Schedule of Events

In TIME’s Person of the Week Podcast, successful Asian-American author  R.F Kuang, a vital voice in the publishing industry, comments on the myth of diversity in publishing. In short, she states that the myth suggests that publishers seek only diverse authors and viewpoints, when in reality publishers hold up a small handful of diverse authors on a pedestal and present them as “representation for all the rest.” (TIME) As a transgender woman, this issue is frustrating, but it also serves as motivation for me to write trans stories. SCENES FROM IRIDIANE is an anthology of scenes from a novel focused on gender and its connection to the environment. Set through the eyes of Saan and Ikari, IRIDIANE follows these two changed (trans) characters as they attempt to reconcile their relationship with their bodies amidst societies with rigid gender roles. Rooted in magic and fantasy, this selection explores the fluidity of identity, but also encourages the reader to draw parallels between the world of IRIDIANE and reality. Although these scenes are focused on critiquing our society, they are also intimate and personal. IRIDIANE is a story for trans and cis people, built off of real, authentic experiences. Through reading these scenes, my hope is that the reader learns to empathize with the other—through Saan and Ikari, I hope to bring an often untold perspective into the industry.

Nestled in between the lush strawberry fields and the golden dunes of the beach, the beautiful city of Oxnard is home to addicts, gang bangers, immigrants, and lower class citizens alike. Where other places may dwindle under these circumstances, Oxnard flourishes with the diverse group of people it is home to. La Ciudad a Través de Nuestros Ojos is a collection of short stories that follow the natives around the place they get to call home. The stories, collected through interviews and personal accounts, are narrative based fictional stories that allow the readers to experience what it is like to be a part of the Hispanic culture in the city of Chiques. This collection is inspired by Junot Diaz’s “Fiesta, 1980” “There, There” by Tommy Orange, Sandra Cisneros’ “The House on Mango Street,” and “In Limestone Country” by Scott Russell Sanders. 
Concentrated on voice and imagery, this collection of short stories delivers compelling and emotional authenticity while creating a genuine space for the reader. With themes of unity, family, and acceptance, La Ciudad a Través de Nuestros Ojos becomes a relatable adventure for those who choose to follow along. The purpose of this collection is to illuminate the beauty of Oxnard which is not found in its pristine, sterilized neighborhoods that dot the coastline, but in the run down areas where one might be afraid to visit after sundown. The essence of Oxnard is its people, and La Ciudad a Través de Nuestros Ojos encompasses that livelihood.  

 
The project that I settled on is a fictional piece that involves a long line of history, piracy and its practices, and geopolitics at the end. Pirates from Guernsey’s way of life survive for over six-hundred years (way beyond actual historical accuracy), and spell consequences of such a group continuing on for that long.
 
My goal that I had decided on for this project would be a challenge in my writing ability. In the way I've formatted my piece, it should slowly describe a large-scaled topic or thing while doling out limited information; similar to a mystery, without specific secrecy on the author's part.

The way I constructed the project involved writing in an epistolary format that would give multiple perspectives throughout a long range of time. I needed something that kept the guidelines of the capstone project, while being able to limit how much content I could put in. I considered poetry at the start, but was advised against it. In that time, I had finished Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and settled on an epistolary format to suit my needs.

Children and young adults have been experimenting with drugs, which is not a rare phenomenon. However, the recent emergence of social media has exposed them even younger and sooner. Teens are highly influenced by social media since their age group is the most impressionable and susceptible to peer pressure. Social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and now TikTok have shown celebrities and young adults engaging in risky behavior and partaking in drugs. These acts have now become not only glamorized but normalized drug use. The rise of influences and celebrity culture has also been part of this heavy exposure to drug use. Children and teens look up to their favorite celebrities and see them taking prescription drugs, marijuana, and drinking, making these teens believe that they can do the same. Through this constant bombarding of drug use, teens have taken it upon themselves to start experimenting at younger ages. Obvious restriction of social media would be the only solution to reducing teen drug use. However, this social media impact has come very far, and expecting teens to stop their social media use would be a complicated issue to deal with. In this project, I will closely examine the war on drugs and its effects on the United States looking closely examining children and teenage drug use and providing a close look into the teenage mind and perspective from a small control group all composed of teenagers from Santa Maria, California.

When most people think of a book, they think of the content within, the stories generated by authors. But, the stories within are only a fraction of the essence given to a reader; the book, in a tangible sense, is a creation of knowledge and art. For centuries, books have superseded their authors, language, and generations by constantly, through time, remaining a resource of message and design. Books can journey through years of moderation yet simultaneously hold onto the purest forms of the past through their pages and bindings. A book has more significance than an author's initial story; a book is a portal into the past and a shining light toward the future. The Pages Of Our Past will highlight the importance of print culture through the modern age of technology and, hopefully, add a sense of value and significance to the physical sense of a book. 
 The Pages Of Our Past centers around print culture and the future of books through the modern age of media, and by utilizing a variety of scholarly sources, I expand on the history and future of print culture and how the adaptation of modern media displays a potential risk to authentic printed literature. As the reformation of print culture succumbs to technology, creating meaningful and authentic printed texts is vital. The future production of printed copies of books is essential to book culture; making tangible materials the most genuine process and is critical for the future of the novel and print culture.

Rancho Oro Verde is a collection of interrelated short stories that explores vocational identity formation through a tertiary familial–framework within the context of Southern California’s agriculture industry. The inspiration for these stories emerged from the tragic death of my grandfather—who operated an avocado orchard in Southern California for almost fifty years—and from the contentious relationship between my father and grandfather. The stories interrogate the effect of capitalism’s influence on loss and vocational identity, and challenge the Great Chain of Being by questioning the American perception of labor through a lens that is critical of capitalism. The narratives bring awareness to the history of land ownership and to the racialization of land usage within California’s natural resource industries from the perspective of white American, Mexican, and Indigenous populations. The portrayal of my grandfather’s character and the primary conflicts within the stories were developed out of an interview with my father, and my experience working at the avocado orchard helped to contextualize the stories within California’s agriculture industry. While Rancho Oro Verde places itself within the traditions of American Naturalism and the American farm novel, it simultaneously works to subvert these traditions. The narratives also make use of place writing conventions—modeled from Scott Russell Sanders’s In Limestone Country. Oil! by Upton Sinclair and the novel’s film adaptation, There Will Be Blood, serve as mentor texts that replicate the tertiary familial–framework. In its truest form, Rancho Oro Verde explores the intersectionality between vocation, labor, and loss within California.

Me, My Mother, and the In Between, shares a memoir about my upbringing as a first-generation child, intertwined with my mother's journey from the Philippines to the United States as a thirteen-year-old girl. From the age of twelve, the ever-growing question of my ethnic identity consumed me, as I grew up behind the white picket fences of the California suburbs. I lacked clarity about with whom and with what I should identify, a fear similar to that my mother experienced when she immigrated. I found myself split between my Filipino and Mexican cultural roots, and the American identity with which I lived. Typically, immigrant parents worry about the influence of the liberating American cultural ideals on their American-born children. However, my parents fully embraced these norms and raised my siblings and me to bleed “red, white and blue.” I believe this reflected their own personal struggle of assimilating to America; their efforts of “Americanizing” my siblings and me were more than successful! As I entered my teenage years, I realized that although I engaged with my white peers, my brown skin reminded me of who I was in their eyes. While I am more than grateful for the life my parents provided, I yearn to not only understand, but acknowledge and honor my ethnic roots. This memoir combines the oral history of my mother and my own self-reflection to tell the “in-between” that began half a century ago and seven thousand miles west of today.

Fairy tales have always been a fascinating subject for me, particularly after reading J.R.R. Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Tales." In this essay, he explains, “[Fairy tales] does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance,”. I wrote the short story, Roses Walk at Night, inspired by the fairy tale Snow White and Red Rose, with this wisdom in mind. In my story, I have tried to incorporate Tolkien's advice into the narrative, creating an empowering and enriching tale that addresses the sorrows and failures of our modern world.
Fairy tales have always been a means of representing values and morals that remain relevant even in contemporary times. The genre has used fantasy elements to create captivating stories that transport readers to new and exciting places. These stories provide a means of escaping reality, experiencing new possibilities, and exploring perspectives that are otherwise unknown. This is particularly essential to developing young minds that will grow to mediate social changes and issues within our society.
Moreover, fairy tales have been instrumental in fostering diversity in various social aspects. They have encouraged readers to embrace diversity and taught them to appreciate the differences. I hope to bring more of this diversity within my own story and captivate audiences with a range of ideals, morals, and social constructs that are absent in the voices of past retellings of fairy tales.