Meet the MFA Students
Dominic Dimapilis
Dominic Dimapilis is a nonfiction writer from Murrieta, California. He holds a BA in English with minors in Psychology and Professional and Technical Writing. During his free time he enjoys dilly-dallying, twiddling his thumbs, and pondering. His work appears in 30 North Literary Magazine, The Oakland Arts Review, Bare Hill Review, and elsewhere.
Mike Noah Ford
Mike Noah Ford is a memoirist, poet and screenwriter currently completing an MFA Creative Writing at SJSU. Influenced by his father, a beat poet and founder of the Poetry Flash, Mike began writing poetry at age 9. The following year, he won first prize in a writing contest through Bott’s Ice Cream in South Berkeley. As the winner, he was awarded free ice cream for life, but then the company went out of business (not because of Mike).
As an undergraduate Mike majored in Religious Studies at UCSB graduating with Highest Honors. This shaped his writing towards mystical themes, which led him to travel the world and eventually to New York City. There he began writing on spirituality and recovery. He has walked the sober path for 23 years and now lives in the Bay Area. Mike’s writing was published in the book Dreams and Inward Journeys.
Noëlle GM Gibbs
Noëlle GM Gibbs (she/her) is a fourth-year MFA student with focuses in nonfiction and playwriting. At SJSU, she is the managing editor of Reed Magazine Issue 159 and is a graduate assistant on Long Story Short, a project exploring brevity across artistic disciplines funded by SJSU's Artistic Excellence & Programming Grants (AEPG). In 2024, Noëlle received the Rico-Ressman scholarship for her braided essay "Centered Like a Mother." Additionally, Noëlle was awarded a Research Scholarship Creativity Award for The Shame Project, which explores the gray areas of the #MeToo movement. Her writing has been published by sneaker wave magazine and ArtPraxis and her plays have been produced by Portola Valley Theatre Conservatory, where she served in executive leadership for fifteen years. When not writing or creating in community, Noëlle enjoys travel, cooking, and spending time with her family.
Mike Long
Mike has a fiction concentration with an intended screenwriting secondary. They are primarily a fantasy and science fiction writer, but dislike limiting themselves to any genre. They have published a book review for CSU Stanislaus' literary magazine Penumbra and an article for the CSU Stanislaus' Honors Program journal.
Peggy Pollard
Reed Magazine Podcast Director and Nonfiction Desk Editor, 3d yea MFA CWwith Nonfiction focus, fiction secondary, writing my thesis on Historic Family Memoir of immigrant Irish grandparents 1921 San Francisco, moderator for LitQuake SF's LitCrawl panel on writing Historic Family memiors' "Forebear Fandangos and Tangled Family Tangos, teaches writing online in a Uganda Refugee city. fine arts program.
Dia Yonzon
Dia Yonzon is a writer from Nepal and a Fulbright Fellow currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) at San José State University. She previously received a Diploma in Writing and Research from the Open Institute for Social Science, where she also served as a Writing Fellow.
Her work appears in both print and online media. Her short story, Unwritten Letters, won third place in Writing Nepal (2023), and her fiction and poetry have been published in South Asian anthologies by Penguin (2025) and HarperCollins (2020). Her nonfiction, Essays in Love, was published by Catflap (2024), a Belfast-based literary magazine.
