Wendy C. Ortiz

Wendy C. Ortiz
File:Wendy C. Ortiz Author Photo.jpeg
Born	(1973-05-16) May 16, 1973 Los Angeles, CA, United States
Occupation	non-fiction writer, essayist, memoirist
Nationality	American
Genre	literary nonfiction

Wendy C. Ortiz (born 1973) is an American essayist, creative nonfiction writer, fiction writer and poet. She received her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles, California. Ortiz has one published book Excavation: A Memoir (Future Tense Books, 2014) and is awaiting the publication of her second book, Hollywood Notebook (Writ Large Press, 2015).

Life and work

Wendy C. Ortiz was born in Los Angeles, California in 1973. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts from The Evergreen State College in 1995 and lived in Olympia, Washington for eight years before returning to Los Angeles where she presently resides. While living in Olympia, Washington, Ortiz was a mudwrestler, library worker, and editor and publisher of 4th Street, a handbound literary journal.

Ortiz went on to receive her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (2002) as well as her Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology (2010) from Antioch University in Los Angeles, California. Ortiz currently works at a Los Angeles clinic as well as in a private practice internship, finishing the final intern hours required for licensure as a marriage and family therapist in California.

She is co-founder, curator and host of the Rhapsodomancy Reading Series, which began at the Good Luck Bar in Los Angeles in 2004 and has continued ever since. The reading series will exist in other iterations and venues beginning in 2015. Ortiz was a Writer-in-Residence at Hedgebrook in 2007 and 2009 and has read at various venues including Secret City in Los Angeles, RADAR Reading Series in San Francisco, LitCrawl L.A.: NoHo, the West Hollywood Book Fair in Los Angeles, The Knitting Factory in Los Angeles, World Stage in Los Angeles, the Echo Park Poetry Festival in Los Angeles and the first Ladyfest in Olympia, Washington in 2000. Ortiz is an adjunct faculty in creative writing and has also facilitated creative writing workshops with Los Angeles youth in juvenile detention facilities.

Ortiz's essays have appeared in esteemed publications such as The New York Times, The Nervous Breakdown, Literary Mama, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

Works

Upcoming Works

Books (Print)

• Hollywood Notebook. Writ Large Press. 2015.

Poetry (Print Journal)

• (Featured in) Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Greater L.A. Beyond Baroque Books. 2015

Books

• Excavation: A Memoir. Future Tense Books. 2014.

Prose

Online

• "Two Stories". WhiskeyPaper. 2014.
• "Girlfriend". Vol. 1 Brooklyn. 2014.
• "Mudhoney". The Collapsar. 2014.
• "For the Love of Horror". Brain, Child. 2014.
• "I'm on Fire". Jaded Ibis Productions’ BLEED blog. 2014.
• "Listen". The Coachella Review. 2013.
• "As Mark Ruffalo Is My Witness...". The Nervous Breakdown. 2014.
  • This piece was also translated into Italian and published on the website Abbiamo Le Prove in 2014.
    • "Mark Ruffalo ha visto tutto". Abbiamo Le Prove. 2014.
• "On the Trail of Mary Jane". McSweeney's Internet Tendency. 2013-2014.
• "Minutes Are Just Seconds Aren’t Minutes”. Literary Mama. 2013.
• "Love Letter to Olympia #106". Litro Magazine. 2013.
• "The Not-Prenatal Vitamin". Mutha Magazine. 2013.
• "Pretty". The Nervous Breakdown. 2013.
• "Mix Tape". The Nervous Breakdown. 2013.
• "Spell". The Nervous Breakdown. 2013.
• "Field Notes". The Nervous Breakdown. 2013.
• "Research On the Imagination". The Nervous Breakdown. 2013.
• "The History of Led Zeppelin in My Pants". Split Lip. 2013.
• "It Only Takes One". Hedgebrook Farmhouse Table Blog. 2013.
• "Newly Wed and Quickly Unraveling". The New York Times. 2012.
• "Jumbo's". Specter: A Brooklyn-based Art Journal. 2012.
• "Interiors". PANK Magazine. 2012.
• "Black Car Land". Specter Magazine. 2011.

Print

• “Finding the Natural Way". California Prose Directory 2014. Outpost 19. 2014.
• "Chemical Wash". Red Light Lit, Vol. 6. 2014.
• “Metro Diaries”. Palabra: A Magazine of Chicano and Latino Literary Art. Issue 1, otoño. 2006
• "The Gentle Symbiosis". KNOCK 2/1. 2005.

Poetry

Online

• "Rogue Benediction". The Rumpus. 2014.
• “After Bzzzzzzz by Amy Gerstler”. Luna Luna. 2014.
• "Death Lament". The Rumpus. 2014.
• "Accused 1 and 2". Finery. 2014.
• "Luminous fossilized". Educe. 2014.
• "SLO". Educe. 2014.
• “Sweet”. Sweet: A Literary Confection'. 2009.
• "Driftwood Melody". Two Hawks Quarterly. 2008.
• "Some Scars". Blood Orange Review. 2008.
• "she creates a new life again"; "The women in my family"; "Operation"; "Sweet". womenwriters.net. 2005.
• “The women in my family”. Poetry Magazine. 2002.
• “Occupation”. Voices from the WTO. 2000.

Print

• "the names reserved for someone else". Spillway. 2013.
• "The Failed Hostage-Taker". Spillway. Issue 14. 2010.
• "Initiation". Spillway. Issue 14. 2010.
• “Olympia”. Cranky. Issue 5. 2005.
• “Exhibit A”. Eclipse: A Literary Journal. 2005.
• “Deeply”. Bedwetter.
• “Plum Pout”. Calapooya. 2002.
• “Tender Machine”. 4th Street. 2001.
• “Occupation”. Voices from the WTO. 2000.

Journalism

Works In Progress

Book Reviews

• “Medicine Stories”. Works In Progress. 1999.
• “Elizabeth Martinez and Angela Y. Davis”. Works In Progress. 1999.

Interviews

• “Outlaw Poverty, Not Prostitutes!: Interview with Scarlot Harlot - Part 2”. Works In Progress. 1999.
• “Interview with Prostitute Rights Activist and Whore, Scarlot Harlot - Part 1”. Works In Progress. 1999.

Articles

• “Give Us Your Social Change”. Works In Progress. 1998.
• “Local Pro-Choice Forces Assert Rights of Women”. Works In Progress. 1998.
• “Revolutionary Manuals 101; One Woman’s Perspective”. Works In Progress. 1998.
• “Building Bridges Toward True Coalitions.”. Works In Progress. 1998.
• “RAMP’s Second Public Screening Brings Anti-Choicers Out of the Woodwork”. Works In Progress. 1998.
• “Hate Television? Make Your Own Damn Programming!”. Works In Progress. 1998.
• “Critical Mass: The Movie!”. Works In Progress. 1998.
• “Raising the Spirit of Affirmative Action”. Works In Progress. 1997.
• “To the Radical Women of Color in Olympia: An Invitation”. Works In Progress. 1997.
• “I Don’t Worship the Goddess, I’m Not Anti-Porn and I Wanna Be A Boxer—Can I Still Be Allowed in the Feminist Spectrum?”. Works In Progress. 1997.

Interviews for The Rumpus

• Interview with Eloise Klein Healy. The Rumpus. 2013.
• Interview with Louise Mathias. The Rumpus. 2013.
• Interview with Paul of Captain Pete's Bait & Tackle. The Rumpus. 2013.

Achievements and awards

• Finalist, the William Allen Creative Nonfiction Prize of The Journal, the literary magazine of The Ohio State University, April 2006.
• Co-editor and co-publisher of Lounge Lit: An Anthology of Poetry and Fiction by the Writers of Literati Cocktail and Rhapsodomancy. Los Angeles: LitRhap Press, 2005.
• Finalist, University of Arizona Poetry Center Summer Residency, 2003.
• Fellowship to Idyllwild Summer Poetry Program, July 2003.
• Finalist for the Firebox Fiction/Fifty-Fifty Award, Night Train magazine, Summer 2002.
• Invited to teach “The Language of Inclusion,” a one-time workshop, co-sponsored by the Students of Color Anthology at The Evergreen State College, as part of The Campus Week of Dialogue on Race, a national initiative sponsored by President Clinton’s One America, October 2000.
• Self-published Zine Freefeeder cataloged at State University of New York at Buffalo, Yale, and the Ruel Gaviola Zine Collection at University of California, Santa Barbara.
• 1993 Dutton’s Short Story Award, Los Angeles Valley College for fiction.

Interviews and book reviews of Wendy C. Ortiz

• Review by Amy Silverberg. Los Angeles Review of Books. 2014.
• “’Excavation’ digs up memories of an illicit child-teacher relationship”. LA Times. 2014.
• “Episode 312 – Wendy C. Ortiz”. Otherppl. 2014.
• “The ‘Excavation’ of Author Wendy Ortiz”. YAY! LA Magazine. 2014.
• “Small Press Spotlight: Wendy C. Ortiz”. Critical Mass. 2014.
• Press Play Interview with Madeleine Brand. KCRW. 2014.
• “Behind The Story - Wendy C. Ortiz”. UCR Palmdesert. 2013.
• “Writer, with Kids: Wendy C. Ortiz”. Cari Luna. 2014.
• "Let's Just Do This: Eleven Small-Press Authors and their Publishing Partners". Poets & Writers. 2014.
• Interview with Brian Kornell. PANK magazine. 2014.
• Interview with Milcah Halili Orbacedo. Literary Kitchen. 2014.
• “Book Notes – Wendy C. Ortiz. ‘Excavation’”. Largehearted Boy. 2014.
• “YOU MAKE ME FEEL”. Entropy. 2014.
• Book Talk podcast with Kory French. Break Thru Radio. 2014.
• Interview with Sarah Einstein. Brevity. 2014.
• Interview with Lauren Eggert-Crowe. Midnight Breakfast. 2014.
• “Creative Ladies: Wendy C. Ortiz”. Welcome To Ladyville. 2014.
• “Her Flaming Fingers: Wendy C. Ortiz and Rhapsodomancy”. Los Angeles Review of Books. 2014.
• Interview with Sarah McCarry. The Rejectionist. 2014.
• “Wendy C. Ortiz & Kristina Wong are Awesome”. Cultural Weekly. 2014.
• “Afternoon Bites: Emily Gould Interviewed, New Swans, Alan Lomax in Michigan, and more”. Volume 1 Brooklyn. 2014.
• Interview with Karly Little. Lunch Ticket. 2014.
• “’Beautifully Disturbing’: An Interview with Wendy C. Ortiz”. Specter Magazine. 2013.
• Interview with Antonia Crane. ZYZZYVA blog. 2013.

External links

• Official website
• Rhapsodomancy homepage