Deborah Tobola

Deborah Tobola

November 11, 1955 - October 16, 2024

Santa Maria - "To bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. " (Isaiah 61.1d)

Deborah Tobola was born in San Luis Obispo on November 11, 1955, to Charles Edward and Joanne Elizabeth Tobola. She died on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, in Santa Maria, California, from ovarian cancer. She was 68 years old.

Deborah was a brilliant, passionate, daring, multi-talented woman who was a poet, memoirist, playwright, prison arts educator, and journalist. She graduated from Downey High School, California where she excelled in drama, in 1973, earned a B.A. in English at the University of Montana in 1988, and completed an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, specializing in poetry, at the University of Arizona in 1990.

Her poetry has earned four Pushcart Prize nominations and three Academy of American Poets awards. She received a Children's Choice award for co-writing The Big Buck Adventure. Plans for publishing a collection of her best-known work, spanning 45, years is underway.

Her memoir, Hummingbird in Underworld: Teaching in a Men's Prison (She Writes Press, 2019), was reviewed favorably in the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Review of Books and won several awards. It recounts her five years as a creative writing teacher in California prisons and nine years managing the Arts in Corrections program at the California Men's Colony, San Luis Obispo. Under her direction, CMC residents staged seven original plays, published their work in outside journals, won writing awards, and were interviewed on local and national radio.

After retiring from the Corrections Department in 2008, she founded Poetic Justice Project, under the William James Association, with the vision of "unlocking hearts and minds with bold, original theatre." As the country's first theater company comprised exclusively of formerly incarcerated artists, Poetic Justice Project created and performed 12 productions in 16 communities across California, including at the 31st Annual International Steinbeck Festival and multiple performances on Alcatraz Island. During its tenure, PJP employed more than 90 formerly incarcerated artists.

Deborah will be best remembered as a born poet whose work touched on our common humanity and struggles through life's passages. Deborah left a powerful impression on many people's lives, inspiring those around her to embrace their power and vision as artists and advocates. She fostered community around collaboration and mentored generations of poets and actors. She was a voice for women, children, and the forgotten. She embraced the victim and held a megaphone for the oppressed. She found mystery in the ordinary, "the news under the news," revealed epiphanies in our lives, and saw the light in the darkest shadows.

Deborah was preceded in death by both parents and her uncle John Richard "Dick" (Arlene) Bonner. She is survived by her partner Gene Saint-Amand of Santa Maria, CA; sons Joseph T. Fox, Santa Maria, and Dylan O'Harra (fiancé Tiana-lei Flora), Los Osos; grandson Joseph W. Fox, Ashland, OR; sisters Bonnie (Brad) Sperber, Kooskia, ID; and Terri (Berry) Willcox, Fort Worth, TX; and brother Bradford (Karen) Tobola, Kooskia, ID; nephews Troy Willcox, Saginaw, TX, Christopher Heard, Brooklyn, NY, and Bradford Beau Tobola (Tiara Crooks), Tacoma, WA; nieces Jennifer (Erik) Snodgrass, Haslet, TX; Kimberly (David) Feld, Salt Lake City, UT; Courtney (Sean) Henry, Irvine, CA; and numerous grandnieces, grandnephews, and cousins.

A memorial planned for late November will be posted on her website at deborahtobola.com and on her Facebook site. In lieu of flowers, please donate to Marian Cancer Care at Mission Hope Cancer Center, Santa Maria, California.