Olivia Tejeda is a summa cum laude graduate of Arizona State University and a member of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines. She graduated in May 2016 with a 4.0 GPA, a bachelor’s degree in English and a Creative Writing Certification.
Over the course of her time at ASU, she worked with Canyon Voices, the student-run literary magazine of ASU’s New College. Over the course of four semesters, she was promoted from Fiction Editor to Lead Fiction Editor, Design Editor, and finally Managing Editor. She was also a member of the student writing group, Emerging Voices.
Prior to going back to school, Olivia was a journalist, marketing writer, editor, and bookstore manager. Her work has been published and syndicated in Gannett and Thompson Reuters newspapers. Her fiction has been published in Best of Friday Flash – Volume 1 , Canyon Voices Literary Magazine, and LitSnack.com. Her poem “A Psychoanalytic Approach to ‘Young Goodman Brown’” won honorable mention in ASU’s School of Humanities, Arts & Cultural Studies Annual Poetry Month Contest in 2015.
In addition to writing, Olivia loves travel, reading, running, photography, and yoga. She continues to work on her novel and plans to keep doing so during her post-graduate studies.
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Away with Words 
Greetings, Olivia. Clicked on your website link and am exploring. I know very little about blogging, but it looks interesting. What are tags? And what’s an RRS feed? I read your short story, Waiting Room, and it brought back vivid memories of waiting in an outpatient clinic while my husband underwent the dreaded “colonoscopy.” It’s kind of a rite of passage when a guy turns 55. He was out of it for about two hours. We stopped on the way home at Dairy Queen for some ‘comfort’ food, and I pampered him all evening. Love the red-headed boy, even if it’s mostly gray these days!
I am quite new to WordPress and very impressed so far! I fell upon your blog while having a browsing moment and love it! You definitely have “a way with words”, which is an essential ingredient for any form of literature. Writing stories and poetry has always been a dream of mine since childhood, except it’s been a few years since I produced anything worth reading and have recently decided to take it up again, even if I am a little rusty. I would like to suggest an amazing and moving novel by Betty Smith, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”. I could scarcely put the book down! Betty was a genius when it came to crafting incredible descriptions that would rouse all your 5 senses and stir an emotional connection with the characters. One of the best books I have ever read…
Olivia, great job speaking at the Avondale Writers’ Conference. Everyone was very impressed with your talents and presentation. I look forward to your presentation and the upcoming West Valley Writers’ Conference. It has been a pleasure getting to know you.