Check out our ongoing Senior Project Anthology featuring samples from student senior projects
Adrianna (Gummy) Procida, ’27, was featured in this local news story.
Selena Cordar, ’23, was accepted into Cal State Fullerton’s Masters program in Communications!
And Masa Shah, ’22, was accepted into Cal State Fullerton’s Masters program in Clinical Psychology!
Emma Garcia, ’22, was accepted to the funded MFA program at Georgia College and State University! Before that, she received the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Scholarship (Artistic Expression), had poems recently published in The Sandpiper Review, was a finalist for the Hollins University Literary Festival contest for her poem “Summer Reservoir”–and, too, was the winner of the 2021 ULV undergraduate creative writing contest (chosen by alum Margo Cash) for her poems “Dear Miss Garcia,” “The Traveler,” and “When I Said I Hate You,” all of which were subsequently published in Prism Review.
Sierra-Nicole DeBinion ’19 is an MFA (fiction) candidate at Antioch University Los Angeles, frequently contributing to Antioch’s great “Antioch Voices” series through wonderful posts like this one about self-love.
Hannah Schultz, ’20: Hannah completed her MFA at Long Beach State … and won the Atlantis Award through the poet’s billow! (She has already had poems in Slipstream and the Cultural Weekly.)
Grayson Ruyak, a current student, had five poems accepted by Eunoia Review!
Kendra Pintor (nee Craighead), ’18, just had her story “The Mahanas” published in Lunch Ticket‘s Amuse-Bouche in November ’21…and her story “The Sluagh” was published via The CRAFT Literary Magazine in January 2022–and they’ve since nominated it for including in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Good luck, Kendra! (All this in addition to poems published in Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Sagebrush Review, Barking Sycamores, and Sucarnochee Review, and has contributed numerous articles to Inland Empire Magazine. ) Kendra was also admitted to the 2022 Juniper Summer Writing Institute, a prestigious week-long immersion into writing with some of the best writers in the country.
Gabriela Ramos, ’19: in summer 2022, Gaby will also be going to the 2022 Juniper Summer Writing Institute (Go Leopards!). In winter 2022, Gaby had their poem “holes.” accepted by the esteemed literary journal Pleiades. In fall 2020, Gaby began working in Mississippi for the Teach for America program. In 2018, their literary essay “Healthcare” not only won the 2018 ULV undergraduate creative writing contest (chosen by judge Abby Chew) and was published in Prism Review #20 … and was a finalist for the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research (Creative Expression) … and garnered them a scholarship to the Juniper Summer Writing Institute … and was one of two runners-up in the national AWP Kurt Brown Prize for Creative Non-Fiction. Judge Elizabeth Silver wrote, “This was an innovative look into family remedies in medicinal settings as a means of telling the narrator’s story. A strong entryway into memoir/essay. The voice is at once tactile and entertaining and leaps off the page.”
John Abbasi, ’16, had his story “Angel Hair” recently published by ANMLY. In 2018, he completed his MFA in fiction at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University; in 2016, he won the ULV undergraduate creative writing contest for his story “Darling Young Boy” (judged by Corinna Vallianatos) and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research (Creative Expression). In spring 2020, he returned to ULV and to teach CWRT 204: Intro to Prose.
Krista Nave, ’20: her poem “Justice Favors Fortune” was published in issue 4 of The Exposition Review, and she read at their launch party at Skylight Books (sort of pictured above in profile).
Aimee Campos, ’19, had her first story accepted by Mosaic Art & Literary Journal *and*, in fall 2020, began her graduate studies in the Mount St. Mary’s MFA program.
Cheyenne Avila, ’19 (pictured left, reading at La Plaze de Cultura y Artes) had her first book, I Will Forget These Poems but Never the Way They Healed Me, published in 2019. In fall 2020, she’s beginning her studies in the UC-San Diego MFA program. While at ULV, she competed at the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (2016, 2017), the Southern Fried Poetry Slam (17, 18), and won the 2017 undergraduate creative writing contest for her essay “The House on Ellburg Street,” judged by Kevin Riel. In 2018, her poems “Ekphrasis for ‘Gathering of Women’ by Tamara Adams” (Bird’s Thumb) and “Brujeria and Bonnets: A Brown Girl’s Guide to Decolonization and Self-Actualization” (Crack the Spine Literary Magazine) were accepted for publication, and she won Cultural Weekly’s Jack Grapes Poetry Prize, as chosen by judge Rocío Carlos.
Guadalupe Robles, ’17: in 2018, her translation (from Spanish to English) of Gabriel Chávez Casazola’s Persistencia de los tatuajes was published by Valparaiso USA; in 2019, she translated Cheyenne Avila’s poems (English to Spanish) for the bilingual edition of I Will Forget These Poms but Never the Way They Healed Me. In 2017, her senior project was a finalist for the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research (Creative Expression), and in 2016 she won the ULV undergraduate creative writing contest (judged by Michelle Detorie).
Tabitha Lawrence, ’17, completed her MFA in the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University in 2020, and has had her work published in Los Angeles Review and elsewhere.