Juanita E. Mantz

Juanita E. Mantz (“JEM”) is a USC Law educated lawyer, writer, performer, and podcaster who believes writing has the power to change the world.

Juanita is a creative nonfiction writer who has 2 books, a YA memoir titled "Tales of an Inland Empire Girl" (Los Nietos Press, Jan 2022) that won a bronze medal at the 2023 Latino Books to Movies Award and a hybrid chapbook titled "Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender, or how I became a punk rock lawyer" (Bamboo Dart Press, Aug 2021) which was awarded a gold medal at the International Latino Book Awards for best first book, nonfiction English.

She was awarded a 2023 Individual Artist Fellowship at the established artist range from the California Arts Council.

She is an alumni of the VONA and Macondo workshops and has presented at UCR Writers' Week, the Tomás Rivera Conference, the UCR Punk Conference, Pasadena LitFest, AWP & Beyond Baroque. She produced and taught the ASA 2020 Freedom Course on Combatting Mass Incarceration.

She is in the low residency MFA creative writing program at UNO and was named the 2022 writer in residence at Pasadena City College.

Check out her video podcast, "Life of JEM" where she does live interviews with writers. It's available on Apple Podcasts and on Amazon.

Find her on twitter @lifeofjem, on IG @lifeofjem1 and read her blog at http://wwwlifeofjemcom-jemmantz.blogspot.com. Listen to her Life of JEM podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-of-jem/id1700562573

Find everything on her author website: https://juanitaemantz.com