Masters students Santa-Victoria Pérez (left) and Montéz Jennings (right) were acknowledged as emerging writers at the Literary Women Long Beach Festival of Authors. March 19. Left photo courtesy of Santa-Victoria Pérez, right photo courtesy of Montéz Jennings

Often-times, inspiration strikes during moments of calm. Writers will often have the light-bulb flicker over their head during long showers under hot water or sitting quietly in meditation. 

For Santa-Victoria Pérez, a third-year graduate student pursuing a dual master’s degree in English and creative writing, peace comes in the form of long road trips by herself. She told The Panther she even ventured six hours up to Yosemite to clear her head. 

“I don’t usually venture far, but Yosemite was cool, just in terms of getting there by sunrise,” Pérez said. “I actually pull over on the side of the road a lot (to write down ideas), which is why I needed to do it by myself.”

Pérez draws upon these moments of reflection in her work, building upon her youth and relationships with her family in San Pedro to convey honest stories. Similarly, Montéz Jennings, a second-year graduate student also in the English and creative writing dual master’s program, draws upon her upbringing in Baltimore, Maryland, and many of the collective experiences of its residents for her own writing.

Both Pérez and Jennings were nominated by Chapman faculty to be honored as emerging writers at the Literary Women Long Beach Festival of Authors March 19. Through a grant sponsored by the Port of Long Beach, Pérez and Jennings, along with five other writers from other Southern California institutions, were invited to attend the festival free of charge and be seated alongside featured authors. 

The announcement of their acknowledgement was a shock to the two master’s students, who were unaware that they were even being considered. 

“It was 100% a complete surprise, so when I got the email, I was like, ‘Holy smokes,’” Jennings said. “Talk about things coming together and being right where you’re supposed to be. It just made me feel good. Out of all these journeys I've had in life, it's all coming together — Rubik's Cube style.”

Associate English professor Jan Osborn, who also serves as community engagement liaison at Literary Women, told The Panther that in her seven years with the organization, the nonprofit has never opened the award up to applications. She also revealed the educational organization has a history of collaborating closely with the Chapman M.F.A. program to find who the faculty perceive as emerging writers. 

“Sometimes the people who apply (to these kinds of opportunities) are people who already have so much confidence; this for those people who don't apply,” Osborn said. “The festival is so beautiful in that the emerging writers sit at a table with one of the featured authors, they have lunch with them, they talk with them and they go hear their presentation. It's very intimate.”

Osborn said Pérez and Jennings were selected because of their cultural connections to language and heritage as well as the sense of community exhibited through their writing. 

“(Pérez and Jennings) are writing stories that are connected to a community; I think that's an interesting connection they share,” Osborn said. “It’s almost like they're inviting us into their experiences through these characters, in terms of culture, language and also gender.”

For Pérez, the thought of being a writer never occurred until she was completing her undergraduate degree in pre-med at Biola University. She took a creative writing elective where her professor told her she was meant to be a writer — not a doctor. 

“I thought he was crazy, but I changed my major that semester,” Pérez said. “I didn't think anything of the stories that I was writing, but I really trusted his mentorship and really enjoyed doing that work.”

After graduating from Biola in 2018, Pérez was on the search for master’s programs. However, at home, her abuela (grandmother) became sick. For a year, Pérez took care of her until the day she passed away. Much of her writing is tied to her abuela and rooted in themes of family. In addition to providing inspiration for her creative endeavors, the passing of Perez' abuela prompted her to reclaim her birth name — "Santa-Victoria" — in order to keep alive the legacy of her grandma, who bore the same name. 

“A lot of times, having to introduce myself as Santa-Victoria is a lot harder than just saying, 'Hi, I’m Victoria,’'' Pérez said. “But it was my grandma’s name. If I’m saying that I loved her and that she meant a lot to me, shouldn’t I want to do her name justice?”

Akin to her name, Pérez builds upon the theme of legacy and the importance of family in her writing. She’s said she's hoping to demonstrate — as a first generation Latin American — what it means to learn your history, learn your culture and reconnect to it.

“If my grandparents pass away, and my parents pass away, then what is connecting me to Mexico?” Pérez said. “I wasn't born there, but it's still important to me; It's still within me. I'm hoping to (keep) that lifeline alive. Though my family members may pass away and I (may) pass away, that story is still important, despite the fact that no one who lived it is still around.” 

For Jennings, her love of storytelling developed at a very young age. She first picked up a pen at around seven-years-old to write a story about a talking turtle named Fran with a magical amulet. Her stories later evolved to encompass her love-hate relationship with her hometown of Baltimore.

After graduating from the University of Baltimore in 2016 and teaching high school English for a year and a half, Jennings decided she needed the space to step back and reevaluate the stories she wanted to tell. 

“Baltimore is a very interesting place, especially for artists,” Jennings said. “It's culturally rich and it's beautiful and it's full of stories to tell but unfortunately, sometimes laced in the threads of those stories, are tragedy, trauma, sadness, but also life, happiness and familial tales.”

Her M.F.A. thesis is a story set in Baltimore and will take a look at the murder of Freddie Gray by police officers in Baltimore to discuss how violence influences Black identity.

“Writing this thesis is very emotional, also very mentally taxing, but it’s been rewarding,” Jennings said. “Once it’s finished and I clean it up, I hope it’ll be worth reading, but most importantly, people will remember that people who are killed by police aren’t just hashtags. They are human beings. And I think sometimes in our social justice quest, we forget that.”

Black culture — particularly that of Black femmes and Black women — remains a large inspiration in Jenning’s fiction and nonfiction work. 

“I hope that my work can almost be like a love-letter or a thank you to them,” Jennings said. “Black queer women and Black women in general have crafted a big part of our culture." 

Jennings has both fiction and nonfiction work featured on websites such as Outlander Zine, Mouthy Mag and Ghost Heart Lit. Pérez has her work featured on The Curator Magazine.