Judy Juanita's Biography

Novelist, poet and playwright. Debut novel about the gradual radicalization of a young black woman in the black power movement of the 60s published by Viking in 2013. Many parts excerpted in Crab Orchard Review, November 3rd Club, Imagination and Place: an anthology, and Rooms.

A play, “Theodicy,” first runner-up of 186 plays in the Eileen Heckart 2008 Senior Drama Competition at Ohio State University, where the play was featured in March 2008.

Another play, “Counter-Terrorism,” produced at The Marsh, SF, in November 2008, and Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2004. “Knocked Up,” a commedia dell’Arte about the morning-after pill, toured periodically from 1993-2006 with the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Another play, “Heaven’s Hold,” produced at Brava! Theatre, SF, and the National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Many short plays produced at the Julia Morgan Theatre in Berkeley, under the auspices of Woman’s Will, the Bay Area’s all-female Shakespearean company.

Poetry in Obsidian II, 13th Moon, Croton Review, The Passaic Review, Lips, New Verse News, Poetry Monthly, Drumrevue 2000 and Painted Bride Quarterly.

Two New Jersey Arts Council Fellowships for poetry and an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University. Taught writing at Laney College, Oakland, and SFSU.