Stephanie Mood

Stephanie Mood has a Master's Degree in English and French from Ball State University. She

served two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia, and she currently offers the English

Department's Community Service Learning course. Her writing career has included national

publications in poetry and popular essays as well as short fiction, and she has taught Creative

Writing since 1977. In recent years, her main emphasis of study has been in Native American

Literatures, specifically tying in with the oral tradition. In her teaching, she stresses the

importance and power of stories, whether one is writing basic compositions, poetry or fiction.

QUOTABLES

"Image on a lasting page

the eyes of these words smile up

from paper to mine

but once the eye of the sun

winked at me and

the bowl of the universe around my small head

blinked off like a switch

stopping the day

dying the day

and any words I might say."

(from "Oregon Eclipse")

ON WRITING:  "Writing is an act of discovery and creativity.  Writing leads you to places you

never would have thought of had you not sat down to write about something."

Link to Stephanie Mood's website: http://www.grossmont.edu/stephanie.mood/

Gary Phillips

Gary Phillips has a B.S. in Business Administration and M.A. English, emphasis in Creative

Writing, both from San Diego State University.  In addition to being the Chair, he teaches

Creative Writing, Fiction Writing and Novel Writing, as well as a range of other writing courses

within the English Department:  English 103; English 110; English 122; and English 124.  His

publications include Homeward Bound, a novel; A Dog's Dignity, a work in progress; and The

Brainard Journal: Mission to the Cherokees 1817-1823, which he co-authored with wife, Joyce

Phillips.

Link to Gary Phillips website: http://www.grossmont.edu/garyphillips/

Julie Cardenas

A native of Sacramento, Julie Cardenas has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Spanish

from California State University, Sacramento and a Masters Degree in English from the

University of San Diego.  Prior to teaching, she worked in the California Governor’s Office of

Community Relations for two years. Her writing career includes the publication of news and

feature articles, poetry, and short fiction.  Additionally, she has edited a variety of professional

newsletters and trade journals, and she served as the faculty advisor of a college newspaper

for two years before coming to Grossmont. She has taught Creative Writing for five years and

is the faculty advisor of the campus literary magazine Acorn Review.

QUOTABLES

Across the plaza men clink wine bottles

and laugh boisterously.

They stand, arms linked,

then blend into a tableau of red and white

on the next street

where clusters of men, women and children

press forward,

their voices shrill,

a clamor of languages.

(from "Pamplona")

ON WRITING:  "Writing creatively is an exciting, worthwhile experience. You should relax, have

a good time, and prepare to trust your imagination as an indispensable and trustworthy

friend."

Link to Julie Cardenas's website:  http://www.grossmont.edu/julie.cardenas/

Ryan Griffith

Ryan Griffith received an MA degree in Creative Nonfiction from Fresno State and an MFA

degree in Creative Writing from San Diego State.  His stories and poems have appeared in

several literary journals and received numerous awards, including the 1997 Editor’s Choice

prize for best fiction in The Beacon Street Review and an Honorable Mention award in the 1995

Raymond Carver Short Story Contest.  Most recently, he was a contributor to The Lounge on

KPBS radio, where he read stories as part of The Midnight Pharmacy series.

Link to Ryan Griffith's website: http://www.grossmont.edu/facultyweb/griffith.asp

Sydney Brown

A native San Diegan, Sydney Brown received her MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State

University. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in several literary journals, and her short

fiction, "One Marriage in Three Acts," which appeared in the Southern Anthology, was

nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Before coming to Grossmont, Sydney served as Business

Manager for Poetry International, Assistant Editor of Fiction International, and collaborated on

a popular Reading Series for The Writing Center, a nonprofit literary arts organization, which

featured San Diego's African-American Writers and Artists and the Taco Shop Poets, as well as

visiting writers including Quincy Troupe, Jane Hirshfield, Anne Lamott, Steve Kowit, Tillie

Olsen, and George Plimpton.

QUOTABLES

"Forgive me if I say

there is something

flesh-like for the imagination

in the catastrophic, in the untimely

death of a stranger.

There are words for the people

we do not love;

there are words for the people

we hardly know,

room for similes

otherwise lost

in the heart's broken English."

(from "Makeshift Memorials")

ON WRITING:  "One of the terrible divisions in the world is between those who are drawn to the

difficult things and those who give up. They are the ones who become the censors."--Steve

Wasserman

Link to Sydney Brown's website:  http://www.grossmont.edu/sydneybrown/

Karl Sherlock

Karl Sherlock teaches English 160, English 126, and English 219: Views of Death and Dying in

Literature. His degrees include a Master of Arts in English from the University of Wisconsin,

Milwaukee, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Irvine. In addition to

being an Academy of American Poets prize winner, he has worked under such writers as Eavon

Boland, Milton Kessler, James Liddy, James McMichael, Sherod Santos, Alan Shapiro and

others. Poems from his book-length manuscript, The Forthright Wishes Of the Dead, have

appeared in a variety of journals, including The Jacaranda Review, Dickinson Review, South

Coast Poetry Journal, The Alsop Review, and in gay writers journals such as The James White

Review. His play, Things I’m Afraid Of, was scripted into a short film in 1992. His most recent

dramatic work, The Suicide Clause, is currently being considered for production.

QUOTABLES

"We all discover early on, one's

own words are clearer, more deeply

felt and discerned. That's why, drained of heart

and self and speech, somehow my instinct

knows well enough to fold my hands

against my ear at night, let slumber

be what it is, a chance

to listen to my prayers,

a chance to answer what's

larger than my self,

but smaller than God."

(from "Echo")

ON WRITING:  "We are, all of us, egotistical to think that anything we have to say through our

creation is worth the public’s attention (thank goodness)."

Link to Karl Sherlock's website:  http://www.grossmont.edu/karl.sherlock