Check Out Isabel Thottam’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Isabel Thottam.

Hi Isabel, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I often think about my career story from an experience I had at the end of college. I went to Emerson College in Boston where I studied Visual Media Arts, specializing in Screenwriting. I’ve always been one to have a bunch of side jobs or ideas I’m pursuing on the side, so I spent my last two years of college adding a business minor in Entrepreneurial Studies and was part of an accelerator program. Right before graduation though, I had the opportunity to pitch to MTV. They were seeking reality show concepts and I pitched a show to two of their network executives. I wish I could remember the woman’s name, but I remember that after my pitch (they said no to the idea) she pulled me aside and asked me what my plans were after college. I was feeling so lost at the time and told her I’d probably move to LA and try to get a job and write and try to make it, or that I might take some time off to go travel, but that I didn’t really know what to do. I remember her looking at me and telling me, “If you’re not ready to do that, it’s okay not to move to LA right away. You can always go live life, experience the world, and when you’re ready, then you move to LA; then you write. And you’ll have so much more to write about because you’ll have lived so many more experiences.”

I really took what she said to heart. I decided to go travel post-grad and spent three months backpacking around Europe with friends. I then moved to New York City to work for a start up and try that lifestyle. That job moved me down to Nashville where I spent a year in a city I never imagined I would have lived. On a whim, I decided to move to Seattle, WA and that’s where I fell in love with the world of farmers’ markets and knowing where my produce comes from. I started working for a farmer and managed his warehouse operations for five years, before following yet another dream in life and moving to Hawaii. In Hawaii, I spent time volunteering on farms, working with local farmers on the island, and even opened a small cafe that I managed for a year. And then, one day, I suddenly felt this overwhelming desire to write again. And I couldn’t stop. I remember sitting at my kitchen table one day and writing 60 pages of a screenplay in the morning. I wrote a TV pilot about my experience starting a cafe and started writing a book about my post-grad travels. I was hit with this overwhelming feeling that I finally knew how and what I wanted to write about.

At the end of the year, my landlord for the cafe wanted me to sign a 5 year lease. I was suddenly faced with this crossroads: do I stay in Hawaii and live out this dream of owning a cafe and commit to five more years? Or, do I close it, take on a bunch of debt, but get myself finally to LA and chase that first dream.

I chose LA. In 2022, I moved to Los Angeles. But you know, I quickly realized that California is the best of both words for me because it allows me to both pursue my creativity as a screenwriter, and work in agriculture. Plus, I have a part-time job at a farm-to-table restaurant in Santa Monica, so, I also still work in the restaurant world which keeps me connected to all the things I genuinely love to do. Maybe that all sounds crazy, but, that’s what I love about this city because everyone is a tiny bit crazy in their own, beautifully creative way. And here, we can do all the different things we love and want to do in life and it’s totally normal. It’s never odd to anyone to hear you’re a writer, but you also have a full-time job and a side job. That’s the hustle, that’s Los Angeles. But we put in the work here because we’re all dreamers and there’s something really cool about living among that energy.

As for where I am today, I currently work as the Director of Food Distribution for a non-profit organization called Food Access Los Angeles. We operate 9 farmers markets throughout LA (with the biggest ones being the Hollywood Farmers Market & the Atwater Village Farmers Market) and have a mission of creating a sustainable food system while providing access to California-grown produce to all Angelenos. I over see all our bulk food distributions, community distributions, and our Farmers Market Box delivery program which was recently approved by the USDA to accept EBT online. I like to think of myself as the good middle woman because I work directly with small California farmers to help them increase their revenue at our farmers markets, but I also work with a variety of community partners throughout LA to ensure that all people have fair and equitable access to organic, fresh produce.

The other cool thing about LA is that you never know who you’re going to meet or when opportunities will present themselves. I actually got my first opportunity to work in the film industry through a co-worker at my non-profit job. He is also a screenwriter so when he found out that I was too, he asked if he could read something I wrote. I remember feeling awkward because at that time, I only had one script ready: a parody romcom about Zac Efron’s life. I thought to myself, “OMG am I really going to send this guy my romcom script about Zac Efron?” but it was all I had so I figured, why not? It showcased my voice as a writer, right? Anyway, I sent it to him and he thought it was hilarious, so he sent it to a friend of his that worked at Lionsgate, who also loved it. That Executive then asked to meet with me and I eventually wrote two scripts on spec for him. I then started networking more and have met other Executives and Producers I’m able to pitch and workshop ideas with. I’m really hopeful I’ll make my first script sale soon!

In the meantime, I also am the co-host of a podcast called When Isabel Met Aviva with my screenwriter friend, Aviva Peltin. It’s a female driven podcast where we discuss the rom-com and interview women working in the industry!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Oh, there have been so many ups and downs! First off, I’m the daughter of an immigrant and my siblings mostly all work in the medical/science fields, so, I always felt like an outlier in my family. I definitely grew up with a lot of pressure to be successful and my parents always seemed to have a different definition of what success looks like compared to my own. So, a huge struggle throughout my life was overcoming the stress of carrying the weight of other people’s expectations and desires for my life, and growing into my own person capable of defining that for myself. I also struggled with a lot of identity issues throughout my life as some who looks racially ambiguous (I’m half Indian) and only recently came out to my friends and family as queer. I guess I should say the struggle has been to just live as my authentic self in a world that constantly wants us to define ourselves and check off certain boxes. I’m sure many creatives can also relate to the financial stress of trying to chase your dreams. I’ve moved around and I’ve done a lot of different things in my life but I choose to live that way because I didn’t want to stay in one place, doing one thing for too long. That’s led to a lot of financial instability for me in the sense that I had never stayed at one job for too long and then when I threw all my savings into running a cafe, I learned a very hard, but valuable lesson about financial planning. Being in debt from that experience has been tough, but at the time, I knew it was the right decision for me. I didn’t mention this before, but when I had my cafe, the stress of running the business manifested in the worst physical pain of my life. I had a pinched nerve in my right shoulder that left me with the inability to fully use my right hand, an intense and constant tingling pain in my whole arm, and I could barely bend two of my fingers. I was in the worst physical shape and pain I’d ever experienced, so that also contributed to why I decided to close my cafe.

All of those struggles created a lot of mental stress, anxiety, and depression that I’ve carried and fought against throughout my life. But, now as I look back on it, i’m able to see how moving through all those challenges and struggles are what shaped me into who I am today. And today, I feel stable, happy, secure and in the best version of myself and my life. I’m a lot more secure as a person because every struggle I’ve faced and lived through has taught me a lesson that helped me refine who I am and what my purpose here is.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Besides pursuing screenwriting, I moved to California because I wanted to work in the agriculture industry. I had previously worked with farmers in Washington State and Hawaii, so I knew there was a lot to learn about food systems and agriculture infrastructure here, especially in Los Angeles. For the last 4 years, I’ve been working at Food Access Los Angeles, a non-profit organization that operates the largest network of farmers markets in Southern California. If you’re local, you might have shopped at one of our markets: Hollywood Farmers Market, Atwater Village Farmers Market, Crenshaw Farmers Market, Echo Park Farmers Market, and the LA River Farmers Market, to name a few. We have 9 markets in total and I am the Director of our Eat! Food Distribution program. I love what I do because my previous experience was working directly for a farmer
in a wholesale purchasing/operations management position. In my current position, I work for an organization that has a lot of grant funding which has allowed me to disperse funds directly to small farmers and help increase access to fresh, local food in our vulnerable communities in LA. I like to think of my position as being a “good middle woman” because I am often moving local produce from a farmer into lower-income or disadvantaged communities that do not have access to higher quality produce. I also oversee our farmers market delivery box program which helps give everyone the opportunity to get fresh produce from farmers. I think it’s really important to know where our food comes from and in a city like LA, it can be extremely difficult in some communities to access organic, local produce. Part of what I do is make sure there is always fair and equitable access to local produce and that all people have the autonomy to choose how to spend their money on food. Our farmers market box program was recently authorized to accept EBT online by the USDA, which means people on food stamps can now get produce from the markets delivered to them!

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
When I was a kid I used to write plays and skits with my friends and siblings. I had a show called, “The Funny Show” which was basically just me ripping off the skits from The Amanda Show and All That. I loved acting and writing comedy skits when I was younger and I would basically spend my weekends writing and performing plays with my family and friends.

Pricing:

• We could include a link to our farmers market box which starts at $50!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://isabelthottam.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adventuringisabel/
• Other: https://foodaccessla.org/eat-ordering

Image Credits
Christian Gilbert (Feature headshot, market headshot, photo with van and produce box, photo with blue wall)