2016 Malibu High School graduate’s first article appears in national publication • The Malibu Times

As a little girl growing up in Malibu, Nancy Walecki was often called “the little girl with the big voice.” She earned the nickname due to her impressive singing ability which was often heard at Webster Elementary talent shows and as a standout member of Malibu High School’s award-winning choir which performed at the prestigious Carnegie Hall. in 2014. Now, fresh out of college, Walecki found his voice as a writer with his first national magazine article published in the October issue of Cosmopolitan.

“Cosmo,” as it’s called, is a young women’s empowerment publication with 61 million readers generally known for its advice on sex and dating, but Walecki’s article focuses on a serious topic that affects many Millennials and Gen Z young people. It’s about the Borderline mass shooting and the Woolsey fire, which has compounded cumulative trauma and how it affects “young people coming of age adult now.

The well-researched article took a year to write. It chronicles a group of Pepperdine girls who went to the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks for a college country dance night on Nov. 7, 2018. It was the tragic night a mass shooter left 13 people dead, including her and that of a Pepperdine student. Alaina Housley.

The following night, the Woolsey fire forced the same girls, reeling from the death of their friend and some recovering from injuries sustained while escaping the shooting, to shelter in place with other dorm mates. .

“I wrote this piece especially in light of 2020, when there were so many tragedies one after another,” Walecki said. “For people coming of age right now, I was wondering how it might affect them.”

Walecki and his family missed the Woolsey fire. They were in Connecticut to see her perform in a Yale University musical. Her Malibu home was damaged by smoke, but she was devastated by the tragedy in her hometown.

“Woolsey is always something I think about a lot and how it changed Malibu,” Walecki said. “I think it was difficult for friends my age too, because that was our childhood and parts of it burned down and won’t come back. They (fires) happen all the time too. In growing up, you sort of get used to evacuating.

“That coupled with this really horrific act of mass violence that happened the day before, I guess I saw a bit of how it affected the community in Malibu and Thousand Oaks, but I wanted to know more about this topic.”

Walecki spoke to experts in the field of cumulative collective trauma for the article. This trauma affects those who have experienced several consecutive large-scale tragedies.

“Honestly, what these girls went through was so horrific and beyond horrific,” she said.

The 24-year-old article details how, while mourning the shocking death of Housley, students at Pepperdine were ordered to shelter in place as per university protocol. Pepperdine’s campus was specifically designed for wildfire emergencies.

The article describes a chilling moment when a first responder mistakenly told students to evacuate as the fire headed toward Malibu.

“They thought they were safe and then it was turned upside down.” said Walecki, who spoke with an expert who studies how “getting false or misleading information from a public official can actually make a traumatic event more traumatic for someone. They feel they cannot trust people in positions of authority.

A student told Walecki that she had just put on fluffy socks before going to bed, then was mistakenly ordered to evacuate. Rushing out of the building while struggling to put on shoes, she feared being stepped on while mourning the death of her friend.

“It all came together in that moment for her,” Walecki said.

“It breaks my heart that people feel their safety is so temporary because they see these acts of violence,” said the recent Yale graduate, who is an editor and associate editor at Harvard Magazine. “When we think of gun violence, we often talk about statistics. One in four people killed in mass shootings are children and teenagers. We don’t necessarily think about individual stories.

Walecki has written on a wide variety of topics, including a profile of musician Esperanza Spalding, the upward mobility gap in the United States, and slime mold.

The Malibu native is currently writing a book about her family’s famous music store, Westwood Music.

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