Sandra R. Curtis

Sandra Curtis is a producer, educator and writer who has created a distinguished body of work across media. Her company XenoQuest Media (XQM) recently received a NASA Education/Public Outreach grant to produce a series of short educational videos featuring the post space shuttle focus for NASA on Astrobiology and the search for life in the universe. XQM accompanied a team of scientists on an expedition entitled Bridging Planets to a remote lake in the Chilean Andes where they filmed the installation of the Planetary Lake Lander, a robotic prototype being developed for a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. Sandra is also in development on Ahoy Archimedes TM, a children’s science education television series with Raremink Productions and Sweet Dreams, a documentary with Thunderstone Films about a Rwandan reconciliation effort.

She has authored an eclectic set of titles in fiction, non-fiction, and academia including Gabriel’s Ark, Alice and Eleanor, a Contrast in Style and Purpose, and The Joy of Movement in Early Childhood. Sandra wrote Zorro Unmasked, the Official History and seven Zorro novels. She initiated the project which attracted internationally acclaimed author Isabel Allende as its author, Zorro, a Novel and its Young Readers extension, Young Zorro: The Iron Brand. She edited a series of new Zorro short stories by contemporary authors, Tales of Zorro, as well as Zorro comics, graphic novels, and two years of a comic strip series.

Following her long career as Senior Vice President at Zorro Productions, Inc. where she was head of Creative Development, Sandra served as Chief Innovations Officer for the Mexican Heritage Corporation. The films The Mask of Zorro and The Legend of Zorro were produced during her years at Zorro. Past television productions include Zorro: la Espada y la Rosa, 122 hour episodes of a Spanish language telenovela and Zorro: Generation Z, a modern day animated Zorro. Sandra served as an Executive Producer of the Olivier award winning Zorro, the Musical featuring an original score by The Gypsy Kings which premiered on London's West End. The show is now touring internationally.

Sandra earned her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and taught at Cal and San Francisco State prior to becoming a founding member of a children's edutainment software company.