Audrey Agot

           Year: Sophomore

           Major: English

 

Madeline Bell

           Year: Sophomore

              Major: Health Science

            Minor: Spanish

            Hometown: Ventura, CA

            Favorite Books: The Moral Lives of Animals by Dale Peterson & House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

            Favorite Movies: The Shining, Titanic, Moulin Rouge & The Nightmare Before Christmas

            Favorite Revision Tool: Making charts and lists to organize ideas.

            Favorite Quotation: "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." -Carl Sagan

         

Carly Bobo

            Year: Senior

            Major: English

            Hometown: Wilton, CA

            Favorite Books: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg, Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen & The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

            Favorite Movies: Breakfast at Tiffany's & Casablanca

            Favorite Revision Tool: Reading out loud and circling errors in cool colors so that I don't feel too bad about my mistakes. 

            Favorite Quotation: "Live life in such a way that if someone spoke badly of you no one would belive it." -Unknown

            In Her Own Words:  I love Jesus, dogs, coffee, fashion, and last but not least, writing. 

 

Mollie Clark   

            Year: Senior

            Major: English, with an emphasis in Creative Writing

            Hometown: Sacramento, CA

            Favorite Books: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling & Poisonwood Bible  by Barbara Kingsolver

            Favorite Movies: The Parent Trap (Lindsay Lohan version), Pride & Prejudice & Gone With the Wind

            Favorite Revision Tool: Printing as many drafts as possible until you can read out loud without picking up your pen.

            Favorite Quotation: "I only hoep that we don't lose sight of one thing--that this was all started by a mouse." Walt Disney

            In Her Own Words: Don't take yourself too seriously, and know that all happens for a reason--one day we'll be able to look back and laugh at the beauty of how all those puzzle pieces fit together just right.

Jeff Chon

            Year: 2nd Year MFA Candidate

            Genre: Creative Nonfiction

  

Holland Enke

            Year: Sophomore

            Major: English

            Hometown: Fullerton, CA

            Favorite Books: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley & Angels in America (play) by Tony Kushner

            Favorite Movies: The Birdcage & Pride & Prejudice

            Favorite Quotation: "What seem to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise." -Oscar Wilde

Jake Fulton

            Year: Senior

            Major: English

            Minor: Philosophy

            Hometown: Murrieta, CA

            Favorite Books: Siddartha by Hermann Hesse, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin & Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

            Favorite Movies: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, Food Inc. & Forks or Knives

            Favorite Quotations: “There is no wholly masculine man nor wholly feminine woman. Fluid hardens to solid. Solid flows into liquid." -Margaret Fuller

"No union with slaveholders! No compromise with slavery!" -W.M. Garrison

"No one drop of rain believes it is to blame for the flood." -Unknown

"My ignorance has never struggled so, has never made me long so much to know." -Dante

"I have found no companion as companionable as solitude." -Henry David Thoreau

"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, my faith in humanity is restored." -Albert Einstein

"Intelligence implies that one can dwell comfortably without pictures, in a field of concepts and generalizations." -Neil Postman

"Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking it's an idiot." -Albert Einstein

"Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, and breath of life, I have no life to breathe what thou hast said to me." -William Shakespeare

"You cram these words into mine ears against the stomach of my sense." -William Shakespeare

"Why must I always be kind to those who would wallow in my hours?" -Henry Charles Bukowski

Anna Gates

            Year: 2nd Year MFA Candidate

            Genre: Fiction

            Hometown: Orangeville, CA

            Favorite Book (fiction): Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston

            Favorite Movie: The Breakfast Club

            Favorite Revision Tool: Post-outlining

        

Bridget Hanna

            Year: Junior

            Major: English, Dramatic and Film Arts

            Hometown: Mariposa, CA

            Favorite Book (poetry): erotic poems  by e.e. cummings

            Favorite Movie: V for Vendetta

            Favorite Revision Tool: Freewriting

            Favorite Quotation: "Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel

               is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked

               a hot fudge sundae." -Kurt Vonnegut 

 

Jen Herrington - Administrative Assistant

            Hometown: Troy, NY & Plainfield, VT

            Favorite Books: The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy by Murry Bookchin & The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone

            Favorite Movies: Fargo

            Favorite Revision Tool: Pruning the redundant.

            Favorite Quotation: "There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up." -Bernice Johnson Reagon

             In Her Own Words: Do what you can, and don't get upset.

 

Daniel Horan

            Year: 2nd Year MFA Candidate

            Genre: Fiction

            Hometown: Harvard, MA, & Lafayette, CA

            Favorite Books (fiction): Atonement by Ian McEwan & Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

            Favorite Poet: Pablo Neruda

            Favorite Movie: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

            Favorite Revision Tool: Time

        

Somel Jammu

            Year: Junior

            Major:  Integral

               Minor: Creative Writing

            Hometown: Santa Clara (born), Cupertino (currently)

            Favorite Book (fiction): Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

            Favorite Book (poetry): Falling Up by Shel Silverstein

            Favorite Movie: Amar, Akbar, Anthony

            Favorite Revision Tool: Marking and writing any quotations that stick out to me. This helps me see the overall theme and what strikes me the most in each text. 

            Favorite Quotation:   "You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." -Ray Bradbury

            In Her Own Words:   "It was something she had felt and decided she would keep, regardless of whether he ever knew or not. it was a feeling capturing a real moment, but it was a feeling she would keep just for herself. Whatever that feeling was and however it felt, she knew it. I wished I could be as certain sometimes but then sometimes I wondered if certainty even existed." -From "Baby Brown" 

 

Tereza Joy Kramer – Director

               Poetry, Rhetoric, Composition, TESOL, Journalism, Spanish

            Hometown: Cleveland, OH

            Favorite Book (nonfiction): Ethics for the New Millenium by Dalai Lama

            Favorite Poet: Sharon Olds

            Favorite Movie: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

            Favorite Revision Tool: Discussion

            Favorite Quotation: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us ... . And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automaticallly liberates others."  -Marianne Williamson

               In Her Own Words: I've never thought of myself as a good writer -- I just enjoy trying. 

 

Reyna Olegario

            Year: Junior

            Major: English, Preparation for High School Teaching

            Minor: Theology and Religious Studies, Catholic Tradition

            Hometown: Hercules, CA

            Favorite Book (fiction): Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

            Favorite Movie: The Lion King and Maria Full of Grace

            Favorite Revision Tool: Control F

            Favorite Quotation: “Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we’re quoting.” –John Green, from "Quotations (And Holden Hats)" [Vlog]

    

Stephanie Popken

             Year: Sophomore

            Major: Kinesiology

            Minor: Psychology

            Hometown: Highlands Ranch, CO

            Favorite Books: Burned by Ellen Hopkins, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen & The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

            Favorite Movies: Gran Torino & Remember the Titans

            Favorite Revision Tool: Whiteboards and post-outlining.

            Favorite Quotation: “It takes courage to repent, and more courage to change." -Rumi

            

 

Kevin Reyes

            Hometown: Antioch, CA (on paper); Brooklyn, NY (in my heart)

            Favorite Books: Ghosts by H. Ibsen, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, How to Be Good by N. Hornby, Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson, The Log From the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck, Polysyallabic Spree by Nick Hornby, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Timbuktu by P. Auster & The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon

            Favorite Movies:

            Favorite Revision Tool:

            Favorite Quotation: 

             In Her Own Words: 

 

Samantha Ricci

            Year: Junior

            Major(s):  Theatre and English

            Hometown: Vacaville, CA

            Favorite Book (fiction): Different Seasons by Stephen King

            Favorite Book (poetry): Nine Horses by Billy Collins

            Favorite Movie: Young Frankenstein

            Favorite Revision Tool: Reading out loud, a ballpoint pen, and a piece of scrap paper. 

            Favorite Quotation: "Try not to become a man of success but rather a man of value." -Albert Einstein

               In Her Own Words: Despite being super-busy all of the time, I'm generally a pretty happy person. I get animated when something excites or interests me. Don't be surprised if I use sound effects as adjectives. 

 

Tori Stringer

            Year: Sophomore

            Major: English

            Minor: Dance

            Hometown: Napa, CA

            Favorite Book (fiction): Harry Potter Series, the stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle & anything by John Green

            Favorite Movie: Music and Lyrics & The Proposal

            Favorite Revision Tool: Reading out loud and using highlighters!

            Favorite Quotation: “If you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all." -John Green

 

Sara Vander Zwaag

            Year: 2nd Year MFA Candidate

            Genre: Poetry

            Hometown: Bryn Mawr, PA

            Favorite Book (fiction): The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

            Favorite Books (poetry): The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers by Bhanu Kapil & Noon by Cole Swenson

            Favorite Movie: American Beauty & Howl’s Moving Castle 

            Favorite Revision Tool: Free writing/free-association brainstorming

            Favorite Quotation: “We will be stardust. Ancient tailings /of nothing. Elapsed breath. No, / we must first be ice. Be nails. Be teeth. /Be lightning.” –C.D. Wright, from “Re: Happiness, in pursuit thereof”

            In Her Own Words: I love words, science, and art. 

 

Caitlin Wire

            Year: Sophomore

            Major: Politics

            Minor: Italian Studies

            Hometown: Thousand Oaks, CA

            Favorite Books: Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein, The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards & The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

            Favorite Movies: What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Annie Hall & Finding Neverland

            Favorite Revision Tool: Reading and rereading and rereading and rereading.

            Favorite Quotations: "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all." -Emily Dickinson

            "Liberal and conservative have lost their meaning in America. I represent the distracted center." -Jon Stewart

           In Her Own Words: Read everything. Read textbooks, posters, receipts, novels, flyers - read whatever you can get your hands on. The best writers are the best readers!