TRADITIONAL PROGRAM
Alaina Bixon
Ms. Bixon is a freelance writer who teaches in the Writers in the Schools Program at Palm Desert High School. Ms. Bixon is a volunteer for the Palm Springs Art Museum and a member of the Palm Springs Modern Committee and the Palm Springs Writers Guild. She is a graduate of MIT and Johns Hopkins University and attended the Institute of Political Studies and the Sorbonne in Paris. She obtained her CA community college teaching credential at CSUSB – Palm Desert. Alaina has written and edited marketing, educational, and fundraising materials for many businesses and organizations.
Brian Bywater
in English-Creative Writing. He spends his summers at the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa. Brian’s work of poetry, Wading Light’s Torn Waters, is published by the Laguna Poets’ The Inevitable Press, 2001. He is published in The Pacific Review, The Midwest Poetry Review, Pearl, Spillway, Liquid Ohio, Nerve Cowboy, Blind Man’s Rainbow, and many other magazines. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His play, Frank Augustus Miller: The View From Mt. Rubidoix, 1903, published by the Inlandia Institute 2008, was produced by the Riverside Mayor’s office and will appear on Cable Television in Fall of 2008.
Diana Changala
Ms. Changala received her BA in English and Creative Writing from California State University, San Bernardino and works as a substitute teacher. Her interests are fiction, creative non-fiction and screenwriting. She hopes to one day create a “Life 101” required reader for high school students. The driving forces behind the idea of a Life 101 book come from 4 years of teaching computer repair with ROP (Regional Occupational Program) for RCOE. Diana was a pioneer electronic technician in the aerospace industry for 25 years before going back to school to complete her Bachelor and Master’s Degrees.
Yennie Cheung
Ms. Cheung has written and edited for music industry and entertainment magazines such as HITS. After discovering that rock stars aren't cool, she spent four years teaching teenagers how to use a gerund and gained a reputation for "murdering" her students' essays (but the kids liked her anyway). Currently, Ms. Cheung is the editor and co-founder of hipsterbookclub.com, a book review website, but please don't hold that against her.
Lori Davis
Ms. Davis received a BA in Radio/TV/Film from California State University, Long Beach. She currently teaches sophomore English at Xavier College Preparatory High School. She is the founder/host of the Gneiss Poetry Series, a member of California Poets in the School and the training instructor for UCR-PD's Writers in the Schools (WITS) program. Her poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Salt Hill, Hayden's Ferry Review and Cimarron Review. KedDavis@aol.com
Trudy Duncan
Steven Fuchs
Co-founded in 1994 one of the oldest legal websites, Divorcenet.com. Bio can be found at http://www.divorcenet.com/about/corporate/index_html#slf plus I've written two screenplays, blog at http://stevefuchs.blogspot.com and have also written numerous law-related articles.
Annie Gebler
Annie Gebler writes fiction and teaches Bikram yoga. She received her BA in English with a concentration in Creative writing from UCLA in 2003, and since then has been a vet tech, nanny, bookkeeper, and petsitter. Nothing felt quite right until she decided to return to writing, and now she and her tortoise Natasha are very excited about living in Palm Desert, as they have always been a little too cold up in San Francisco.
Maxine Gee
Maxine Gee is the first International Student at the Palm Desert program. She has a BA Joint Honours in English Literature and History from Durham University, England. Coming fresh from there to this course makes her feel very young compared to the other students, a bit disorientated because of the heat, but she will battle on. Her main field is fiction where she has written one novel and is currently working on a series of two novels as she finds it difficult to compress her ideas into smaller forms. However, she would like to attempt to write in other forms. In May 2008 she organized and ran a successful creative writing event at Warwick University. Her second love is Japanese and Chinese culture. She would also like to write scenarios for computer games.
Heidi Gibbons
Ms. Gibbons received a BA in English from Belmont University. She entered the MFA Program to hone her skills as a writer of fiction, take advantage of the cross genre aspect of the program and immerse herself in the world of academia; growing as a writer while acquiring new skills as an educator. Her ultimate goal is to be a serious author and an inspiring professor.
Jose Guijarro
José María Guijarro left a nascent career in print journalism for a career in teaching; however, when he learned he needed more schooling to become a teacher, he decided to apply to an MFA program instead. He figured since he wasn’t happy reporting actual events he should give writing fake events a shot. He grew up between Calexico, CA, and Mexicali, B.C., and contributes to society (and earns money) as a substitute teacher.
Danielle Harris
Danielle Harris originally hails from the Bakersfield area, but moved to Riverside County to finish her BA in Creative Writing at UCR. Graduating in 2009, she is excited to continue to pursue her interests in fiction and screenwriting while concentrating on non-fiction. Danielle hopes to someday give up substitute teaching for teaching at the college level.
Travis Hedge Coke
Mr. Hedgecoke has written extensively for independent film productions and is published as a poet, non-fiction and prose fiction writer. He earned his BS in Creative Writing from Northern Michigan University and has studied at California Institute for the Arts and the Institute of American Indian Arts. By entering this program he hopes to negotiate for the time needed to write, to concentrate and to consider writing. Travis currently teaches in the WITS Program. An except from his unpublished novel, Juliana, including “Transient Step” can be found in the Birthmarks Anthology released by the Institute of American Indian Arts. An excerpt from ‘The Subtonic Calendar’ was featured on The Lumberyard in January 2008.
Heather Hubbard
Ms. Hubbard graduated from California State San Bernardino in 2005 with her B.A. in English and a concentration in Creative Writing. She was an entertainment journalist for the Coyote Chronicles, Skinnie magazine, Billboard Live, and Dead on the Web. Ms. Hubbard has published two short stories, "Pink's" and "Sundowning" in The Pacific Review. Heather is a community mentor at La Quinta High through the Writers in the Schools program. She is currently working on a collection of short stories about people who live in the Lake Arrowhead mountains. Heather hopes to have more publications in the future, and to inspire and motivate her students as much as her mentors have inspired and motivated her.
Patti Hudson
Ms. Hudson has made it. She has retired after working thirty years for a large telecommunication company; the first 18 years as a construction splicer and the last 12 as a technical guru specializing in reconfigurable optical add/drop dense wave division multiplexers and optical pair gain devices. Ambitiously, she has now set her sites on novel writing but without leaving behind her technical knowledge and interest with which she plans to enrich her stories. Her current project is a futuristic tale of a hopeful set of scientists out to remake and improve on the human experience. While working full time she received a BA from California State University, Northridge in Political Science.
Jay Lewenstein
Mr. Lewenstein holds a BA in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an MA in English from California State University, San Francisco. He has taught k-12 students and is currently Adjunct Professor of English at College of the Desert and Imperial Valley College. He lives in Mexico and works on the U.S. side. Jay also works part-time as a researcher at a tree farm in Niland, studying fertilization and irrigation. Much of his interest in plants and horticulture comes from his early readings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and others. He aspires to bring his organic understanding of the writing process to the classroom. Jay’s publications include: The Sun Runner, The Rambler, Spring 2009; The Storyteller, The Chariton Review, Spring 2009, Vol 32, No. 1 and Norton’s Best of 2009 Creative Non Fiction, August 2009 Edition.
Melissa Madson
Mrs. Madson is a first year in the MFA program where her primary focus is fiction. A native of northern California, she moved south to get her B.A. in creative writing at UCR. She would love to teach at the college level but in the mean time she substitute teaches. She has exactly one published story, but it is, alas, non-fiction. She hopes to write a novel, live as far away from the desert as possible, and convince local high schools to let a substitute have purple hair.
Megan Mowry
Ms. Mowry began her first quarter in September 2008, migrating from Wisconsin to the desert only a year after completing her undergrad. She completed her B.A. in English at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and worked as a public relations writer for a year before deciding to attend grad school. Her concentration is fiction, and she hopes to move on from short stories to novels during her time here. She is also enjoying exploring the other genres offered at the graduate center.
Scott Pappas
As an undergraduate, Scott studied Ancient Greek and Roman history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, receiving a B.A. in Classics. Although passionate about his major, Classics offered few job prospects after graduation, and Scott took a job with a local software company as a field technician spending the next 5 years traveling throughout the world installing Point-of-Sale computer systems. Scott’s skill set eventually led him into Information Technology (IT) Project Management within various industries including Healthcare and Tribal Gaming. However, after 10 years in IT, Scott succumbed to the Muse’s call by enrolling in the MFA Program to write fiction; primarily within the Fantasy genre. His writing goals include an epic fantasy series set within a world of his own creation, as well as having one of his stories made into a movie. In addition to writing, Scott would like to receive his PhD in Classics and teach on a University level.
Maricela Ponce
My name is Maricela Ponce. I was born and raised in East L.A. I’ve always loved to write. I think I wrote a song when I was about six or seven and recorded it on my very first tape player, an itty bitty red thing about the size of a pencil box that I received for my birthday along with a soundtrack for La Bamba. I began my undergraduate studies at UC Riverside as an English major but was always frustrated analyzing other people’s work. That’s when I decided to switch it to Creative Writing and develop my own stories. In a typical fourth-year panic fueled by my childhood desire to teach, I applied to the Teaching Credential program. I received my Bilingual Multiple Subjects Credential in 2005 and have been teaching English learners in first and second grade in the San Bernardino City Unified School District since. I feel proud to be able to guide students that shadow my culture and motivate them so that they too can attain a higher education if they work hard. But now it’s time for great writers to guide me. I focus on nonfictional pieces and admire the work of David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, Jeannette Walls, and recently Sloane Crosley. My goal is to publish nonfictional shorts and possibly, inspired by my career, children’s books.
Cherie Smith
George Stanley
I was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey. After graduating high school I left for college wanting to be a doctor. After about three years in Pre-Med study I realized that I didn’t like to be around the sick and suffering. It depressed me.
One day I started writing poetry and short stories. I found that it was something I enjoyed. I also knew that I loved movies so I decided to write a screenplay, loosely based on the neighborhood in which I grew up and the friends who I grew up with. I started writing this screenplay on unlined typing paper with a pencil. I went to the library and checked out books on “How to Write a Screenplay.” I read quite a few and some of them were helpful.
As I proceeded writing my screenplay I read somewhere that once you sell your script, you loose creative control and the only way to keep that control is to direct the film. I was a bit naive, but that prompted me to learn how to make a film. I attended Georgia State University, having moved to Atlanta some years before, and studied filmmaking. The program was very comprehensive where I learned writing, producing, directing, editing, camera, sound and also was forced sometimes to do grip and electrical work. It was a well-rounded education in filmmaking. I graduated from that program with a BA in Film and Video in 1998 and moved directly to Hollywood.
In Hollywood I had a few odd jobs inside and outside of the film industry, but what I realized when I got there is that I didn’t know anybody, except for the few daring souls from my film class. And I knew no one who could help my career. But I continued to write. I have completed numerous screenplays, a sit-com pilot and a treatment for an hour drama. At one time I even acquired a manager. But I haven’t heard from him lately. So I decided to take my life and my career to another level by enrolling in the MFA program at Palm Desert. I am hoping that this will help to jumpstart my career as a writer. I am also very interested in sharing my knowledge by teaching at the college or university level.
Mark Takano
Mr. Takano is currently a high school language arts teacher. He received his BA in Government from Harvard College. He is very concerned about the adolescent audience and hopes to make an impact in this area as a writer.
Jonathan Walter
Mr. Walters is a wandering cheese and curry salesman who came to the desert to practice the art of writing plays. His goal is to create a modern drama in which all characters are fairly pleasant. He wants to style a drama that is not based on people who are insane, angry, overtly confused, violent, sexually baffled, or just too goofy for words. What interests him is how reasonable people relate to a changing world. Jon received his BA from UCLA in History.
Julia Watson
Julia Watson writes about sex, books and TV geekdom for Velvetpark and the Hipster Book Club. The occasional satirical ode or stray dirty limerick has also been known to appear in her vicinity. Sporting a BA in Literature-Writing from UC San Diego as well as a background in music and composition, she recently wrote five songs for the indie short film Sodomy: The Musical! and hopes to one day to finish a feature-length musical. During her stay in the desert she plans to study fiction, nonfiction, screenwriting and how to throw the perfect dinner party
Kimbel Westerson
Ms. Westerson is a former magazine editor in her second year at UCR-PD. She writes about (in no particular order) dark, violent women as well as narrative and creative non-fiction. Although she is currently working on a novel, a collection of short stories and a narrative non-fiction manuscript, she continues to freelance for local and regional publications. Locally, her articles appear in Desert Magazine, LQ and 92260. Kimbel is also a community mentor through the UCR-sponsored Writers in the Schools program. Most recently, she was a Teaching Assistant for Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth program where she helped teach the wonders of the expository essay. Summer 2009, Johns-Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, UC Santa Cruz. westersonk@dc.rr.com
LOW RESIDENCY PROGRAM
Eric Almeida
http://ericralmeida.wordpress.com/
Eric R. Almeida is a native of southern California who recently received his BA in Multimedia—Game Design from the University of Advancing Technology. During his first two years of college, Eric managed to earn four associate degrees in Humanities, Liberal Arts, Math & Science, and in Social & Behavioral Science. When not busy with his own studies, he worked as a tutor for his friends and peers both at the high school and college level. Concentrating his efforts towards the genre of fantasy for his first novel, Eric has been known to dabble in other areas for the mere sake of challenging himself.
Eileen Austen
Ms. Austen is an investment professional with a serious interest in writing fiction. She has studied with Susan Taylor Chehak and Tod Goldberg at the Extension Writing Program at UCLA and is currently a matriculating MFA student at the University of California, Riverside. She has completed several drafts of her first novel and has several short stories out with editors.
With over thirty years of Wall Street experience, she began her career at Drexel Burhnam in New York where she was the Director of Municipal Bond Research responsible for all analysis and investment recommendations and part of a management team that determined trading capital commitments. She came to Los Angeles as a partner in Drexel’s High Yield and Convertible Bond Department where she researched, traded and sold public and private high yield securities to institutional clients. Transactions included mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts and traditional debt with equity enhancements. After Drexel Ms. Austen formed an advisory firm that assisted large public and private pension funds in identifying investment opportunities, developed and implemented investment policy and recommended investing in new asset classes for plan sponsors. She later became a Founder and Managing Director of Larkspur Capital, a NASD member investment banking firm designed to facilitate the capital needs of emerging and middle market companies.
As a result of her financial expertise, Ms. Austen has been asked to address issues before the U.S. General Accounting Office, the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, The U.S. Treasury, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy Conservation as well as other federal and state agencies and legislative bodies. News coverage of her research publications includes extensive quotation in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, The Washington Post, the London Financial Times and the National Journal to name but a few. Magazine credits include Businessweek, Newsweek, Forbes, Fortune and Barons. Television appearances and interviews include the Wall Street Journal Report, Moneyline, Financial News Network, Sixty Minutes and Cable Network News as well as several spots on ABC, CBS and other major network news programs.
Ms. Austen has authored several academic articles on the bond market that appear in juried publications. She served as a faculty member teaching municipal bankruptcy for the Practicing Law Institute, completed the Harvard Workshop on Negotiation for Senior Executives, served as a Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Los Angeles and co-authored A.B. 1488, a California bill fostering access to capital for women business owners.
Her graduate degree is from the Syracuse University, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in Syracuse New York. She has maintained an interest in politics and public affairs and has campaigned actively for various Democratic candidates.
Benzon Barbin
http://www.pbase.com/seiken1
Benzon Ray Barbin is a fine art and wedding photographer from San Diego, CA. his writing and photography tend to explore melancholy, romanticism, magical realism and modernity. he has a degree in english, a passion for writing (poetry and fiction) in lowercase, and an affinity for stylistic experimentation.
Martha Borjon-Kubota
Stephan Boka
Stephan Boka is a native a Brooklyn, New York and has recently received a B.A. degree in Television, Film and Media Studies. He is the writer, director and producer of the short film “Kings Corner.” He currently resides in Hollywood, CA and intends to turn his feature length screenplay, “Head Mixer,” into a graphic novel.
Chris Brennan
Jessica Brice
Bryan Burch
Mr. Burch is currently writing two fiction novels and a story in prose-rap called “Tha Sistahs at the Laundra-mat.” He comes from a professional theatrical background which he would like to parley into writing works for the stage. He was the founding Executive Director of REPRISE! Broadway’s Best, and on Broadway he stage managed Steel Magnolias, Show Boat, Aspects of Love, Les Miserables, Lettice and Lovage, Crazy For You, and Cats. Bryan has a BA in Theatre Arts from CSULB and an MFA from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Bryan’s prose poem, Black Man’s Hands has been published in the quarterly, RFD.
RaNeeka J. Claxton
Ms. Claxton is one of the newest additions to the UCR-Palm Desert MFA program. A native Detroiter and University of Michigan graduate, she has a concentration in fiction with a future goal of becoming a novelist. Claxton looks at the world as her canvas, and she paints with her pen. She is a journalist by trade – having covered fashion trends and travel destinations in New York City, South Africa and the British Virgin Islands. Ms. Claxton is the recipient of a 2009 Fellowship in the Summer Literary Seminars-2009 Unified Fiction and Poetry Contest.
Lee Cohn
lee@lmcohn.com and www.lmcohn.com
Lee Michael Cohn is a writer, director, producer, actor, and acting coach. He completed the Warner Bros. Comedy Writers Workshop, one of 25 writers chosen annually out of over 700 applicants and is co-author of A Practical Handbook For The Actor, the best-selling acting textbook (over 240,000 copies). He has written film, TV, radio, PSA’s, corporate industrial films, etc. He recently sold an original sitcom to a top Russian television network and directed Inside Private Lives, an interactive theatre piece currently playing to critical acclaim in LA, and which was one of the top 10 shows (out of over 2,000!) at the 2007 Edinburgh Theatre Festival.
A top acting teacher, he was profiled in Qualified Acting Coaches: NY (Smith & Kraus). He has taught at the NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, The Atlantic Theater Company Acting School (Master Teacher) and The New World School of the Arts in Miami (Visiting Professor). He has acted in film, TV and theatre, having originated roles in plays by David Mamet, Roger Hedden, Jason Milligan and many others.
Lee holds a BFA from NYU and trained at The Drama Studio, London, the youngest student ever accepted into the program. He spent several years training and working professionally with Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright/filmmaker David Mamet. Lee also holds a third degree Black Belt in Ninjutsu.
Caroline Collins
Caroline Collins is honored to be a new member of the UCR Palm Desert Low-Residency Program. Caroline earned her B.A. in American Literature from UCLA and has previously worked in the fast –paced higher education publishing industry. She is the current Executive Director of CASA (Center for Academic and Social Advancement), a non-profit joint venture between underserved communities and UCSD, and also freelance edits academic journal articles. Aside from voracious reading and honing her own writing, Caroline loves to travel and experience other cultures and has visited countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Ms. Collins lives in San Diego County with her loving husband Alfred, energetic nine year old son Cameron, and tidbit stealing rescue dog Sophie. She intends to study Fiction and Screenwriting and produce work that blends her passion of the written word with her love of history and her African-American heritage and is currently working on a novel set during the Harlem Renaissance.
David Crawford
Mr. Crawford is focusing his MFA program on Screenwriting and Poetry. He is currently an instructor in Drama at Walla Walla University, his alma mater. Through the Palm Desert MFA program, he hopes to explore the imagination and artistry that screenwriting offers and the beauty that poetry invokes.
Lauren Cummings
Ms. Cummings is a recent graduate from the University of California Riverside with a BA in history and a minor in creative writing. While her focus area is fiction most of her past work has been in journalism. To date she has headed an independent newspaper and written for various independent newspapers and magazines often focusing on political commentary and music reviews. Though she was born and raised in Riverside, California she spends a lot of her time outside of Riverside traveling. She studied Czech history at the Univerzita Karlova in Prague and hopes to go to Ireland to research a novella she is working on about conflicts in Northern Ireland. She hopes to use her history background and her travel experience as foundations for a future writing career.
Jeff Eyres
Stacy Furrer
Stacy received a BA in English from San Diego State University. She is currently writing two books, which she plans to have finished by graduation. Her concentration is nonfiction (memoir), while her cross-genre is fiction, for which she is writing a steamy romance. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Linguistic Society of America, the Semiotic Society of America, and is an enthusiastic supporter of http://bookcrossing.com. (See her profile here: http://abbynormal92243.bookcrossing.com) She recently started a blog http://onegirlriot.wordpress.com where she writes about writing, genealogy, and weird things she finds on the web. She wants to teach English at the college level, as well as to pursue an advanced degree in linguistics with a view to work in the field of forensic linguistics.
Jeff Girod
Jeff Girod maintains a pleasant and gracious exterior while his inner voices deride all those around him in the cruelest possible terms. He takes pills to sleep at night and different ones to stay awake. In between, he turns in sporadic drafts of short stories and a romantic comedy and writes a humor column at www.ieweekly.com. He also has a general disdain for people who write about themselves in the third person.
Debbie Graber
Debbie Graber is a fiction student. She received her BA in English Literature from Washington University in St. Louis, and also studied at Sussex University. For several years, Debbie pursued an interest in Improv comedy, both taking classes and working at The Second City in Chicago. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2000, Debbie has held numerous jobs in TV Production. She has taken writing classes through University of Chicago Extension and UCLA Extension, and is thrilled to be part of the inaugural class of the UCR Palm Desert Low Residency MFA program.
Tiffany Hawk
Tiffany Hawk made her way as a writer the fun way – as a flight attendant. After spending about 400 nights in a hotel and filling her passport, literally, she turned to travel writing. She has served as travel editor at Gayot Publications and Coast Magazine, where she still writes a monthly travel column, and she is currently the editor-in-chief of Preferred Destinations Magazine. As for those scandalous years at United Airlines, she hopes you'll soon read all the juicy details in her just-finished memoir, Walking on Air.
Jessica Holmes
Daryn Houston
Daryn Houston is finishing her second year in the MFA program with an emphasis in fiction and creative nonfiction. She received her B.A. in Film Theory and Media Criticism at California State University, Northridge where she was the poetry editor and part of fiction board for CSUN’s literary magazine, The Northridge Review. Her work background comprises of entertainment, criticism and editing, which makes for some interesting reading. She hopes pieces of her short story collection will soon be found somewhere in print near you. Daryn currently works and resides in Los Angeles, California.
Kaitlin Hulsy
Kaitlin Hulsy is a first year student in the low-residency program, with her main genre consisting of fiction. Kaitlin received her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a specialization in Literature in the Culture of Information.She is currently writing a novel entitled "Dulcinea", a fictionalized account of a high-school history teacher's sordid and brief relationship with one of his former students. Miss Hulsy's cross-genre is screenwriting. She is currently writing a screenplay entitled "Bullies", a slasher film showing what happens when a high school student is mercilessly bullied, abandoned and then comes out of the woodwork with a vengeance.
When not writing to her heart's content, Kaitlin works as a paid intern at 1Media, a production company in Beverly Hills. She hopes that this complete immersion in the film and music industries will leave a residue of success on her pea coat. Hopefully the position will turn into a full-time gig. Her responsibilities currently consist of helping to manage an extensive music catalog, promoting a few choice CD's and scripts and attempting to keep up the aura of personal fabulousness.
One of Kaitlin's major loves is writing poetry. While this passion has been on the back-burner in lieu of creating a finished project prior to graduation, her poems have been published in several underground newspapers in Bakersfield, California. She has also perfomed live readings for Vday, a global fundraiser conceived by Eve Ensler to better ensure that women have equal rights.
Finally, Kaitlin is tremendously proud to have recently passed the CBEST, despite her horrid math anxiety. She hopes that this will bring a teaching career into fruition, or at least make for good parlor conversation.
Jaclyn Javier
Madison Jennings
Ms. Jennings received her B.A. in Creative Writing with a minor in English from University of California, Riverside. She received a GLUCK fellowship (funded by the Maxwell H. Gluck Foundation) during her time as an undergrad and spent time teaching and mentoring other students. Madison has worked and interned in a plethora of different environments, including MTV Networks in Santa Monica, marketing in the Engineering world, and fashion/commercial retail. She currently writes for The Examiner: Los Angeles under Style & Fashion and enjoys it immensely. Her ultimate goal is to stake a claim in the upscale offices of Vogue.
Tyrell Johnson
Tyrell Johnson is a native northwestern boy. He graduated from Seattle Pacific University with an English degree, concentration creative writing. During his time at SPU he interned for author Marcus Brotherton, writing and drafting chapters for his novels. Tyrell’s work currently appears on his desk, in his room, in his brother’s email, his mother’s refrigerator, and most recently on this website. In this MFA program he plans to study fiction to help the stories in his head come alive on the page, and poetry to make every word count.
Kevin Jones
Chera King
Chris Koval
Mr. Koval received a BA in Theatre Studies at Kent State University. He attended the Bennett Theatre Lab, a professional acting program and hopes to combine his interest in theatre with his supernatural, fantastical, mysterious or spiritual interpretation of writing. A long-range goal is to write and direct original works for the stage through experimental techniques and devices. Chris hopes to influence the lives of young people through writing, teaching and directing. He is currently performing theatre in the High Desert.
Massiel Ladron De Guevara
Massiel graduated from Pepperdine University with a BA in Journalism and an outside concentration in Political Science in April 2003. She went on to work for various publications throughout Southern California, including a Spanish-language newspaper where she received a first place award by the Society of Professional Journalists in 2005 for a story covering the living conditions of migrant farm workers in Riverside County.
After nearly five years in the newsroom, Massiel left to pursue a new career in public relations. She is currently the public information officer for a Fire District in San Bernardino County. Massiel’s love for writing inspired her to pursue her MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts at UC Riverside’s Palm Desert Campus. As part of her studies she is working on completing a book of poetry and a novella.
Athena Lark
Lindsey Lewis
Lindsey Lewis is a graduate of California State University, San Bernardino, where she earned a B.A. in English-Creative Writing and a Creative Writing Certificate. While at CSUSB she worked as a Poetry Editor for The Pacific Review, and had poetry and photography published in The Pacific Review. Her work has also appeared in the Victor Valley College Annual Writing Contest, two issues of The CSUSB Creative Writing Club Anthology, and Krax. Since 2008 Lindsey has been employed at Encore High School in Hesperia teaching Beginning Creative Writing, Advanced Creative Writing and Publishing, Journalism, Mythology, and, oddly enough, Health. As part of her job Lindsey also works as the adviser for the school newspaper, The Encore Dispatch, and the school art and literary magazine, Pencil Pushers. Ideally she prefers to write poetry that displays a modern twist on traditional forms while also being reader friendly. She has been toying with a collection titled You. Me. and Warren Phillips for about a year but wants to expand into new territory.
Rick Marlatt
Rick Marlatt is studying screenwriting and poetry. Marlatt teaches English in Nebraska, has BAs in English and Philosophy and a MA in Creative Writing from the U of Nebraska. Marlatt writes in a variety of genres and has most recently published fiction and poetry in Paradigm, Hamilton Stone Review, Slow Trains, Language and Culture, Words-Myth, Events Weekly, The Carillon, The Reynolds Review, Prairie Poetry, The Bumbershoot Annual, and the University of Nebraska Research Journal. Marlatt performs regularly, most recently winning U of N's Sigma Tau Delta Annual Short Fiction Slam.
Andee Marzell
Ms. Marzell's interest lies in writing about characters that are aspiring storytellers in search of an audience. Motivated by the belief that perhaps they will someday be noticed, the desire for acknowledgment and self-validation is the driving force behind the antics of surfers, oddballs, and groupies that populate her work. Typically, in their unrelenting desire to be heard, the question is posed - if they are doing all the talking, then who is left to listen? After receiving her M.A. Degree in English, with an emphasis in Creative Writing, from California State University Los Angeles, Ms. Marzell began teaching at various Los Angeles area colleges. She is currently a full-time Lecturer in English at California State University Channel Islands. During the past few years, she has completed a young-adult novel and written several one-act plays. In pursuit of her MFA degree at U.C. Riverside - Palm Desert, she looks forward to enhancing her teaching, but most importantly, she embraces the opportunity to grow and challenge herself as a writer. When not pounding away at the keyboard or in the classroom teaching, she can be found surfing the breaks of Ventura County where she lives with her artist/professor husband and their two cats, Dandy and Ziggy.
Monty Mickelson
Monty Mickelson has a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Minnesota. He has been a contributing writer to several magazines and newspapers on financial and travel topics. In 1989, he was awarded a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship in fiction writing, and his first novel (Purgatory) was published by St. Martin's Press in 1994. Monty has also written or collaborated on several screenplays--two of which (Mystery Kids, Clubhouse Detectives in Scavenger Hunt) were produced by Promark JKD, and have played on several family cable TV channels. Monty is presently at work on a screenplay for his cross-genre studies, and on a novel based on characters he met while living in Santa Fe, N.M. He and his Greek-American wife, Anastasia, lived, verbatum, the entire screenplay for My Big Fat Greek Wedding. They have two sons, Anders and Tobias, both of whom are way funnier than Monty, and this is a source of both pride and consternation for him.
Jennifer McCartin
Jennifer McCartin lives in Long Beach, CA. After graduating with a BA in English from New York University, she joined Teach For America and taught high school English for five years in Los Angeles. She now works as a copywriter, grabbing freelance jobs as-needed financially. Jennifer's writing has appeared on various blogs and online publications. She'd like to see her creative work in print. She'd also like to get paid for it.
Carol Park
Juan Carlos Pérez-Duthie
With some 20 years of experience as a bilingual journalist in the U.S. and abroad, Juan Carlos is thrilled beyond words to be a part of the UCR Palm Desert MFA program.
Born in Puerto Rico to an American mother from Los Angeles, and a Puerto Rican father, Juan Carlos lived in San Juan until his teens. He went back to that Caribbean island as an adult to work at El Nuevo Día newspaper, and completed a fellowship with the InterAmerican Press Association.
Home has also been New York City (where he conducted his undergraduate studies at Fordham University in Mass Communications and French); Buenos Aires, Argentina (he liked the city so much he went down there to pursue an MA in Journalism while also doing an internship in that country’s most important newspaper, La Nación. He had his first short story published in an Argentine anthology); and Miami, where he worked at The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald dailies.
Juan Carlos has also written scripts for the Univisión TV network and ridden the boom, and bust, of the Internet a few years back. Besides freelancing for various publications, such as El Sentinel weekly, he also copy edits, proofreads and translates for diverse clients. He loves horror movies, French authors, Blondie, and now, Palm Springs.
Nick Ravo
Patina Rodgers
Patina Rodgers spent several years operating on the left side of her brain before moving over to the right. With a B.A. in Economics from U.C. Irvine she has worked in both commercial real estate and investment banking. In 2000 she completed yoga teacher training and taught yoga to under-served youth in Los Angeles. She has written proposals and grants for non-profit foundations and is a freelance photographer - telling stories in both visual and written mediums. Patina is working on a novel and a book of short stories, reflecting her varied life experiences and the local landscape of her native L.A.
Faye Satterly
Jill Sweitzer
Jill Sweitzer spun around the world for 15 years before settling back down in Southern California, where she grew up. Among her most treasured souvenirs are: a trunkful of sightseeing photographs, beer coasters in 35 languages, and warm memories. She's working on a novel and a screenplay, both set in contemporary Japan.
Camerone Thorson
Petra Whitaker
Petra Whitaker resides in Ashland, Oregon—home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Former Contributing Editor for Family Times Magazine, Petra began her writing career doing freelance work, publishing nonfiction and short stories. While an undergraduate of the University of California, Riverside, she studied psychology and creative writing. Upon graduating, Petra taught creative writing at the secondary level, and has been actively involved in promoting the arts in her community. Her work has appeared in Mosaic, Awareness, The Joyful Child Journal and other magazines.
Jeff Wood
Jeff Wood received his B.A. in English Literature from UCLA. For over a decade, he lived in Munich, Germany, where he worked as an English teacher, editor, and translator. He is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Screenwriting.
Amy E. Yergen
Amy graduated from Columbia Union College, in Maryland, with her B.A. in English. She interned as a humor columnist for the website www.collegeboredom.com as the personality Sylvia Salamander for a year. She also wrote critical reviews for and recorded voice work for the award winning podcast Firefly Talk (http://fireflytalk.libsyn.com). Currently, Amy is working on a collection of short stories inspired by the Skylark Motel in Riverside, as well as a fantasy novel. One, or both, she hopes to complete during her time at UCR Palm Desert.