About
Deborah Tobola is a poet, playwright and co-author of a children’s book. Her work has earned four Pushcart Prize nominations, three Academy of American Poets awards and a Children’s Choice Book Award. She graduated with high honors from the University of Montana in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona in 1990. She currently teaches creative writing and theatre at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo and serves as founding artistic director of Poetic Justice Project, a theatre company of formerly incarcerated actors.
Featured Work
Hummingbird In Underworld; Teaching in a Men's Prison
At the age of forty-five, Deborah Tobola returns to her birthplace, San Luis Obispo, to work in the very prison her father worked in when he was a student at Cal Poly. But she’s not wearing a uniform as he did; she’s there to teach creative writing and manage the
prison’s arts program -- a dream job.
As she creates a theatre program for prisoners, Tobola finds plenty of drama off the stage as well. Inside the razor wire she finds a world frozen in the ’50s, with no contact with the outside except by telephone; officers who think prisoners don’t deserve programs; bureaucrats who want to cut arts funding; and inmates who steal, or worse. But she loves engaging prisoners in the arts and helping them discover their voices: men like Opie, the gentleman robber; Razor, the roughneck who subscribes to The New Yorker; charismatic Green Eyes, who really has blue eyes; Doo Wop, a singer known for the desserts he creates from prison fare.
Alternating between tales of creating drama in prison and Tobola’s own story, Hummingbird in Underworld takes readers on an unforgettable literary journey -- one that is frank, funny, and fascinating.
Other Works
Awards and Recognition
- Deborah has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize, received three Academy of American Poets awards, as well as a Children’s Choice Book Award.
