MOUNT VOICES • "Prithee, Let Us Rock This Jointe"

EDITOR IN CHIEF
Ileanna Portillo

Ileanna is excited to take on the challenge of editing this literary magazine. She loves reading what people her age are writing these days, what provokes them, what inspires them. As for inspiration, Ileanna looks to E.E. Cummings for something unique and to Hemingway when she needs a dose of the ugly truth. She is currently a junior but is already planning what to do after graduation. She will go to graduate school and get her MFA in creative writing. After that she will find something to do in the publishing world. In her spare time, Ileanna enjoys novels, preferably something a little scandalous, and spending time with her boyfriend and little brother. Her first love is writing, though, and perhaps one day she will see something she wrote in print. Ileanna lives in Riverside, California when she is not toiling away at the Mount.

FICTION EDITOR
Natalie Gutierrez

Natalie L. Gutierrez is a senior at Mount St. Mary's College. She is double majoring in English and History, with expectations of graduating in the spring of next year. She plans on getting a Master's Degree in Creative Writing and would ultimately like to attain a Ph.D in literature. Writing is an indispensable part of her life, for which she is quite grateful for. Reading is a true passion of hers and she enjoys reveling in the brilliance that is classic literature. She brings with her lessons she's learned from the rapturous Carpe Diem Poets, the mystical Romantics, and the liberated Beats, all of which have greatly influenced her writing. She looks forward to reading and editing the work of the future generation of writers and is avid at the thought of partaking in such a project as this.

NONFICTION EDITOR
Erica Graham

Erica Graham is currently a junior at Mount St. Mary’s College double majoring in English and Spanish. Erica enjoys reading the works of Joseph Conrad, Flannery O'Conner, Tillie Olsen and on occassion, a good murder mystery. Although Erica enjoys reading novels and works of her favorite authors, she finds the most joy in reading editorial and opinion pieces. Erica stays busy with school, work and contributing as the non-fiction editor of the Mount Voices Literary Magazine. For fun, she enjoys going to the beach, discovering new, quirky restaurants and traveling to new places. Erica is originally from Denver, Colorado and loves to visit home often, especially in the winter when she misses the snow. She plans to work as a Speech Pathologist after attending graduate school.

ART EDITOR
Kathleen Araiza

Entering her second year at the Mount, Kathleen Araiza is more than ready to be a part of such a thriving magazine where fellow young writers are able to display their literary talents. When it comes to her own taste in literature, Kathleen is able to achieve catharsis when reading Sylvia Plath, a feeling of sensuality and heritage through Pablo Neruda and Sandra Cisneros, and an insight into human nature through Harper Lee. Kathleen is a double major in English and art. When she isn’t reading about Jackson Pollock, she is reading work by Truman Capote and when she isn’t documenting life with her camera, she’s writing about it. After the Mount, Kathleen plans to attend graduate school and receive a doctorate in art history. Her career goals fall between becoming a curator of an art museum or a writer for an art magazine. Kathleen loves being around friends and family and finds great comfort in small art galleries and record stores.

ADVISOR
Marcos M. Villatoro

Novelist and poet Marcos Villatoro teaches Creative Writing at Mount St. Mary's College. He's the author of the crime fiction series featuring FBI Agent Romilia Chacón (Minos, A Venom Beneath the Skin) His personal favorite is the autobiographical novelThe Holy Spirit of My Uncle's Cojones. He and his wife Michelle have four children and live in the San Fernando Valley. You can read his column "Sunset Y Chavez" in Tu Ciudad Los Angeles Magazine as well as hear his essays and stories on National Public Radio. 60 years after his Salvadoran mother and Appalachian father bought their Harley and rode it across the United States, from San Francisco to Tennessee, Marcos finally got his.