Offri un caffè a Juanita E. Mantz (JEM)

Writer, creative, playwright, memoirist, attorney, teacher, blogger, performer & podcaster! All around music loving punk/post punk girl who loves coffee. Buy me an espresso!

I am the author of 2 books, Tales of an Inland Empire Girl (Los Nietos Press 2022) & Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender or how I became a punk rock lawyer (Bamboo Dart Press 2021), which won a gold medal at the 2022 International Latino Book Awards for best first book in English, nonfiction. I am a alum of the Macondo Workshop and VONA. I have performed at AWP, UCR Writers' Week, the UCR Punk Conference, Pasadena LitFest & Beyond Baroque. I was the 2022 writer in residence at Pasadena City College. I have been published in numerous magazines/newspapers, literary journals and anthologies. I produced the 2020 ASA Freedom Course on combatting mass incarceration. I am in the low res MFA program at UNO where I am adapting my memoir into a stage play. I am available for speaking engagements.

note: this account is only for my work as a creative.