Wendy Ortiz

Wendy C. Ortiz is a Los Angeles native. Her first book, Excavation: A Memoir, will be published by Future Tense Books in summer 2014. Her second book, Hollywood Notebook, is forthcoming from Writ Large Press in 2014. She currently writes the monthly column "On the Trail of Mary Jane" about medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles for McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

Wendy holds an M.A. in Clinical Psychology and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. A Writer-in-Residence at Hedgebrook in 2007 and 2009, Wendy is also co-founder and curator of the Rhapsodomancy Reading Series at the Good Luck Bar in Hollywood. She has read at various venues, including Secret City in Los Angeles, RADAR Reading Series (San Francisco), LitCrawl L.A.: NoHo, the West Hollywood Book Fair (Los Angeles), The Knitting Factory (Los Angeles), World Stage (Los Angeles), the Echo Park Poetry Festival (Los Angeles) and the first Ladyfest in Olympia, Washington in 2000. Wendy has written op-eds for The Olympian and the Los Angeles Times, as well as numerous articles for Works In Progress in Olympia, Washington.

Wendy is an adjunct faculty in creative writing and has also facilitated creative writing workshops with Los Angeles youth in juvenile detention facilities. While living in Olympia, Washington, she was a mudwrestler, library worker, and editor and publisher of 4th Street, a handbound literary journal. Wendy received a B.A. in Liberal Arts from The Evergreen State College in 1995 and lived in Olympia, Washington for eight years before returning to Los Angeles.

Wendy is at work on a book based on her Modern Love essay published in The New York Times, as well as a poetry collection. She writes, parents, and works as a marriage and family therapist intern in Los Angeles.