Wanda's Picks Radio Show 13 December 2012

Dominic D’Andrea is the founder and producing artistic director of the One-Minute Play Festival (OMPF), where he has led close to 30 national festivals in partnerships with many theatres throughout the country. Notable OMPF contributors have included: Jose Rivera, David Henry Hwang, Neil LaBute, Donald Margulies, Jason Grote, Tina Howe, Phillip Kan Gotanda, Craig Lucas, Kristoffer Diaz, Rajiv Joseph, Migdalia Cruz, Nilaja Sun, Lydia Diamond, along with over 400 others.  He was a 2012 NewYorkTheatre.com person of the year.

Elizabeth Gjelten, joins Dominic in the studio. Her previous full-length plays include What the Birds Carry (at The Pear Avenue Theater) and Dance Lessons (at the Working Women Festival and Venue 9). She received her MFA in playwriting from San Francisco State University, taught writing for performance at New College, and continues to teach as an artist/mentor to graduate students and incarcerated youth.

An award-winning dancer, international choreographer, and accomplished playwright, Robert Henry Johnson has enjoyed the support of the San Francisco Bay Area black arts community since he was very young.He is the recipient of the 2001 Bay Area Critics Circle Award for his choreography in Thick House's production of The Seven written by Will Power, the 1998 Union Bank's Citizen of the Year Award.

Rafael Jesús González (rjgonzalez.blogspot.com) was born (October 10, 1935) and raised in the bicultural/bilingual environment of El Paso, Texas, U.S.A./Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico with family on both sides of the Río Grande. Just graduated from El Paso High School, he joined the U.S. Navy in the hospital corps and served in the Marine Corps with the rank of Staff Sergeant. At the end of his military service, he attended the University of Texas, El Paso (then Texas Western College of the University of Texas) in pre-med taking time to attend the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México where he studied archaeology y Mexican literature. He resides in Berkeley, California.

During this time, he published his first poems and academic articles in English and Spanish. On receiving the bachelor’s he decided to dedicate himself to literary studies which he did under a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a National Education Act Fellowship. He did his graduate studies at the University of Oregon.

As professor of literature and creative writing, he has taught at the University of Oregon, Western State Collage of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas, El Paso (as Visiting Professor of Philosophy), and at Laney College, Oakland, California where he founded the Department of Mexican and Latin-American Studies. He also has taught in the public elementary and high schools under the Poets in the Classroom program. His poetry and academic articles appear in reviews and anthologies in the U. S., Mexico, and abroad; his collection of poems El Hacedor De Juegos/The Maker of Games published by Casa Editorial, San Francisco (1977-78) went through two editions. He has been nominated thrice for a Pushcart price. A selection of his moon poems, La musa lunática/The Lunatic Muse was published by Pandemonium Press, Berkeley, California in 2009.

In 1996, he was named Poet in Residence at the Oakland Museum of California and the Oakland Public Library under a ‘Writers on Site Award’ from Poets & Writers, Inc. and was chosen for the Annual Award for Literary Achievement by Dragonfly Press in 2002. In 2003, he was honored by the National Council of Teachers of English and Annenberg CPB for his writing. He was named featured poet by the San José Poetry Center, San José, California the fall of 2005. In November of 2005, he was invited to read his poetry and present a paper at the World Congress of Poets in Tai’an, Province of Shandong, China. In July 2006 he was named Universal Ambassador of Peace, Universal Ambassador Peace Circle, Geneva, Switzerland. In Spring 2007 he presented a paper and read his poetry at the 8º Encuentro Literario Internacional aBrace in Montevideo, Uruguay and in Winter 2008 in Havana, Cuba. He was named representative of aBrace in California. In October of 2009 he was honored by the City of Berkeley for his life’s work in writing, art, teaching, activism for social justice and peace, and community work. He has been named recipient of the 2012 Dragonfly Press Award for Outstanding Literary Achievement. He currently sits on the Latino Advisory Council of the Oakland Museum of California.

We conclude with a conversation with Grammy-nominated Jazz vocalist, MARIA MULDAUR featuring her A-team of top-notch Jazz players, the Christmas Jazz All-Stars, in celebration of their new CD “Christmas at the Oasis” – recorded last year at The RRazz Room – present no overdone, pedestrian Christmas tunes here folks- only her special collection of swingin', rockin', hip, rare gems in the Blues and Jazz idioms! The show will run for two nights only Dec 15-16. Music: Alan Kimara Dixon's Appreciation & selections from Christmas at the Oasis.