Photo by Lauren Tabak
Jessica Martinez
… is a Mexican-American comedy writer and children’s book author from the San Gabriel Valley with scars on her knees from a childhood of softball.
She writes zines, plays, screenplays and children’s books on topics like breakups, menopause, public school teaching, and babysitting unicorns.
Because she was mistaken for a boy in her late teens and learned amateur carpentry in the process, she’s had a ripple of coming-of-age experiences that permeate her screenplays and stories as she evolved from a queer teenager to a feminine presenting girl.
Contact: jessicasamoeba [at] gmail.com
Instagram: @amazine_jess
Upcoming Event:
My ten-minute play #Me Maybe? about the gray areas of consent will be staged May 11 and May 12 at the Victory Theatre in Burbank, CA. Get tickets here: Short and Sweet Fest Hollywood
Bio
Jessica first turned pain into comedy while mourning a breakup and hearing a line in her head from Wayne’s World, “Get over it, go out with somebody else.” From the divine intervention of Garth, she wrote and self-published a series of zines about how to get over a breakup using quotes from movies. A mix of comics, collage and short stories, Jessica inserts herself into the dominant narrative and celebrates the end of all things unhealthy and the start of something new.
Jessica was shy until she faced the toughest hecklers of all time – 5th grade children. From her experiences as a classroom teacher, she wrote and produced the satirical play Schooltown Funk about the demands of public school teaching with song parodies, handmade puppets and remote control mice for the district-mandated mice problem in every school.
With the DIY punk ethos she developed in the Bay Area and a solid foundation in craft from an MFA in Fiction and screenwriting classes, Jessica also writes screenplays and children’s books, and performs comedic storytelling and music, sharing her witty and sincere perspective as a queer feminist Latinx daydreamer from southeast Los Angeles.
List Of Publications And Productions
Plays and Scripts:
#Me Maybe?
at the Frida Kahlo Ten-minute Play Festival (2024)
Asexual And The City
spec script for Sex And The City
available upon request (2024)
How To Get Over A Breakup
original pilot script
available upon request (2024)
It's Not The Same Thing
at the Frida Kahlo Ten-minute Play Festival (2020)
Schooltown Funk
at the San Francisco Fringe Festival (2019)
Zines:
Get Over It, Go Out With Somebody Else
shortlisted for Broken Pencil Best Perzine (2023)
Party On! zine series (1-5) self-published (2018-2023)
Menopause Or Menoplay? self-published (2023)
My So-called Valentines self-published (2020)
Comics:
The Story Of Yoko And Jessica
published in Queering Friendships #3
by Mixed Rice Zines (2024)
Mission Love
published in Unicomix
by Mission Art and Comic Expo (2023)
Joy In Self-Acceptance
published in Bi All Means #3
by Munich Zine Library (2023)
Storytelling:
Break Up To Make Up
at About Last Night storytelling (2024)
When I Was A Boy
at The Moth Community Workshop (2021)
Children’s Books:
How To Babysit A Unicorn
commissioned and published on the Khan Academy Kids app (2024)
Abuela Chela Quits!
commissioned and published on the Khan Academy Kids app (2024)
Tamika And The Dragon
commissioned and published on the Khan Academy Kids app (2024)
Morning Rush
commissioned and published on the Khan Academy Kids app (2024)
My Scared Monster
commissioned and published on the Khan Academy Kids app (2024)
Across The City
commissioned and published by Room To Read (2020)
Music:
The Best We've Ever Been album of my band Vary Mary (2022)
Workshops and Mentorships
Script Anatomy Pilot Bootcamp (2024)
Justice For My Sister PA Certification Training Program (2024)
Pre-Lista Mentorship for Pre-WGA Latina Writers (2024)
Las Musas Mentorship for YA Authors with Jonny Garza Villa (2024)
Professional Screenwriting and Television Writing Workshops 1-3, Corey Mandell (2022-2023)
Sketch Comedy Writing and Acting Workshops, Killing My Lobster (2019-2023)
Story Xperiential, Pixar (2022)
The Moth Community Workshop (2021)
Popular Fiction Workshop with Marjorie Liu, Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (2014)
Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators Writing Workshops (2013-2024)
Education
Teacher Librarian Credential (2022)
BCLAD Multiple Subject Teaching Credential (2014)
Creative Writing MFA, Mills College (2011)
BA in Comparative Literature
English and Spanish, UC Berkeley (2004)