About Me

Rhapsodomancy was founded by Wendy C. Ortiz and Andrea Quaid, and began on Sunday October 17, 2004. It's running strong every other month at the Good Luck Bar in Hollywood. Rhapsodomancy features four poets, fiction writers and literary nonfiction writers. Rhapsodomancy consistently makes an effort to include new writers in the series. To join the email list and be notified of future events, please email rhapsodomancyla at yahoo dot com.

About co-founder and current curator Wendy C. Ortiz:
Wendy C. Ortiz is a Los Angeles native. She is currently a graduate student of psychology and marriage and family therapy trainee. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. Wendy was a 2007 and 2009 Writer-in-Residence at Hedgebrook. Recent and forthcoming publications include Spillway, Blood Orange Review, Palabra: A Magazine of Chicano and Latino Literary Art, Cranky, KNOCK, and Eclipse. She has read at various venues, including the West Hollywood Book Fair, The Knitting Factory, World Stage, the Echo Park Poetry Festival, and the first Ladyfest in Olympia, Washington in 2000. Wendy has been a creative writing teacher of Los Angeles youth in juvenile detention facilities, as well as a journalist, mudwrestler, library worker, and editor and publisher of a handbound literary journal. She received a B.A. from The Evergreen State College in 1995 and lived in Olympia, Washington for eight years before returning to Los Angeles. She is currently at work on various projects including a memoir and a poetry collection. Wendy is co-founder and curator of the Rhapsodomancy reading series.

About co-founder Andrea Quaid:
Andrea Quaid co-facilitates the Poetry and Politics Research Cluster and Reading Series at UCSC where she is a Ph.D. candidate in literature. Her work focuses on contemporary avant-garde movements, experimental writing, the urban city and gender. She earned an MFA in creative writing with an emphasis on poetry, and her publications include The Alembic, aPlod, Carquinez Poetry Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Fox Cry Review, Limestone, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Phantasmagoria, Prairie Winds, Rio Grand Review, South Carolina Review, Soundings East, West Wind Review, and Xavier Review. She is the co-founder of the Los Angeles reading series Rhapsodomancy and co-editor of Lounge-Lit: An Anthology of Poetry and Fiction by the Writers of Literary Cocktail and Rhapsodmancy. In addition to teaching within the university system, she has co-created and directed creative writing-education outreach programs throughout the greater Los Angeles area.