Search
Search
Camaraderie, Pizza, and 21,000 Comic Books
Many hands make for light work – and when the job is sorting more than 21,000 comic books, you need a lot of hands.
Jim Clark, Head of the Database Management and Authority Control Unit, and Erika Quintana, Acquisitions Unit Supervisor were tagged as team leaders and charged with tackling the project of sorting 142 boxes, each containing approximately 150 comic books.
Jim explained, “We took all the boxes, looked at what we had, and tried to come up with how best to attack it.” He and Erika knew right away that they needed help, and all it took was the lure of free pizza to entice the rest of the team to join. Perhaps library employees are not so different from the students they serve, after all.
“It was a lot of fun,” Jim added. “Erika Quintana and I just organized all the boxes, gathered everybody, and we just went to town.” There were three big sorting ‘parties,’ during which Metadata Cataloger Sompratana Creighton and Asian Languages Cataloger Min Yu came on board as permanent team mates. Other floating team members included Acquisitions Assistants Sean Andress, Christy Brown Anderson, and Deborah Snow, Serials Assistant Andi Newman, Engineering Librarian Michele Potter, Head of Metadata & Technical Services Manuel Urrizola, Digital Assets Metadata Librarian Noah Geraci, Metadata Cataloger Julia Ree, as well as Associate University Librarians Diane Bisom and Alison Scott.
During the first phase of sorting, the team got through about one-third of the boxes when a surprise delivery arrived. “Special collections discovered a bunch more comics that they didn’t know we had, so those got merged into the project,” Manuel explained.
“If Erika and I had been the only ones doing it, we’d still be working on it,” Jim said. “But having that many people work on it, it saved us so much time. It really was a big help.” In whole, the sorting project lasted more than six months, even with several members of the team working on it daily.
“Not only could we work faster and more effectively, but we could also get to know each other more,” Sompratana commented. “When we worked together as a group, I got to know them really well and I liked that.”
Min agreed, “We worked mostly as a team and we had a happy time working together. We had fun and learned a lot.”
Most of the 21,000-plus comic books that the team organized will become part of the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, adding a wide variety of new and different assets to the UCR Library’s extensive array of materials devoted to this field of scholarly research.
Some of the comics were given to the library by donors who asked for special attribution, so those were kept separate from the rest.
In addition, the team also had to sort out duplicates and process them separately from the comics that the library planned to retain in our collections. According to Min, there were approximately 40 boxes of duplicate issues culled from the collection.
“My favorite part was seeing everyone work together,” Jim stated. “They really got into it! It was really great teamwork.”
Now, the project is moving into its next phase: cataloging, which could take a year or more to complete. “We could use as many people as we can get,” Jim said. “If anyone is interested, if they would enjoy doing that, they should reach out to me or Erika to see how to get involved.”
Your STEM Research Partner at UCR Library
STEM Teaching Librarian Mary-Michelle Moore, housed in the UCR Library’s Teaching and Learning Department, plays a key role in helping STEM students build research and information literacy skills.
Need help refining a research question? Looking for the right STEM database? Stuck on citations or trying to learn Git or R? That's where Mary-Michelle Moore comes in. Since joining UCR Library as STEM Teaching Librarian in June 2024, she's been supporting students at every level, from foundational research skills to technical tools.
Mary-Michelle came to UCR from other UC and Cal State institutions, where she held various roles including a position at the UCLA Lab School, circulation coordinator, and a library liaison to the social sciences and STEM, among others. Her diverse background made her well-suited for interdisciplinary library work. "My undergrad is a Bachelor of Science in Archaeology, so I know a little bit of everything—bio, geology, chemistry—and I realized I really liked working with the sciences," she said. She later earned her MLIS from Rutgers University.
At UCR, Moore collaborates with colleagues to make the Library's STEM support more visible. She helped launch libstemteam@ucr.edu, a shared email where students and faculty can send any STEM questions without figuring out which librarian or staff member to contact. She also offers Lib STEM Team Office Hours during the quarter to assist graduate students and faculty.
Moore has planned creative engagement activities like a Pi Day spirograph event tied to mathematical patterns and an Ada Lovelace Day Wikipedia editing workshop highlighting women's contributions to computing. These activities reflect her goal of offering approachable, memorable experiences that bring students into the Library.
This fall, Mary-Michelle became the first librarian to teach UGRD 040, a new 2-unit course launched in fall 2025 and developed by the Library’s Teaching & Learning Department. Mary-Michelle’s inaugural course, Optimize Your Research Skills, was designed with undergraduate STEM students in mind. In the course, students explore scientific information, evaluate reports and government data, and prepare a final research poster. "I was so excited to get to do it first," she said.
Mary-Michelle is also a researcher herself, studying how students learn information literacy online and how librarians are portrayed in science fiction and fantasy. Her recent project analyzing Hugo Award–nominated works drew on materials from Special Collections & University Archives. Outside the Library, she combines conference travel with long-distance running, working toward completing a race in every state.
How Mary-Michelle Can Help
- Develop and focus research questions.
- Identify discipline-specific STEM databases.
- Offer guidance on citations and reference management.
- Support upper-division coursework, posters, and early research projects.
- Assist with tools related to Git, R, and Carpentries content.
Need STEM help? Contact Mary-Michelle at marymichelle.moore@ucr.edu or email the Lib STEM Team at libstemteam@ucr.edu.
New archival collections available for spring quarter 2017
Special Collections & University Archives staff are constantly working to process recently acquired collections and make those materials ready for use by students, faculty, and researchers.
Each quarter, we will provide a list of UCR Library's newly processed archival and primary source collections. Check out the list below to see if there are any items that fit your research area, or share with a friend!
Below you'll find brief descriptions and links to the finding aids or collection guides for each new collection. To use any of these materials, simply click the "Request Items" button at the top to submit a request, and log in with our Special Collections Request System. For more on conducting research in Special Collections, see this page.
SCUA is open to the public on weekdays from 11:00 am – 4:00 pm. Check here for closures or other changes to our regular hours.
For questions, email specialcollections@ucr.edu.
Newly Processed Collections – Spring 2017
0.42 linear ft. (1 box)
The Victoriano Huerta papers is a collection of three documents, which mainly relate to Victoriano Huerta's military history before he became the President of Mexico in 1913. The collection includes a ledger documenting donations to Huerta's forces during the Mexican Revolution in 1912, an account of his command of the 3rd Infantry Battalion from 1894-1901, and a brief overview of his military history and accomplishments until 1914.
0.42 linear ft. (1 box)
This collection consists mainly of photographs, and negatives taken by R. W. Madison, a Los Angeles Record reporter, documenting the efforts of law enforcement and a local posse to capture Willie Boy, a Paiute Indian wanted for murder and kidnapping in San Bernardino County in 1909. The collection also includes Madison's account of finding Willie Boy's body, and a Newspaper Enterprise Association booklet.
1.00 linear ft. (1 box)
The Tuskegee Airmen Biographical Information collection contains biographical material related to individuals who served at Tuskegee Army Air Field and its predecessors, as well as material pertaining to Tuskegee Airmen, Inc., a non-profit organization. This collection contains biographical information, mainly in the form of completed biographical questionnaires distributed by the University of California, Riverside Library to Tuskegee Airmen regarding their personal and military history.
1.25 linear ft. (3 boxes)
This collection includes galley proofs, typescripts, and materials related to some works of science fiction author G.C. Edmondson, including Chapayeca, T.H.E.M., and The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream. The collection also includes typescripts and galley proofs for two western novels written under Edmondson's pen names Kelly P. Gast and J.B. Masterson.
0.42 linear ft. (1 box)
The John Shirley papers consist of material related to Shirley's 1989 collection of short stories, Heatseeker, and includes galley proofs and annotated typescripts. Also included is the original introduction to the work written and printed out by author William Gibson.
1.04 linear ft. (3 boxes)
This collection contains prints of photographs from the National Anthropological Archives of the Smithsonian Institution of various Native American tribes from California. Photographs in the collection depict members of various tribes, tribal housing and artifacts, and the local environment.
0.42 linear ft. (1 box)
The collection consists of personal and professional correspondence written by François Guizot, a French historian and statesman who served in multiples roles in the French government in the early 19th century.
0.42 linear ft. (1 box)
This collection contains stories, articles, newspaper clippings, scholarly journals, booklets, and other material collected by D. Russell Parks on U.S. Native Americans and Quanah Parker, the last chief of the Comanche tribe. Parks was part of the same Comanche tribe as Quanah Parker and was interested in writing an accurate history of Parker and his contributions to Oklahoma and the Comanche people. The collection consists of information gathered by Parks for his research, as well as biographical information about Parks and his childhood stories from Indiahoma, Oklahoma.
0.42 linear ft. (1 box)
The Dr. Robert V. Hine collection on the Kingdom contains documents, correspondence, photographs, audio reels, and press clippings collected by Dr. Hine from Mary Thomas and Arnold L. White, who were members of the religious commune The Kingdom. The Kingdom, informally known as Shiloh, was an evangelical Christian sect founded in Maine in 1897 by Frank Sandford. The majority of the collection documents Thomas' and White's recollections of the living experience within Shiloh, as well as their interactions with Dr. Robert V. Hine as part of his research on The Kingdom.
0.42 linear ft. (1 box)
The Elmer W. Holmes papers is a collection of documents about Elmer Wallace Holmes, a Civil War veteran and leading figure in the history of Riverside, California. The papers consist of correspondence between Holmes and his family (notably his mother and his second wife), a scrapbook, and documents related to Riverside County history. All items contained in this collection are reproductions of originals.
0.21 linear ft. (1 box)
The Maud H. Miller papers is a collection of personal documents and correspondence from Maud H. Miller, a Riverside resident and former employee of the United States Bureau of War Risk Assurance. Materials in the collection include Miller's correspondence with multiple politicians on issues important to her, editorials and autobiographical stories written by Miller, family photographs, and some personal correspondence.
Memories... Library 2018 Retirees
The end of each academic year brings many goodbyes, both farewells to graduating students and to members of our career staff who will retire in 2018.
We would like to recognize and celebrate the following UCR Library colleagues, who shared snippets of their UCR history with us:
Diane David
Music Cataloger Diane David started as a student assistant in UCR’s Music department in 1971 and later transitioned to working in the Music Library’s listening room. After finishing her B.A. in 1973, she was hired as a music cataloger, one of three in UCR Library’s history.
With 45 years of service, David might hold the record for the longest-running career at UCR Library. “It has been interesting to see the industry change and to see the impact technology has had on our work,” she said, recalling her earliest days with hand-typed cards for the public catalog and all the various changes in technology she has witnessed since then.
Those years have also contained many great memories, including having Maya Angelou as the commencement speaker when David earned her M.A., Scot’s Week, and a very distinct campus prank in the early 1980s. “One year, we arrived early in the morning to find that the Bell Tower had a giant arrow through the top of it,” David explained. “Remember Steve Martin, the comedian who would come on stage with a headband that looked like an arrow through his head? This was a giant version of that.”
After retirement, David will miss seeing friends and colleagues on a daily basis, but looks forward to continuing her career in theater, which is booked well into the next year.
Kit Rembert
Preservation Assistant Cynthia “Kit” Rembert started her career at UCR Library in September 1977 as a typist clerk, and will retire this year from her role as a supervisor of special projects and processing. “Coming to work at UC Riverside in the libraries has been a blessing,” Rembert said.
Her favorite memories include special moments with colleagues at celebrations to acknowledge retiring staff. “I also have a lot of good memories from working on special projects with different people in all areas of the libraries,” she said.
Rembert recalls one day when she and a few colleagues got locked down in the sub-basement at Rivera Library for about 30 minutes. “The elevator broke down and we had to wait for someone to come around to open the side entrance,” she explained. “The only thing we could do was look at some old books and tell some family stories.”
Another vivid memory, Rembert said, was when the library’s namesake Dr. Tomás Rivera passed away on May 16, 1984. “He was held in the highest regard on this campus,” she added. “He was gone too soon.”
Julia Ree
Metadata Cataloger Julia Ree has held many roles at the UCR Library since 1978, when she was hired as a student assistant in the Reserve Book Room on the first floor of Rivera Library. She has also worked in stacks maintenance, public services, acquisitions, cataloging, and for 12 years as the subject specialist for the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
She met her husband of almost 36 years, Bob, at the public services counter in December 1980 when he was looking for weekend box office statistics for the Star Trek motion picture. “You could say that Star Trek brought us together! You could also say that having the same last name at birth was a contributing factor, but it’s the UCR Library space that made it all happen,” Ree said.
Ree’s favorite memories include organizing the 2013 Eaton Conference, at which they presented the Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award to Stan Lee. Another fond memory was in 2014, when Ree received the “Staff Who Make a Difference” award from Campus Staff Assembly. “I have worked many decades to create a quality to my work,” she said. “This, above all else, recognized my commitment to those we serve and I will be forever grateful to be singled out in this meaningful way.”
Josie Arreola
Josie Arreola was first hired at UCR as a receptionist in the Physical Plant / Grounds department; she joined the library in 1980. This year, she will retire from her position as a Collection Maintenance Assistant in Rivera Library.
In her 38 years at UCR Library, Arreola said she has been most fond of gatherings with student employees and staff colleagues, particularly the Thanksgiving Feast, as well as other on-campus events including University Club and holiday parties. Of the most unusual thing that happened to her on the job, Arreola said, “One week, I took like three security reports due to people trying to steal books, or damaging them.” What she will miss most about working at UCR Library is her co-workers and friends.
Maria Mendoza
Assistant Unit Supervisor of the Interlibrary Loan Unit, Maria Mendoza has been part of the UCR Library team since 1992. During that time, Mendoza said that she has collected too many fond memories to choose any favorites among them.
“But what I will miss the most is superior staff, our splendid students and phenomenal faculty,” she said.
In addition to her work at the library, Mendoza also taught Hawaiian dance classes to a group of UCR staff, faculty and students as part of the Mobile Fit program. A dedicated group of her dance students would sometimes perform as part of the Mission Inn’s Festival of Lights and at other community events.
After retirement, Mendoza plans to visit her native state of Hawaii and also to travel to the Philippines for the first time.
Rhonda Neugebauer
Collection Strategist for the Arts and Humanities Rhonda Neugebauer joined the UCR Library in 2001 as the Bibliographer for Latin American and Iberian Studies.
Her favorite memories include National Library Week postcards, “Edible Book” celebrations, the 2-millionth volume panel and reception, and celebrations with colleagues such as the library’s Student Employee Picnic and Thanksgiving Feast and Staff Association events. “I enjoyed seeing us as a group, united in our efforts to wholeheartedly support the library and library colleagues and enthusiastically serve our students, faculty and staff,” Neugebauer said.
When asked what she will miss most about working at UCR Library, she replied, “Co-workers who helped me, supported me, nurtured me, mentored me, stood with me during the rough times, and empathized with me when the news was sad, bitter and unthinkable.”
Her funniest memory was when an earthquake hit during a job candidate’s presentation in the Rivera Library. “When the speaker momentarily suspended his remarks ad asked, ‘Was that an earthquake?’ All the library colleagues who had already logged on to the shake map were able to report immediately to the candidate, ‘It wasn’t too bad, it was just a 3.4,’” she said. “Then we all laughed at how quickly everyone felt, reported and critiqued the shaking!”
***
The UCR Library would like to thank each of our retiring staff members, both those who are named here and those who wish to remain anonymous. We are grateful to have had you as our colleagues and friends, we appreciate your many years of excellent service, and we wish you all the best in your future!
UCR Library to Host GIS Day 2017
The University of California, Riverside Library and campus partners will host several events in celebration of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Day and Geography Awareness Week.
This year, GIS Day will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 15, and Geography Awareness Week is from Nov. 12-18.
GIS Day, first established in 1999, provides an international forum for users of geographic information systems technology to demonstrate real-world applications that are making a difference in our society.
“Technological advances and increased exposure to map products in everyday life have boosted awareness of GIS,” said Janet Reyes, the UCR Library geospatial information librarian who is coordinating GIS Day at UCR. “Both official and crowd-sourced maps of damage in the aftermath of recent natural disasters are just one example of the power these tools can have in improving and understanding our world.”
The diversity of academic departments at UCR that use spatial data is expanding, Reyes explained. “And the use of GIS in the humanities is an exciting recent development. Faculty are discovering that the ability of GIS to display, analyze, and manipulate geographic data makes it a valuable tool for instruction as well as research.”
“The Center for Conservation Biology uses GIS to bring together many types of information that support study in the relationships between organisms and the conditions in which they live,” stated Associate Specialist Robert Johnson. “GIS is one research tool we use to measure and visualize contemporary distributions of species locations and habitat characteristics, how both have changed in the past, and how these may look in the future. Our spatial-based research efforts have advised land management practice at local and regional levels.”
“Application of Geographic Information Systems in Environmental Sciences has increased in recent years due to availability of geospatial data including a variety of remotely sensed products developed by federal and state agencies, and the research community around the world,” commented Hoori Ajami, Assistant Professor of Groundwater Hydrology at UC Riverside. “GIS Day activities at UCR will promote the use of these technologies in research and teaching, and enhance collaboration between the geospatial community at UCR and Southern California.”
GIS Day 2017 at UCR will feature talks by researchers and community members who will share how they use GIS to advance their work, including a presentation by the Center for Spatial Studies founding director Sergio Rey at 11:20 am on Nov. 15 in Orbach Science Library, Room 240.
Other activities include a drone demonstration (conditions permitting), a reception, and a poster display in both Orbach Science Library and Tomás Rivera Library from Nov. 13 through Nov. 17.
A poster contest for students is another new feature of GIS Day this year. (Details on how to enter the poster contest are provided here. Abstracts are due by Nov. 1.) Contest posters will be exhibited in the atrium of Orbach Science Library throughout the week, and the winners announced on the afternoon of Nov. 15.
While the poster contest is open only to students, the entire UC Riverside community is welcome to provide a poster for the separate displays in Orbach and Rivera. Posters that have been used or will be used at other events are acceptable. The deadline to sign up to display a poster is Friday, Oct. 20. To submit a poster to the display, contact Janet Reyes (janet.reyes@ucr.edu) or Margarita Yonezawa (margarita.yonezawa@ucr.edu) at the Orbach Science Library’s Map Collection, or call (951) 827-6423.
UCR Library hopes that the 2017 event will showcase a variety of disciplines using GIS, make students aware of the possibilities for using GIS in both academic and community settings, and provide students opportunities for learning and networking.
Other events planned for Geography Awareness Week include map-related activities in the Creat’R Lab and a presentation by Manuel Urrizola on Thursday, Nov. 16 at 1:00 pm in Rivera Library Room 403. Manuel’s talk, Is California an Island?, is sponsored by Special Collections and features antique maps depicting California as being separate from the North American mainland.
Cosponsoring the GIS Day events are the Center for Conservation Biology; the Departments of Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, and Psychology; Capital Asset Strategies; and UCR Extension.
More details about the GIS Day event schedule will be posted soon on the UCR Library website.
University Archives
UCR Library Takes Step into Digital Age with Los Angeles Aqueduct History Project
Grant from Metabolic Studio helps to make 100-year-old photos and documents available online.
By Ross French
The above photo of the Soledad Siphon was taken in 1913 by Walter L. Huber and is a part of the Los Angeles Aqueduct Digital Collection. The image shows a section of pipeline that is approximately 8500 feet long. For scale, a car can be seen in the center of the photo. PHOTO COURTESY UCR LIBRARIES DIGITAL COLLECTIONS
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The Los Angeles Aqueduct celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, and the University of California, Riverside Libraries have joined the celebration by digitizing and publishing online a collection of hundreds of photos and documents and other materials that detail the history of one of the most ambitious public works projects of all time.
While the library has made content available through their Digital Collections in the past, the “LA Aqueduct Digitization Project” marks the first time that UC Riverside has systematically digitized a collection of this size. The project was made possible through a grant from Metabolic Studio, which also supported the efforts of other Southern California institutions to select, digitize, and make available unique materials available online, including historical photos of and documents about the construction of the aqueduct.
“This support from the Metabolic Studio allowed the UCR Libraries to test and implement best practices for digitization, workflows, and metadata creation, and to reveal and make available previously hidden, unique historic resources about the construction of the LA Aqueduct,” said Diane Bisom, project director and associate university librarian for information technology and systems. “The variety of materials – documents, photographs, published materials, maps, etc. – allowed us to push the envelope on our digitization, workflow, and metadata creation activities, and to involve staff from many areas of the libraries.”
“The aqueduct project forced us into some hard thinking on how to make the digital content available in an easy to use way,” agreed UCR Librarian Steven Mandeville-Gamble, who added that all the content meets the guidelines of the system wide UC Libraries Digital Collection (UCLDC) Implementation Project, which upon its completion in 2015, will create a shared, comprehensive platform for the management and display of content. “We did it that way so that no effort was wasted.”
This invitation to the opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct and Exposition Park from 1913 is
one of the featured items of the collection and a favorite of both Bisom and Milenkiewicz.
PHOTO COURTESY OF UCR LIBRARIES DIGITAL COLLECTIONS
The content that was digitized is part of the UCR’s Water Resources Collections and Archives (WRCA), a world-renown collection of unique, contemporary and historic materials on all aspects of water resources and issues in California and the western United States. The collections included in the project are:
-
Mono Lake Committee Collection
-
Joseph Barlow Lippincott Papers
-
Charles H. Lee Papers
-
Charles H. Lee Photograph Collection
-
Walter L. Huber Papers
-
Walter L. Huber Photograph Collection
-
John Debo Galloway Papers
“We’ll continue to expand the LA Aqueduct digital presence by adding mapping and timeline features, and selected published material. We’ll begin digitization of other unique collections from the Libraries’ Archives, and we’ll continue to make our digitized collections widely available,” Bisom said.
The collection utilizes a free, open-source web publishing platform called Omeka that is used by libraries, archives and museums around the world to display and discover library and archival collections.
“Omeka allowed us to easily batch upload metadata records into the system and then attach each of the associated digital objects for online display,” said Eric Milenkiewicz, archivist in Special Collections and Archives and project manager of the aqueduct project. “Without Omeka, it would have taken considerable IT staff time to design a database and user interface for digital collections. It provided us with a lightweight solution to managing and providing access to our digital content.”
Several steps went in to the addition of each piece of content. The physical item is digitized according to standards outlined in the Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials by the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI). The document is then saved using a pre-established naming convention. Descriptive and administrative metadata is created for the item and entered into a spreadsheet before being put into the Omeka database. All of the original materials are maintained as part of the Water Resources Collections and Archives physical holdings.
“There are also several quality control checkpoints along the way to make sure that individual items are properly digitized/saved and that the metadata is accurate,” Milenkiewicz said. “Multiple staff members are involved in this process that takes approximately 10 minutes per item, start to finish.”
Milenkiewicz and Bisom said that several other digitization projects are on tap, including sections of the Tomás Rivera Archive, selected materials from the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and bound volumes of the Highlander Student Newspaper dating back to the campus’ founding.
Writers Week: Meet the Authors
Learn about some of the authors featured in the UCR Library's Writers Week exhibit. View the exhibit in the Tomás Rivera Library until February 16.
This year's Writers Week is taking place February 10 and February 12 - 16. See all the events (most are hybrid) and RSVP at writersweek.ucr.edu.
Learn more about our Writers Week exhibit here and more about the authors featured below.
Prageeta Sharma is a poet born in Framingham, Massachusetts. Her collections of poetry include Bliss to Fill, The Opening Question, which won the Fence Modern Poets Prize, Infamous Landscapes, Undergloom, and Grief Sequence.
Noah Amir Arjomand is a filmmaker currently enrolled in the MFA Writing for the Performing Arts program at UCR, where he is a chancellor's distinguished fellow in screenwriting. He is the author of Fixing Stories: Local Newsmaking and International Media in Turkey and Syria and co-directed and co-produced the feature-length documentary Eat Your Catfish about my mother's life with ALS.
Vickie Vértiz was born and raised in Bell Gardens, a city in southeast Los Angeles County. With over 25 years of experience in social justice, writing, and education. Her writing is featured in the New York Times Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, Huizache, Nepantla, the Los Angeles Review of Books, among many others.
Cati Porter is the recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council for 2023-24. Additionally, Cati Porter’s poetry has won or been a finalist in contests by: So To Speak, judged by Arielle Greenberg; Crab Creek Review, judged by Aimee Nezhukumatathil; and Gravity & Light, judged by Chella Courington. Cati Porter lives in Inland Southern California where she runs her Poemeleon: A Journal of Poetry and directs Inlandia Institute, a 501(c)(3) literary nonprofit.
Issam Zineh is a Palestinian-American poet and scientist. He is author of Unceded Land (Trio House Press, 2022), finalist for the Trio Award, Medal Provocateur, Housatonic Book Award, and Balcones Prize for Poetry, and the chapbook The Moment of Greatest Alienation (Ethel Press, 2021). His poems appear or are forthcoming in AGNI, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, Tahoma Literary Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.
Melissa Studdard is the author of five books, including the poetry collections Dear Selection Committee. Her work has been featured by NPR, PBS, The New York Times, The Guardian, Ms. Magazine, and Houston Matters, and more.
Minda Honey is the editor of Black Joy at Reckon, a newsletter has nearly 60K subscribers. Her essays on politics and relationships have appeared in Harper’s Baazar, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American, Teen Vogue, and Longreads.
Daisy Ocampo Diaz (Caxcan, or Caz’ Ahmo, Indigenous Nation of Zacatecas, Mexico) earned her PhD in History from the University of California, Riverside in 2019. Her research in Native and Public History informs her work with museum exhibits, historical preservation projects, and community-based archives.
Elena Karina Byrne is a screenwriter, essayist, reviewer, multi-media artist, and editor. She is The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books Programming Consultant & Poetry Stage Manager and Literary Programs Director for the historic The Ruskin Art Club. She is the author of five poetry collections.
Farnaz Fatemi is an Iranian American writer and editor in Santa Cruz, California. Her debut book, Sister Tongue زبان خواهر , was published in September 2022. It won the 2021 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, selected by Tracy K. Smith, from Kent State University Press, and received a Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly.
Lisa Teasley is a graduate of UCLA and a native of Los Angeles. Her critically acclaimed debut, Glow in the Dark, is winner of the Gold Pen Award and Pacificus Literary Foundation awards for fiction. She has also won the May Merrill Miller and the National Society of Arts & Letters Short Story awards. Teasley has a new story collection, Fluid, which was released on Cune Press, September 26, 2023.
Quincy Troupe is an awarding-winning author of 12 volumes of poetry, three children’s books, and six non-fiction works. In 2010 Troupe received the American Book Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement. Quincy Troupe is professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego, formerly editor Code magazine and Black Renaissance Noire, a literary journal of the Institute of Africana Studies at New York University, and poetry editor of A Gathering of the Tribes online magazine.
Reza Aslan is s a renowned writer, commentator, professor, Emmy- and Peabody-nominated producer, and scholar of religions. A recipient of the prestigious James Joyce award, Aslan is the author of three internationally best-selling books, including the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Aslan is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside and serves on the board of trustees for the Chicago Theological Seminary and The Yale Humanist Community.
Rigoberto González earned a degree in humanities and social sciences interdisciplinary studies from the University of California, Riverside, and an MFA from Arizona State University in Tempe. González is the author of five poetry collections, including The Book of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2019); Unpeopled Eden (Four Way Books, 2013), winner of the Lambda Literary Award and the 2014 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets.
Donato Martinez teaches English Composition, Literature, and Creative Writing at Santa Ana College. His first full collection of poetry, Touch the Sky, was published in June by El Martillo Press.
Jason Magabo Perez holds an MFA in writing and consciousness from New College of California, formerly in San Francisco, and a dual PhD in ethnic studies and communication from the University of California, San Diego. Perez is the author of I ask about what falls away, forthcoming in 2024; This is for the mostless (WordTech Editions, 2017); and Phenomenology of Superhero (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2016).
Dave Eggers is the author of many books, among them The Eyes and the Impossible, The Circle, The Monk of Mokha, Heroes of the Frontier, A Hologram for the King, and What Is the What. He is the founder of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing company, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Kimberly Blaeser, writer, photographer, and scholar, is a past Wisconsin Poet Laureate. She is the author of five poetry collections, most recently the bi-lingual Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance (2020), Copper Yearning (2019), and Apprenticed to Justice.
Marsha de la O was born and raised in Southern California. She earned her MFA from Vermont College and is the author of two collections of poetry: Black Hope (1997), winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize, and Antidote for Night (2015), winner of the Isabella Gardner Prize from BOA Editions.
Cindy Juyoung Ok is a poet, former high school physics teacher, and university creative writing instructor. Her collection of poems, Ward Toward, won the Yale Younger Poets Prize.