Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
Source: Grossmont College Institutional Archives. Learning Resource Center. Grossmont College, Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District. Web.
Source: The Gallery: A 35th Anniversary Photographic Directory of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community Faculty, Administration, and Staff. El Cajon, CA: Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, 1996. p92.
Source: English Department Gallery Photos. Private Photograph and Documents Collection. Copyright Homer B. Lusk. Digitally reprinted with permission, courtesy of Homer Lusk, Grossmont College Professor Emeritus and former English Department Chair.
Source: Document Collections and Photographic Archives of the Grossmont College English Department. El Cajon, CA: Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District.
Stephanie Lindemann Mood attended Valparaiso University, where she served on the Publications Board and for all four of her years there wrote for the campus newspaper, Torch. In June of 1967, she declared her major in French and earned her diploma. During her last year of school, though, Stephanie enlisted in Peace Corps Tunisia, where, from 1966 to 1968, she taught English for two years in Gafsa. Upon her return to the U.S., she undertook graduate studies in Literature at Ball State University, focusing her research on Hemingway and historical tradition, then obtained her M.A. by June of 1970. During this time, she met John Jordan Mood, a former Methodist minister and child welfare worker, as well as a lifelong scholar of Ranier Maria Rilke and James Joyce; John had recently earned his doctorate from Drew University and was now a Professor of English at Ball State University. They moved together to San Diego in 1973, married the following year, and began working together in the English Department at San Diego State College, which is where Stephanie received her first teaching job in Creative Writing. Soon after, in the fall of 1976, John and Stephanie were invited by Chair Homer Lusk to teach as adjuncts at Grossmont College, and Stephanie, working with Creative Writing Program coordinator and full-time colleague Robert Moore, became increasingly more active as an instructor of literature and creative writing, especially short fiction.
During her four decades in the Grossmont College English Department, Stephanie is widely respected for her trailblazing innovation, her unflagging support of literacy and writing, and her advocacy of social causes. She helmed the Native American Literature course for many years, served on numerous committees, was Coordinator for the Creative Writing Program, was the first in the Department to support Community Service Learning, and, in 1996, launched Grossmont College’s very first Literary Arts Festival. While Stephanie has taught a variety of creative writing courses over the years, her students will most remember her voice as the workshop instructor for Short Fiction Writing, which has guided countless budding writers, many of whom have gone on to establish successful careers as writers. In 2007, in recognition of her many contributions to the Department and to the College, Mood was awarded for her Teaching Excellence.
In 2010, Stephanie published her own collection of poems, California Poems: Gold In Them Hills, which incorporated her own personal history of a life in the Golden State. In September of 2012, returning to her love of live theater, Stephanie played a part in Grossmont College’s staged reading of "An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein.” It was a final performance of sorts: at the end of that semester, she stepped down from the position of Creative Writing Program Coordinator and announced her retirement. She returned to teach part-time during the spring 2013 semester, but, realizing all that paper grading and classroom pacing could be officially put behind her, she decided not return in the fall.
Still a loyal supporter of the Grossmont College Creative Writing Program’s many projects, Stephanie continued to live in Pacific Beach, write creatively and academically, and remain active with environmental and social causes, serving as a sitting member of the Board of Directors for the Ocean Beach coop and as a Planning Committee Chair for People’s Organic Food Market, for which she designed a cooperative business model that educates people about healthy organic food consumption.
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Stephanie Mood's soulmate and former English Department adjunct, John Mood, passed away in February of 2016.
Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
8800 Grossmont College Drive
El Cajon, California 92020
619-644-7000
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