(author photo credit: Monica Orozco, demonica photo) Wendy’s zine from the 1990s, Freefeeder, is archived at the Ruel Gaviola Zine Collection at University of California at Santa Barbara Bowling Green State University SUNY at Buffalo and Yale University. The Special Collections and Archives Department at the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley, Brownsville Campus invited Wendy to archive personal materials in their Living Writers Archive in March 2017. Wendy has read and spoken at a number of universities including UC San Diego, UCR Palm Desert Low Residency MFA, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, UC Santa Barbara, Eastern Illinois University, CSU Chico, CSU Fresno, Santa Monica College, Northwestern University, Riverside Community College, and the University of San Francisco. Wendy is a recipient of a Tin House writing residency (Fall 2022) and two writing residencies at Hedgebrook (20). In 2015 she adapted a short play from her essay “Spell” for One Axe in collaboration with and directed by Meera Menon ( Farah Goes Bang, Equity).

Wendy is a psychotherapist in private practice in Los Angeles. Her “Urban Liminal” series of texts appear alongside signature graphic representations of the projects of Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects in the book Amplified Urbanism (2017). Her writing has appeared in such venues as The New York Times, Joyland, StoryQuarterly, and a year-long series appeared at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. She is the author of Excavation: A Memoir ( Future Tense Books, 2014), Hollywood Notebook ( Writ Large Press, 2015), and the dreamoir Bruja ( CCM). In 2016 Bustle named her one of “9 Women Writers Who Are Breaking New Nonfiction Territory.” Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The Rumpus, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the National Book Critics Circle Small Press Spotlight blog. Ortiz was born and raised in Los Angeles.

Excavation wendy ortiz