students in RhetComp and beyond to discuss reading and AI in our teachings, read new things, write new things, and to formulate ideas that will propel the Democratic Reading Project into fruition. Even though it was online, the time flew by each day, and I walked away bursting with knowledge and feeling even more excited to enter my second year of teaching.
After we ended our Teams call today, I immediately got work developing a rough draft of the Democratic Reading Project. To be clear, this was not necessarily a requirement. On June 30, we are reconvening to present proposals for our projects. But I'm just so inspired, and I learned about so many good readings and exercises that I feel confident in developing a very rough draft - in lieu of a proposal - by the 30th. I started writing and literally could not stop after. It felt like I was asleep, my eyes slightly opened, eyes dashing back and forth in some kind of wild dream. This is the exact thing I want to spend my short life on this planet doing.
The focus of this project will be in-class reading-related activities, discussions, writings, and readings. While my students will be expected to read other things - such as our two required texts for the class and other related essays - this will add to these requirements as a way to not only encourage them to read beyond their comfort level but for us to also have conversations about reading in and of itself.
I'm so excited to get started on this project, and I can't wait for the new schoolyear to begin.
Updating for 1302 - August 2026
When creating the Democratic Reading Project, I focused my goal on creating something I could use for the first part of UTEP's FYC program. However, in late July, I found out I would be teaching the second part for the first time! While I'm excited to teach something new, I had to pivot this project a bit. At UTEP, due to limited classrooms available on campus, RWS 1302 is a hybrid course, meaning I only have the opportunity to meet with students once a week, severely limiting how often I can do the DRP with them. While 1301 has one to two reading days for each of its five modules, I limited this number to three total for 1302. I had to be super selective about what we would read and why we would read it as 1302 has a bit less flexibility content-wise than 1301 as well. I stuck with the first reading from 1301, Maryanne Wolf's The Deep Reading Brain and The Good Life. Regardless of the class, I still find it important to talk about the science of the act of reading itself and its profound impact on our brains. The second reading I chose is Bruce Ballanger's The Memory of Clay. Bruce Ballanger was an amazing nonfiction writer and teacher who passed away in July. He emphasized connecting personal writing with research and that our personal touch made us better, more dedicated, and more thoughtful researchers. Because of this, I wanted to a) share some of his work with my students and b) kick off my class with a personal essay assignment, where they write and reflect on important moments of their lives and how that might influence what social issue they select for this class, something that guides every assignment in the course. The last reading I chose is Elay Schech's Plato Warned Us About ChatGPT (And Told Us What to Do About It). I chose this last reading because I wanted to connect our conversations about ChatGPT