MJC Presents Faculty Spotlight
MJC Literature and Language Arts presents a Faculty Spotlight Featuring performances and readings by English Faculty. Please join us Wednesday, November 20 from 6pm to 8pm in Forum 102. A question and answer session and book signing will follow the performance. This is a free, wheelchair accessible event, and open to the public.
Yvonne De La Cruz Sánchez is the author of misbegotten, motley prose, sprinkled with a bit of poetry and speculative elements. She anticipates the receipt of her MFA from Antioch University, Los Angeles in December 2019. Her poems, stories, blogs, and author interviews have been published in various literary magazines in California. Along with the title of "writer," Yvonne has adopted the following monikers as well: Sketcher of Impromptu Portraits, Singer of Bedtime Stories, Maker of Dreams for Three Beautiful Girls, Believer in the Future, Self-healer in Progress, Wearer of Heart-on-Sleeve, Organizer of Books & Toys, Motivator of Learning Minds, Imbiber of Words, and Humble Writer Whose Work Is Cast From A Bronze Heart. In her spare time, Yvonne also enjoys singing in the shower, making handmade journals out of recycled materials, reading with her children, crocheting mermaid-tail blankets, and teaching composition & literature at Modesto Junior College.
Yvonne De La Cruz Sánchez: Writer, Mother, Artist, Netflix Binger, Teacher.
Shirley Miranda Brenes is a proud immigrant from Costa Rica, where she studied English, Business and Marketing. Her graduate work in her home country and the U.S. includes a Teaching Licensure and a Masters in English with a TESOL concentration. Her love for different cultures has taken her to 10 countries and multiple cities in the U.S. She enjoys ethnic music and foods. She’s a wife and a mommy, who also enjoys hiking, swimming and biking. She is slowly working on two books: The Lives I Teach and What They Have Taught Me and a bilingual children’s book titled Let’s Go to Costa Rica. Her poetry is influenced by her students and her experiences with motherhood.
Shirley Miranda Brenes: Teacher, Culture Junkie, Listener.
Optimism One’s essays have been published by In Fact Books and The Normal School, among others, and he has new work forthcoming in the anthology Moving Writers: Stories of Joy, Triumph, and Healing. He earned his MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Sierra Nevada College, and he has taught writing full-time at Modesto Junior College since 2005. He’s currently working on a memoir called Goodbye, Suicide.
Optimism One: Writer, Professor, Punk Rocker.
Dimitri Keriotis’s debut collection of short stories, The Quiet Time, was released by SFA Press. His stories have appeared in Beloit Fiction Journal, Georgetown Review, Evening Street Review, Flyway, BorderSenses, and elsewhere. Raised in Northern California, he was educated at UC Santa Cruz, University of Nevada, Reno, CSU Chico, and CSU Stanislaus and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zaire and Bolivia. Keriotis is a college counselor at Modesto Junior College. He and his family live in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
Dimitri Keriotis: College Counselor, Writer, Father, Husband.
D.W. Schmidt lives, and sometimes writes, in Hughson, California, on an estate called The Belly Acre. He has taught college English classes for more than thirty years.
D.W. Schmidt: Writer, Rider, Jeeper.