About

Rieko Mendez grew up on Japanese folk tales and Disney fairy tales straddling across cultures. She went onto earn a bachelors and masters at Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Business. Always a storyteller, her journey as a wishing star finally led her to cast off her 25-year corporate career and to don on her mantle as a writer. She earned her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Rieko mentors teen girls in underserved communities on writing while volunteering at WriteGirl, an organization that promotes creativity and self-expression to empower girls. She volunteers her writing tips at her local library.

As board chair for Ready, Set, Read, a local literacy nonprofit, she co-authored literacy articles for the 2020 LA Times Reading By 9 Guide.

Her favorite question to her two boys, if you had a super power, what would it be and what would you do with it?

She believes in imagination, the power of words and the magic of stories.

Favorites:

• friendships

• leather-bound books

• legends from around the world

• dragons and fae

• star-filled midnight blue skies

• libraries and bookstores

• Muir Redwoods

• fortune cookies

• grain bowls

• stories

• smiles

Publications & Awards:

Fiction

• Petals falling, Voyage YA Anthology, 2023
  https://www.amazon.com/Just-Above-Water-YA-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0C9QGZYD1

• Plaid Pocket Coat short story, Lunch Ticket literary magazine of Antioch University, 2025
  https://lunchticket.org/archive/issue-archive/winter-spring-2026/

Articles

• Creativity Takes a Community, SCBWILA KiteTales, 8/18/2021

• What to Take on Your Writer’s Journey#1: Find Your Communities of Writers, SCBWILA KiteTales, 12/8/2021

• What to Take on Your Writer’s Journey#2: Ask Why Must You Write This Book, SCBWILA KiteTales, 1/5/2022

• What to Take on Your Writer’s Journey#3: Be Ready to Nix Your Darlings, SCBWILA KiteTales, 2/9/2022

Awards

• Voyage Anthology Contest, Winner, 2022