Gwendolyn Alley

A fourth generation Venturan, Gwendolyn Alley wrote her first books, stories, and poems at Mound Elementary. She attended a multitude of colleges before graduating with degrees in Environmental Studies & Literature/Creative Writing from UC Santa Cruz. For her senior thesis, she wrote a novel based on her experiences backpacking all 2800 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. For her Masters thesis in English from the University of Nevada Reno, she curated a show at Art City Gallery which featured her own artwork and poetry from her manuscript “Desert Dances.”

Gwendolyn’s current chapbook, “The ARTLIFE Poems” collects some three dozen works of art and poetry as published in ARTLIFE Limited Editions from 1996 to 2003. Current projects include a collection of her poems from the 315 experiment titled “Love and Terror at 315am,” an anthology of 315 poetry with other 315 poets (En Theos Press 2006), and a CD with Jeff Kaiser (Angry Vegan).

A City of Ventura Literary Arts Fellow for 2005, Gwendolyn teaches writing at Ventura College, hosts “Spoken Word Salon” at Zoey’s Café in downtown, leads yoga classes, and lives in Midtown with her husband Marshall, her son Reed, and her cat Marcel Duchamp. Reach her at gwendolynalley@yahoo.com.