David Thaddeus Baker is an award-winning writer and journalist based in New Orleans, LA. Baker is a native of the city, where he works as an associate editor for The Louisiana Weekly newspaper, the oldest existing African-American newspaper in the Southeast Louisiana region.
Baker began working with The Louisiana Weekly in August 2004. In his time as a journalist, his byline has appeared locally in Uptown Buyer’s Guide, Stay Local! A Guide to Commerce and Culture, NPN’s The Trumpet, Louisiana Life, and nationally for Southern Living magazine’s The Daily South.
Since returning to New Orleans post-Katrina, he has worked in community development and organizing, economic development, and communications management within the Greater New Orleans region.
Beyond his professional work, he is committed to the cultural, economic and social wellbeing of New Orleans. As part of his service to the community, Baker currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for MarketUmbrella (operators of the Crescent City Farmers Market), Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Press Club of New Orleans, Vice President of the Board of Directors for Junebug Productions, and Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans. In the past, Baker has served as a member of the Board of Directors for Young Leadership Council (YLC), Neighborhoods Partnership Network (NPN), Awesome Foundation (New Orleans), and has chaired Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s Magnolia Ball. In 2019, Baker chaired Young Aspirations Young Artists’ (YaYa) Fall fundraiser “Just Say YaYa.”
Baker earned a Bachelor of Arts in Literature from Dillard University in 2004, and studied Public Relations at Tulane University’s School of Continuing Studies. Baker began his relationship with writing in his early years of high school with short stories and fiction and continued through college.
While at Dillard, he expanded his literary portfolio to include poetry, creative non-fiction and essays, script and playwriting, for which he received the Pearl Cleage Award for Creative Writing in 2004. Baker is a 2017 Gerontological Society of America (GSA) Journalists in Aging Fellow and a 2018 Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovators Fellow.
Baker resides in the Gentilly area of New Orleans. He can be reached at [email protected].