Christina Stoddard (Spoken Label, October 2022)

Latest up from Spoken Label (Author / Artist / Spoken Word Podcast) is the amazing, multi talented Christine Stoddard.

Christine Stoddard is a Salvadoran-American writer, actor, director, and artist creating books, films, plays, murals, etc. She founded Quail Bell Magazine and Quail Bell Press & Productions. Her books include Heaven is a Photograph, Hello, New York: The Living And Dead, Naomi & The Reckoning, Desert Fox by the Sea, Belladonna Magic, and Water for the Cactus Woman, among others. In its review of Stoddard's work, Glassworks wrote that "[Stoddard] tells stories in magical and hauntingly beautiful ways." In a Poetry Foundation/Luna Luna Magazine feature, her hybrid poetry and photography book Water for the Cactus Woman was praised for its portrayal of "the fragmented nature of Latinidad." This same book placed in a university-wide competition across academic disciplines for work concerning families, winning the Nyman Family Award during Stoddard's time as an MFA candidate at The City College of New York. Old Dominion University invited her to be its 2021 Hispanic Heritage Month keynote speaker for her non-fiction book, Hispanic & Latino Heritage in Virginia.

Supported by a 2020 Space Grant from 1708 Gallery, Stoddard premiered her first feature, Sirena's Gallery, an arthouse feature, after directing shorts such as Bottled, Virtual Caress, Butterflies, Drunken History, and Brooklyn Burial. In June 2022, she directed her nationally award-winning play, "Mi Abuela, Queen of Nightmares" at the Gene Frankel Theatre in New York City.

Previously, she was the first-ever artist-in-residence at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House in Manhattan and served as an inaugural AnkhLave Arts Alliance artist fellow at the Queens Botanical Garden. She was part of the first cohort of resident artists at Woodlawn Plantation, originally part of George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, and Brooklyn Public Library-Eastern Parkway Branch. The Puffin Foundation awarded her individual artist grants in photography and film. She is one of the subjects in the documentaries "Artists Unmasked" (dir. Dario Mohr) and "Poetry, New York" (dir. Patrick Pfister).

Stoddard is a graduate of VCUarts and The City College of New York. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and regularly produces plays and showcases for the Broadway Comedy Club in Manhattan.

Her website is: http://www.worldofchristinestoddard.com/