State Senator Anthony Portantino represents California’s 25th State Senate District, which stretches along the 210 Freeway from Sunland/Tujunga to Upland. Priorities for Senator Portantino during his time in office have encompassed support for public education, awareness and treatment of mental health, and sensible gun control. His accomplishments include increasing funding for special education, banning the…
Maja Trochimczyk, PhD, is a Polish American poet, music historian, photographer, and non-profit director. She is the author/editor of eight books on music and Polish culture, five poetry volumes and four anthologies, most recently We Are Here: Village Poets Anthology (with Marlene Hitt, 2020). A former poet laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, she is the founder of Moonrise Press, President of the California State Poetry Society, Managing Editor…
Ron Koertge grew up in an agricultural area in an old mining town in Illinois, just across the Mississippi from St. Louis, Missouri. He received a BA from the University of Illinois and an MA from the University of Arizona. A prolific writer, Ron began publishing poetry in the sixties and seventies in such seminal…
Luis J. Rodriguez has written 16 multi-genre books, including the bestselling memoir Always Running and its sequel It Calls You Back. He founded Tia Chucha Press over thirty years ago. For forty years he has taught, given poetry readings, talks, and conducted healing circles in prisons, jails, and juvenile lockups. He has spoken at festivals, conferences,…
Pamela Shea is the ninth poet laureate of Sunland-Tujunga. Pam was raised in La Crescenta, studied at the University of Redlands, and has worked in the medical and fitness fields. She has a long history of community service, which she has combined with her writing. She finds inspiration in family and nature, as well as…
“Poetry has always been in my blood,” claims Dorothy who has been writing poetry since her teenage years. In 1970, Dorothy graduated from San Fernando Valley State College earning a B.A. in English. That same year she started her career with the County of Los Angeles, Department of Public Social Services, and retired after 34…
Joe DeCenzo grew up in Los Angeles and cultivated his passion for literature while attending the Los Angeles City College Theater Academy. His love of rhyme and meter led to his composition of The Ballad of Alley and Hawk which celebrates the playfulness of words. It is a long form narrative poem he describes as…
Linda Dove holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature and teaches college writing. She is an award-winning poet whose books include, In Defense of Objects (2009), O Dear Deer, (2011), This Too (2017), Fearn (2019) and the scholarly collection of essays, Women, Writing, and the Reproduction of Culture in Tudor and Stuart Britain (2000). Her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, the Robert H….
Kim Dower is the author of five collections of poetry: Air Kissing on Mars, “sensual and evocative . . . seamlessly combining humor and heartache,” (Los Angeles Times), Slice of Moon, “unexpected and sublime,” (“O” Magazine), Last Train to the Missing Planet, “poems that speak about the grey space between tragedy and tenderness, memory and loss, fragility and perseverance,” (Inaugural…
Elsa S. Frausto was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has lived in the Foothills with her family for over twenty years. She was the coordinator and host for Camelback Readings held at the Sunland-Tujunga Library. Elsa is a member of the Chuparosa Writers, volunteers at the Friends of the Library Bookstore and at the…
Grant Hier served as the inaugural poet laureate of Anaheim. Other honors include Prize Americana, the Nancy Dew Taylor Prize, the Kick Prize, and the World Refugee Day Courage Award. Poetry books are Untended Garden, The Difference Between, and Similitude. A volume of poetry and instruction, Practice: 394 Poems in 365 Days, is forthcoming. He co-authored with John Brantingham, Poet Laureate of…
Marlene was the first poet laureate of Sunland Tujunga. She has been a member of the Chupa Rosa Writers of Sunland-Tujunga and the Foothills since its inception in 1985. In addition to poetry chapbooks, anthologies and readings, she has authored a non-fiction book Sunland-Tujunga, from Village to City. She serves at the Bolton Hall Museum…