We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Juanita E. Mantz (JEM) a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Juanita E. , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I knew I wanted to be a writer as a young girl. I learned to read at 3 and was reading novels in elementary school, and would imagine myself as one of the characters. As a kid, I would often daydream of being a novelist or a screenwriter. And yes, I forgot about my creativity for a while in my pursuit of a law degree, but I ended up being exactly what I always wanted to be.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I started writing my memoir “Tales of an Inland Empire Girl” (Los Nietos Press, 2021) fifteen years ago when my father died suddenly. It’s about my path from straight A student to high school punk rock dropout to USC Law. When my dad died, I was a corporate lawyer in San Francisco and dropped everything and moved home to the Inland Empire area of Southern California.. Soon, I realized my life as a corporate lawyer was not me, especially with my history, and I became a deputy public defender in Riverside representing the most voiceless of populations. The government job allowed me some breathing space and I started going to summer workshops. I found my writing voice just about when I found my career path.
Flash forward to the pandemic which stressed public defenders to the limit and I started writing about my job which resulted in a hybrid chapbook titled “Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender or how I became a punk rock lawyer” which is about the horrors of mass incarceration, the intersection with punk rock and how my high school dropout story is my magic wand as a deputy public defender. That book came out in 2021 before the longer memoir and started the magical journey I’m on.
Right around the same time, I decided to convert my decades long Life of JEM blog into a podcast which started out with me reading my own stories then morphed into me interviewing writers and creatives. Now, I still work full time as a deputy public defender in the mental health arena while managing a writing, performing and podcasting career. I’m also working on converting my two books to the stage and screen in my part time creative writing online MFA program at the University of New Orleans.
Everything is kind of hitting right now. I’m super busy but I love it. It’s a dream come true to be part of the literary community. As a little girl, I would sit in the park and read my books and dream of writing my own one day, and here I am.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Resilience is my whole image. The fact that I dropped out of high school at seventeen, took my GED and moved out on my own and then worked my way waitressing for years through junior college then UC then USC Law, is a testament to redemption. I used that same determined spirit when I was writing my memoir “Tales of an Inland Empire Girl” (which is a finalist for the 2023 Latino Books to Movies Award). Resilience is about perseverance and visualization and my dad, who grew up dirt poor in Montana and always wanted to own a bar and did, taught me to dream.
For my book, I just took it one story at at a time over a decade. Then when I was trying to find a publisher, I didn’t give up and through one of my reading performances, I met my press and then spent two or three more years revising it. And then In 2022, it became a reality.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My goal is to first be true to myself and to write with honesty and bravery. But it’s also to have my voice break through and that’s what the performing and podcasting is about. My two books both try and show how everyone deserves a second chance, and that’s the message I have for the world, that change and redemption is possible. My books are written for the outsiders, the outcasts, the rebels and the punks to show your first act is not your last.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://juanitaemantz.com/
- Instagram: @lifeofjem1
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LifeOfJem
- Twitter: @lifeofjem
- Other: None