Gerri Forte' is a  Bay Area native who was born at Hamilton Field Air Force Base and grew up in Vallejo, CA.  She attended San Jose State University (BA and MA) and the University of San Francisco (Doctorate).

 

Gerri  has been employed as Teacher, Counselor, Site and Central Office Administrator and retired from those professions in 2010. She was also a professor at National Hispanic University and a Student Teacher Supervisor at Santa Clara University.

 

Gerri looks forward to participating with the Santa Clara County Branch and feels that Membership with the NLAPW allows her opportunities to be colleagues with like minded women in the pursuit of personal joy as a writer and the mentorship to younger potential Pen Women.

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The first publication by Geraldine Cynthia Forte’, Appropriating Old Cultures into New Futures: From the Kingdom of Tonga to California, was a summary of dissertation research into the possible reasons why students whose families emigrated from the Pacific Island nation of Tonga were having such difficulties with the California public school system.  This publication woke up the passion for writing the author had since a child growing up in Vallejo, California.

 

Retiring from more than forty-three years as a professional educator, the author continued 

to follow that passion with the following publications:  Of Prayers and Beatings, the story of a young woman's’ quest to understand the terrorising behaviour of a parent suffering with what she came to realise was schizophrenia; The Sinceria Pound Cake Extraordinaire- A Recipe for Life, the story of ethnically diverse young women and the environments fuelling personal decisions that led them to incarceration within the California Youth Authority; and most recently, A Brand New Song to Sing, a love story involving three intertwined individuals.  Each of the last three publications presents the challenges of understanding, forgiveness and love as positive building locks that can conquer any obstacle to happiness.

 

Geraldine Cynthia Forte’ resides in San Jose California where she serves as the Managing Editor of Writer’s Talk, the monthly newsletter of the South Bay Chapter of the California Writer’s Club.  An active member of Antioch Baptist Church, the Garden City Women’s Club of San Jose, and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Gerri (as her friends lovingly call her) spends her time reading, writing, cultivating roses, baking pound cakes an loving her family members and two chihuahuas.

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Welcome Gerri to the Santa Clara County Branch of the National League of American Pen Women!

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