Juanita E. Mantz (JEM)
My blogs
| Gender | Female |
|---|---|
| Industry | Law |
| Occupation | Attorney Public Defender |
| Location | san bernardino, california |
| Introduction | JEM's life story is the stuff that memoirs are made of. JEM went from punk rock high school dropout to corporate lawyer to rock star deputy public defender and nonfiction writer. JEM's stories, blog and video podcast document her journey so take a look! Her YA memoir, "Tales of an Inland Empire Girl", is available via Los Nietos Press (and through all national retailers). Her book tells the poignant story of her chaotic YA life growing up in the IE. Her chapbook, "Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender, or how I became a punk rock lawyer", was also released in Aug 2021 by Bamboo Darts Press. JEM is married to her wonderful husband Adrian who is a dentist. They have two Shih Tzus, Frodo and Chewbaca (Chewie to his friends). Her work has been published in Aljazeera, The Acentos Review, The Dirty Spoon Radio Hour, Entropy, As/Us, Inlandia, & Mutha magazine, among others. Go to her author website for more info at https://juanitaemantz.com. JEM is in the creative writing MFA low residency program at UNO. She has presented at AWP, Beyond Baroque and the UCR Punk Conference. |
| Favorite movies | Too many to count, but here are some: Sid & Nancy, Dogs in Space, Ghostworld, Surburbia, Pulp Fiction, Central Station, Gone With The Wind, Coal Miner's Daughter, Tender Mercies, The Big Lebowski, Donnie Darko, anything by Quentin Tarintino and Nora Ephron |
| Favorite music | Smiths and Morrissey, The Pixies, The White Stripes, Siouxsie, NY Dolls, Iggy Pop, Bowie, Lou Reed, the Cure, Buzzcocks, Joy Division, X, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Sex Pistols, and anything from the 80's |
| Favorite books | OMG, as if I can pick just ten! But here are some of my favorites... Ulysses (Joyce), A Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz) , Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt), The Liar's Club (Mary Carr), Catfish and Mandalah (Andrew X. Pham), The Glass Castle (Walls), Bastard Out of Carolina (Dorthey Allison), A House on Mango Street (Cisneros), Bel Canto (Anne Pachett), Traveling Mercies (Anne Lamott), The Sparrow (Mary Russell) Fav Authors, James Joyce, V Woolfe, John Irving, Ann Patchett, Curtis Sittenfeld, Anne Lamott, Judy Blume, David Sedaris, Lisa See, Mary Carr, Sandra Cisneros, Dorothy Allison, Frank McCourt, Chuck Klosterman, Andrew Pham, Nick Hornby, Marian Keyes, Roddy Doyle and on and on.... |