LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Oksana Marafioti, author of American Gypsy

Oksana Marafioti

Monday, June 3rd, 2013 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

Oksana Marafioti, author of American Gypsy, will discuss writing an revealing memoir–how much to embellish, and how much must absolutely stay true to reality.  She has great advice to give on writing memoirs, so if you are planning on writing one or any autobiographical work, be sure to attend!

Oksana Marafioti was born in Riga, Latvia and grew up in a stage family, spending her childhood on concert tours with a Russian Romani troupe led by her grandfather, Andrei Kopylenko. She moved to Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY:  Around the World to Paris

Saturday, May 11th, 2013 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

It’s a party!!

Join us for a wine, snacks and more than a taste of Paris when Wanderland Writers editors, Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar, and contributors to the next Wanderland Writers anthology toast the City of Light. You can order your Wandering in Paris anthology in advance at this event or just sit back and enjoy the promise of great stories to come. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: David Downie, author of Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James

David Downie

Monday, May 6th, 2013 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

Whether you are worldly, unworldly, other-worldly or out-of-this-worldly, you won’t want to miss our May Literary Salon.

Renowned travel writer David Downie will share the tools of his trade with us. David has written extensively about world travel and Paris in particular, with books like Paris, Paris: Journey to the City of Light, Paris City of Night, and his most recent Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James. He’ll talk about travel, travel writing and Paris and answer questions about exploring a place or a passion and writing about it.  Trust us, there can be no better Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Beyond Sugar Shock: The 6-Week Plan to Break Free of Your Sugar Addiction & Get Slimmer, Sexier & Sweeter by Connie Bennett

Connie Bennett

Saturday, April 13th, 2013 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Sugar and carb junkies, get help to free yourself from your potentially deadly addiction with The Sugar Liberator Connie Bennett, author of the international bestseller Beyond Sugar Shock: The 6-Week Plan to Break Free of Your Sugar Addiction & Get Slimmer, Sexier & Sweeter.

Beyond Sugar Shock has been praised by a Who’s Who of health and empowerment experts, including Dr. Wayne Dyer, Dr. Christiane Northrup, and Dr. Daniel Amen. Connie’s second book is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Connie’s acclaimed bestseller, Sugar Shock! How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life—And How You Can Get Back on Track, which has been praised by America’s Favorite Doctor, Dr. Mehmet Oz.”

In this Book Passage program, Connie—a charismatic transformational speaker, journalist, life coach, health coach, and self-mocking former sugar addict—will give her insights and simple starter secrets to:

• Activate the positive power of procrastinating. (This is a simple tool to calm your cravings.)
• Dodge the #1 mistake nearly everyone makes when quitting or reducing sweets. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS Book Party: A Southern Sampler

Monday, April 8th, 2013 || 6pm
Book Passage || San Francisco
1 Ferry Building, San Francisco ||www.bookpassage.com

We are spending an evening in the South!!

Join Left Coast Writers and the Southern Sampler Artists Colony as they evoke the dreamy, sometimes steamy world of Charleston and beyond in an exciting sampler of poetry, short fiction, non-fiction and other treats in this celebration of all things Southern. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON:  Patricia Bracewell, author of Shadow on the Crown

Patricia Bracewell

Monday, April 1st, 2013 || 7pm

Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

We hope all of you will come out for this very special event. Our beloved Roadwork editor, Patricia Bracewell, will be speaking about her experience writing historical fiction. Her recently released novel,  Shadow on the Crown (Viking, 2012), has been very well received and critically acclaimed. Patricia will be discussing the research that goes into writing such a novel, how much to fabricate and how much to keep to the facts, and other problems one may face when writing fact-based fiction.

Patricia Bracewell is a native of California where she taught literature and composition Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Burmese Jade, a Mystery by Cynthia Greenberg 

Cynthia Greenberg

Saturday, March 9th, 2013 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Travelers, writers, mystery lovers, you won’t want to miss this event. Burmese Jade, a Mystery is a new mystery novel by Cynthia Greenberg that takes place in Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand and features an interesting set of characters, all strangely a part of the same tour group. This includes a jewel thief, a smuggler, an ex-spy, and a Buddhist monk, among others. The main character is a French photojournalist who is searching for information about her grandfather’s mysterious disappearance.  A young couple from Texas, accidentally film a murder while on the same tour with all of these people.  Come and see how it turns out! Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Self-Publishing Panel – Self-publish Like a Professional: How to Avoid the New Slush Pile

Monday, March 4th, 2013 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

This time we have a full panel of speakers coming to teach you about self-publishing.  They’ll be sharing their expertise in all areas of writing, publishing, design, distribution and marketing with you. If you are thinking about publication, either with a traditional publisher or as an independent, you won’t want to miss out on the wealth of information offered here. It will save you from making many of the blunders that plague novice authors and mark them as amateurs. There’ll also be plenty of time to answer your particular questions.

The panelists are:

• Jim Shubin, Book Design
• Lowry McFerrin, Publication and Print
• Phil Cousineau, Writing and Marketing
• Bill Petrocelli, Book Sales and Distribution Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS Book Party: Bayou Nights by Nicola Trwst

Nicola Trwst

Monday, March 11th, 2013 || 6pm
Book Passage || San Francisco
1 Ferry Building, San Francisco ||www.bookpassage.com

LEFT COAST WRITERS A Dark Valentine: Dead Love and Others

From Dead Love

Monday, February 11th, 2013 || 6pm
Book Passage || San Francisco
1 Ferry Building, San Francisco ||www.bookpassage.com

Dark chocolate, red wine, shadowy lovers—this year we’re having a darker Valentine’s Day. LCW Founder, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, and some of our favorite Left Coast Writers share their mysterious, mournful and sometimes hilarious Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Seeing Red: A Woman’s Quest for Truth, Power, and the Sacred, by Lone Morch

Lone Morch

Saturday, February 9, 2013 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

“Readers, not just pilgrims, seek enlightenment. And memoirs often fail to provide those aha! moments. But Seeing Red overflows with insights into the feminine journey: how we wake up to our own power through risking heartbreak, and how it is only by becoming aware of our deepest selves that we can transcend. Seeing Red blends the spiritual and the physical in a heady mix that is both charming and bracing!”
—Jane Ganahl, co-founder of the Litquake festival, author of “Naked on the Page.”

Though this new memoir, Seeing Red: A Woman’s Quest for Truth, Power, and the Sacred, by Lone Morch has been lauded for its feminine insights, it applies to us all. After all, self-awakening and self-discovery are not bound to a single sex or group, but to every human being; and this memoir promises to be one that tells of a journey to do both … and more, while inspiring the reader to do the same … all against a backdrop of  Himalayan Mount Kailas. So join Left Coast Writers, Book Passage, Lone Morch and the goddess Kali, for wine, snacks and the launch of this riveting memoir. Keep reading …

BOOK LAUNCH:  Shadow on the Crown, by Patricia Bracewell

Patricia Bracewell

Thursday, February 7th, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

We hope all of you will come out for this very special event. Our beloved Roadwork editor, Patricia Bracewell, will be celebrating the launch of her much praised and eagerly awaited novel, Shadow on the Crown (Viking, 2012). Come hear about Emma, the fifteen-year-old newly crowned Queen of England.  She came from Normandy and  met her husband-to-be, the much older King Athelred, just minutes before their wedding.  But this clever 11th century girl takes it in stride and braves her challenging new role amongst rivals, enemies and the all-too-present threat of a Viking invasion. Come take this adventure with us and hear about the history-inspired tale of Emma of Normandy.We will be serving mead, of course, and other wonderful period treats. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Brooke Warner, author of What’s Your Book: A Step-by-Step Guide to Get You from Inspiration to Published Author, editor, and publisher

Brooke Warner

Monday, February 4th, 2013 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

Do you dream about writing a book but second-guess yourself? Are you trying to finish a manuscript but can’t because you’re stuck with writers block? Have you finished a manuscript, shopped it around with no bites, and given up? Brooke Warner, author of What’s Your Book: A Step-by-Step Guide to Get You from Inspiration to Published Author, editor, and publisher, will be coming to speak with all of you about just those issues. She will give advice to and answer questions from all those that aspire Keep reading …

Left Coast Writers® Love Stories

Saturday,January 12, 2013 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Join Linda Watanabe McFerrin and the Left Coast Writers® for an evening of love stories to help set the mood for Valentine’s Day. You can count on the talented writers from LCW to provide an entertaining evening full of love, lust and other appropriate emotions.

There’ll be wine an chocolate, of course, AND all who attend are invited to bring a love or lust story of 1000 words or less. Their stories will be considered for publication on the hotflashessexystsories.com website and a $100 award. You must be present to enter. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS Book Party: heretofore, with Author Todd Crawshaw

Todd Crawshaw

Monday, January 14, 2013 || 6pm
Book Passage || San Francisco
1 Ferry Plaza ||http://www.bookpassage.com

“If heaven exists, a realm of eternal bliss, how would it avoid becoming monotonous without a bit of conflict?” This is the question posited by Todd Crawshaw‘s latest novel, heretofore.  This new work has been described as “a modern-day Alice in Wonderland melded with the satirical humor of Catch 22″.  Assuming this piques your interest (as it should), you can read sections of the book and see Todd’s wonderful illustrations of his characters at http://www.toddcrawshaw.com/heretofore.html, and come to his book launch at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza on the 14th and join us in a toast to this illuminating local Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Connie Hale, Author of Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing

Connie Hale

Monday, January 7th, 2013 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

We’re kicking off the new year with a great speaker.

Gambol, gallivant, or gallop over over to Book Passage in Corte Madera on Left Coast Writers® Literary Salon night to hear the Bay Area’s own  Constance Hale is going to impart her wisdom on the mechanics of writing.  We hope you will all be there!

Constance Hale is a San Francisco based journalist and author. Her three books on language and writing, Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS Book Party: Holiday Book Celebration

Monday, December 10th, 2012 || 6pm
Book Passage || San Francisco
1 Ferry Building, San Francisco ||www.bookpassage.com

Wine, cheese, festivities, and readings. These are things one can expect when attending our big holiday book bash! Come and listen to some of our finest Left Coast Writers® read while celebrating the holiday season and the coming year! Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Married at Fourteen: A True Story, by Lucille Lang Day

Lucille Lang Day

Saturday, December 8th, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Poet and writer Lucille Lang Day‘s new memoir Married at Fourteen: A True Story tells her story, as the title says, of getting married at fourteen, of being a young mother, going back to school and growing up both physically and psychologically into the woman that she is today.

”Day gives eloquent voice to the teenager she once was–precocious, beautiful, hungry for love and adventure, disrespectful of conventions, adept at getting into serious trouble. Her memoir is sexy, funny and endearingly honest…It challenges the conventional wisdom that a teenage mom and dropout has no future and reminds us that rebellious kids who defy authority may become–as has Day–the innovators and creators that our culture needs.”

-Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, Ph.D., M.F.T., author of The Motherline Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Ausbert de Arce (publisher) and Petra Mason (author, photographer, designer)

Petra and Ausbert

Monday, December 3rd, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

It’s the end of the year, and we have a special two-speaker salon this month! Our final literary salon speakers this year are Ausbert de Arce and Petra Mason. They will be discussing the benefits of self-publishing or creating a boutique press, taking from his extensive knowledge as a publisher and her knowledge as a published author.

Ausbert de Arce is the founder of Taschen America and Assouline Publications, and current head of the Rizzoli Studio program of the art publications division of Random House group. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS Book Party: Mary Lou Peters Schram, Author of Molly’s Leap, Stranger in the Dark, KLIK, Taddy and Her Husbands, and Pursuing Happiness … One More Time

Monday, November 12th, 2012 || 6pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||http://www.bookpassage.com

Mary Lou Schram‘s newly released novel Molly’s Leap is a comedic slice-of-life story about a woman (Molly) and her ever-changing life. A new career in real estate, a new love, all the while  attached to things from her old life (including two children and an overseas husband). How will she balance it all? Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Rearrangement of the Invisible with Gail Rudd Entrekin

Gail Rudd Entrekin

Saturday, November 10th, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Rearrangement of the Invisible is Gail Rudd Entrekin’s newest collection of poetry, focusing often on her husband’s battle with cancer and on her passion and love of life … fleeting as life may be. Come celebrate poetry and the way it can light up the unseen with Gail Entrekin and Rearrangement of the Invisible. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Rose Solari, poet and author of A Secret Woman

Rose Solari

Monday, November 5th, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

It’s a delight to introduce you all to Rose Solari, our next Left Coast Writers speaker. Rose is an award-winning poet, writer and educator. Her most recent work is the novel A Secret Woman, which revolves around a strong and independent woman who finds herself on an amazing journey into the heart of her mother’s mysteries.

Rose Solari is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Orpheus in the Park and Difficult Weather. Her poetry and prose have Keep reading …

Sharing the Creative Journey …

SSAC is proud to offer a Writing and Creative Retreat with award-winning author Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Sample the language of the South, weave collective stories to be embellished in time, discover the layers, textures and hues of historical Charleston, wander in enchanting gardens, swing low to a sweet jazz beat, picnic under a canopy of live oaks, break bread with local writers, artists and musicians.

One-on-one direction on your literary and creative projects: renew your spirit—stir the creative juices — walk the beaches — daily prompts designed to foster life-enhancing experiences.

How It All Started . . . Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Beamish Boy, by Albert DeSilver

Albert Flynn DeSilver

Saturday, October 13th, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Come for adventurous and transformative tales from Albert DeSilver’s newest book, Beamish Boy (I am not my story): A Memoir of Recovery and Awakening.  Albert tells tale of his travels, personal issues and experiences in this newest memoir of self-discovery and mis/adventure.

Albert Flynn DeSilver is an internationally published poet, writer, speaker/trainer, publisher and writing coach. Albert served as Marin County’s first Poet Laureate from 2008-2010. His work has appeared in more than 100 literary journals worldwide including ZYZZYVA, New American Writing, Hanging Loose, Jubilat, Exquisite Corpse, Jacket (Australia), Poetry Kanto (Japan), Van Gogh’s Ear (France), and many others. He is the author, most recently of  Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS Book Party: Nancy Bruning, Author of Nancercize: 101 Things to Do on a Park Bench

Nancy Bruning

Monday, October 8th, 2012 || 6pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.

 Join us for an exciting and motivating evening with Nancy Bruning, author of Nancercize: 101 Things to Do on a Park Bench as well as more than 25 other books on the subject.  We all sit too much and Nancy has the solution: Nancercize. (Yes it’s supposed to make you smile.) Nancy is also a member of the American Public Health Association, the Public Health Association of New York and the Author’s League along with holding the Chair of the Friends Committee for the Fort Tryon Park Trust.  Nancy strives to make public parks more exercise-friendly and is an expert on workouts you can do in a public park and the benefits of working out in nature.

Nancy is a personal trainer, group fitness instructor from NYC as well as a celebrated author and speaker.  Her Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Nancy Bruning, author of more than 25 books on health and wellness

Nancy Bruning

Monday, October 1st, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

Writers, as you know, in our work we all sit too much and visiting author/trainer Nancy Bruning has the solution: Nancercize: 101 Things to Do on a Park Bench.  (Yes it’s supposed to make you smile.) Learn more about fitness and personal health from Nancy. Nancy is a personal trainer, group fitness instructor from NYC as well as the author of over 25 books.  Her latest book will show you how to get up and get out … how to use an ordinary park bench and other park features as the basis for a free, fun outdoor exercise experience.  Nancy will give a demonstration designed to Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: The Scientific American Healthy Aging Brain: The Neuroscience of Making the Most of Your Mature Mind with Judith Horstman

Judith Horstman

Monday, September 10, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Judith Horstman’s newest book, The Scientific American Healthy Aging Brain: The Neuroscience of Making the Most of Your Mature Mind, gives a realistic and encouraging overview of the well-aged brain and tips for staying healthy longer. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Beyond Animal, Ego, and Time: The Human Odyssey with Jerry Parrick

Saturday, September 8th, 2012 || 7pm Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

Who are we?  Where did we come from?  How did we get here?  These are questions asked by religions worldwide and philosophers throughout time.  Jerry Parrick synthesizes information on these subjects from many contemporary sources in an attempt to address these questions in his new book, Beyond Animal, Ego, and Time: The Human Odyssey.  Come see Jerry on September 8th for talks about various hot topics including: the ozone hole, climate change, nuclear weaponry and synthetic biology. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Claudia Sternbach, Editor in Chief of Memoir Journal and Author of Reading Lips, a Memoir of Kisses

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

It’s Tuesday night in September (Labor day weekend!), not Monday night … and it’s going to be fascinating. Claudia Sternbach, Editor in Chief of Memoir Journal will be answer all your questions about capturing your personal stories on the page in long and short form. She’ll also be letting the assembled know exactly how to submit work to Memoir Journal. Patricia Bracewell, our talented Roadwork editor and author of the upcoming historical novel, The Shadow on the Crown (Viking), will be emceeing. You won’t want to miss this stellar evening. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Going to Solace with Amanda McTigue

Saturday, August 25th, 2012 || 7pm Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Set in a small area in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Amanda McTigue‘s new novel Going to Solace takes you on a journey through the lives of several different characters over the course of the week before Thanksgiving in 1989.  The novel is written from various characters’ perspectives giving an interesting view of their world and the goings-on in their community, which range from heart-warming to heart-wrenching.  The event will have a festive atmosphere, and will include regional treats, bluegrass music, down-home quilts on display, and other fun and folksy enticements. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH: Turning a Train of Thought Upside Down: An Anthology of Women’s Poetry

Saturday, August 18th, 2012 || 7pm 
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr. 
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

There’s a new book of poetry in town, and it features 41 of the Bay Area’s best female poets.  This new anthology of poetry contains the work of a diverse group of women from the Bay Area, and a few of them will be coming to read their poems to you! This poems collected coversthemes from birth to re-birth, the joy of creation, dancing, swimming to the pain of face-lifts, pushing walkers, and memories of mother brushing hair or paddling a canoe.

The women reading will be Marianne Betterly, Judy Wells, Lucille Lang Day, Susan Cohen, Andrena Zawinski, and Eva Schlesinger.

“Forty-one women are unarmed but dangerous. They can change your life with clarity, truth and power in equal measure. These poets, from the literary culture of San Francisco, make up an album of rich fabrics combining the ordinary and the magnificent. Intimate details and heightened temperaments give us more reason to care about poetry.” Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Vignettes and Postcards: Writings From the Evening Writing Workshop at Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, Paris, Fall, 2011 with Erin Byrne

Erin Byrne

Monday, August 13, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

You are invited to journey to an intimate neighborhood in 1950s Texas, the rue de Seine during the flood of 1910, and a 1960s political uprising in Brazil; to meet characters like Leila, an Algerian woman living in the outskirts of Paris, and Lilia, a young ballerina dancing inside a painting; to inhale the scent of warm cinnamon bread, to hear the pealing of bells from high up on an Italian hillside, and to walk upon the paving stones of Paris.

Vignettes & Postcards: Writings From the Evening Writing Workshop at Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, Paris, Fall, 2011 is a collection of twenty-six stories by writers from all over the world, springing from the workshop “Leaping into the Void,” taught by award-winning writer Erin Byrne.

Edited by Byrne and Anna Pook, ongoing instructor of the workshop, the stories of Vignettes & Postcards represent a variety Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Daniel Riviera, Entertainment and Intellectual Properties Attorney

Daniel Riviera

Monday, August 6, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

There are many legal issues that may arise as a writer trying to publish your material, some you may have never even thought of. That is where Daniel Riviera comes in. Daniel will lightly go over topics which include source materials and potential liability; collaboration agreements; protecting and submitting your work; agency and management agreements; option/purchase agreements; crowd-funding; self-publication; electronic rights. He will focus in his talk on the latest trends in Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Mother Lode with author Carol Sheldon

Carol Sheldon

Monday, July 9th, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Set in the Upper Peninsula in Michigan in a small copper mining town, Mother Lode is Carol Sheldon’s break-out mystery novel. Mother Lode is focused around the investigation by Sheriff Foster on the death of a local woman in the early 1900s whose own son is locked up as a suspect. His findings are surprising and strange, and will glue your eyes to the pages of this book!

“Carol Sheldon is a master storyteller. The historic details, the film noir atmosphere, and the gradual revelations of each of the characters and their motivations are superb.  From the first foreboding moment to the startling conclusion, this is a true page turner.  I could not put it down!”
—Vicki Weiland, Book Doctor and Board Member, Bay Area Independent Publishers Association Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Mary Jo McConohay, Journalist and NCBA winning Author of Maya Roads: One Woman’s Journey Among the Peoples of the Rainforest

Monday, July 2, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Join Mary Jo McConahay in a discussion about “The Varnished & Unvarnished Truth”.  She will be speaking about her experiences writing award-winning creative non-fiction, as well as the genre as a whole.

Journalist Mary Jo McConahay covered Central America as a war correspondent and lived in Mexico and Central America for fifteen years.  Her award-winning work has appeared in more than thirty magazines and periodicals and is collected in a half-dozen books, including True to Life Adventure Stories by Women and Best Travel Writing 2011. She co-produced the PBS documentary Discovering Dominga, awarded the Cine Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Wandering in Bali with Joanna Biggar and Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Monday, June 11th, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Wandering in Bali: A Tropical Paradise Discovered with Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar

Saturday, June 9th, 2012 || 7pm Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

Come to Bali in Corte Madera!

Wine, music, stories and other treats …

The word Bali conjures images of lush tropical beaches and coastlines, mysterious temples, gracious people, their transporting music and rice fields of impossible green.

But this paradisiacal Indonesian island isn’t all goddesses and frangipani. In addition to the beauty, this group of writers (www.wanderlandwriters.com) also found the humor—and the terror—of the place. Computer crashes, marauding monkeys, international paranoia, flesh-eating fish and even a few zombies also found their way into the stories collected here. Keep reading …

POTENTIAL WANDERLANDERS …

PARIS ALERT!!!!!

Chers Amis,

The rumor is true … this year’s writing adventure will be our own “September Song” in Paris.

Please join us for the week of September 9-15 in one of three spacious apartments in a charming Left Bank neighborhood.

Join us for walks among the falling leaves along the Seine, for soulful sits in famous literary cafés, for sumptuous dining, for exploring Paris’s varied and magical arrondissements by Métro, bus and on foot.

Come with us for literature, both to create it through our own writing, honed during five workshops and individual one-on-one sessions, and through connecting with great writers who have lived and worked there before us and some who live and play there today. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Michele Jin, publisher of Passion Fruit magazine

Monday, June 4, 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive || www.bookpassage.com

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
—Marcel Proust

Who better to talk about a new vision than Michele Jin, creative force and founder of Passion Fruit magazine.

Michele began publishing Passion Fruit magazine in print form in 1999. Now an online publication, Passion Fruit magazine is a travel magazine that explores the issues and experiences of female travelers … and she’s looking for stories! Male travelers, this doesn’t exclude you, by any means, and your contributions are also welcome. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: William C. Gordon, Author of King of the Bottom

William C. Gordon

Monday, May 7, 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive || www.bookpassage.com

Maybe some of you remember celebrating wildly that night at Book Passage with Willie Gordon and Isabel Allende earlier this year when The Chinese Jars came out. It was definitely a night to remember. Well, one of our heroes (he’s been a huge supporter of our Left Coast Writers) is at it again. William C. Gordon has a new book out: King of the Bottom.

Oddly, it’s been a long haul getting books out in English, even for this internationally famous author, so we’re sure he has a revealing story to tell about writing and publishing books. He also has some fascinating fiction in his arsenal. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Wondrous Child: The Joys and Challenges of Grandparenting, with editor Lindy Hough and contributors Joanna Biggar and Kitty Hughes

Lindy Hough

Monday, May 14th, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Synchronicity: The Art of Coincidence, Choice, and Unlocking Your Mind with Kirby Surprise

Dr. Kirby Surprise

Saturday, May 12, 2012 || 7pm Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Wondering how to make things happen?

Kirby Surprise has written a fascinating new book, Synchronicity: The Art of Coincidence, Choice, and Unlocking Your Mind, about the way individuals perceive reality and the science behind it.  He writes about meaningful synchronistic experiences and how an individual can actually influence their happening. The experience of meaningful coincidences is universal. They are reported by people of every culture, every belief system, and every time period. Synchronicity examines the evidence for the human influence on the meaningfulness of events, and the way the modern computational model of the mind predicts how we create meaning. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Clive Matson, Author of Let the Crazy Child Write

Clive Matson

Monday, April 2nd, 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive || www.bookpassage.com

In April we’ll be celebrating National Poetry Month with a number of poetry focused events. National Poetry Month was created in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets to promote poetry and its importance in American culture and history.  We begin our National Poetry Month series with a salon featuring poet and writing coach Clive Matson.

Clive Matson (MFA Columbia University) has been a published poet since 1964 and has been a writing coach for many Bay Area novelists, among them Deborah Janke, Willie Gordon, Isa Maynard, Phillip Wilhite, Laura Glenn Luis, and Joe Quirk. His early teachers were the Beats in New York City, and among his published works are Mainline to the Heart(1966), Equal in Desire (1983), Chalcedony’s First Ten Songs (2007), and Chalcedony’s Second Ten Songs (2009). Over the years he has become more and more immersed in the stream of passionate intensity that runs through us all. That intensity is one standard for fine writing, according to his 1998 text Let the Crazy Child Write!, which he uses as a model for his writing classes. Clive enjoys playing basketball, table tennis, and collecting minerals in the field. He lives in Oakland, California, where he helps bring up his young teenage son, Ezra, and facilitates WOW (Writing Occupy Workshop). Visit Clive at www.matsonpoet.com

We’ll look forward to seeing you all there!

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Left Coast Poets National Poetry Month Event

Bernie Clark

Adrienne Amundsen

Monday, April 9th, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

National Poetry Month was created in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets and is a celebration of poetry and its importance in American culture and history.  It is celebrated writers, poetry lovers, publishers and booksellers across the country through workshops, readings and various other events.

We’ll be celebrating with a reading by various Left Coast Writers®: Bernie Clark, Adrienne Amundsen and others. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH: Riding Fury Home: A Memoir with Chana Wilson

Chana Wilson

Saturday, April 14 , 2012 || 7pm Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

We’re delighted to host the debut of Chana Wilson‘s new memoir, Riding Fury Home: A Memoir.  Riding Fury Home is Chana’s new book about her tenuous relationship with her mother. Chana’s mom was sent to a mental institution when Chana was a young girl and treated for her lesbianism, which they attempted to “cure.”  Her dramatic new memoir traces her life from her youth to the women’s movement in 1970s and beyond.

Riding Fury Home received a starred review from Publishers Weekly:

“From the horrors of her childhood in 1950s New Jersey to the liberating discovering of her sexual identity decades later, psychotherapist Wilson’s memoir is as heartbreaking as it is uplifting. During Keep reading …

Third Monday of the Month for 12 months – 6:30-8:30 pm
For the whole year: Only $200 / $150 for Left Coast Writers® members
$40 Drop-in fee

Finally, the writing group everyone has been asking for … and it’s only around $10 a month for Left Coast Writers® members! Get in on the latest Left Coast Writers® literary adventure: The Left Coast Writers® Monthly Writers Group.

Bring your work and your imagination as well as humor, honesty, and attention to an evening of sharing recent writings, discussion on craft, and fabulous literary prompts. Either author/instructors Linda Watanabe McFerrin or Joanna Biggar will be on hand to contribute editorial direction and orchestrate sessions. This is a chance to get feedback on your work and hone your skills in a stimulating, supportive, and highly professional environment.

This workshop is designed to help writers across genres get their creative juices flowing and to hone and polish their craft. Each workshop will focus on a particular writing skill, for example: vivid writing through evoking the senses, structuring a piece from opening to close, the all-important nutgraph, finding a voice, “making it sing.”

Each class will include using a prompt, followed by in-class writing time, followed by a discussion of the participants’ work. These sessions will be tailored to the aims and goals of the students once we know better what they are.

Bring paper, pens, laptop and bring your imagination.

Left Coast Writers® are well known for their books, essays, articles and blogs, so you will be in super company. The group will meet the third Monday of every month at Book Passage in Corte Madera. Don’t miss out. Call them up (415 927 0960) and sign up before the doors close on this one!

Upcoming Workshops:
Mon., Mar. 19 – 6:30-8:30 pm
Mon., Apr. 16 – 6:30-8:30 pm

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Leaning Into Sharp Points: Practical Guidance and Nurturing Support for Caregivers with Stan Goldberg, Ph.D.

Saturday, March 10, 2012 || 7pm Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

We’d like to invite all those who live in the San Francisco Bay Area to join us in celebrating the release of Stan Goldberg’s new book Leaning Into Sharp Points: Practical Guidance and Nurturing Support for Caregivers. The party, sponsored by Left Coast Writers®, will be at one of  the Bay Area’s premier bookstores, Book Passages in Corte Madera on March 10th at 7:00pm.

There will be a conversation about caregiving with generous amounts of champagne and wine, very appealing home-made appetizers, and if he practices enough, some Native American flute and Shakahachi (Japanese bamboo flute) interludes entwined within caregiving stories. And of course, a little bit of reading from the book and some conversation with Stan.

Anybody who is a caregiver now will greatly benefit from attending, and those who are not will learn what to do should they become one.

Stan is a cancer survivor, hospice volunteer Pathways Home Care and Hospice, husband, father, Professor Emeritus at San Francisco State University, and devotee of the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) and Native American Flute. In 2009 he was named by the Hospice Volunteer Association “Volunteer of the Year.”

For more than 25 years Stan taught, provided therapy, researched, and published in the areas of learning, change, loss, and end of life issues. He has published seven books, written numerous articles and delivered more than 100 lectures and workshops throughout the United States, Latin America, Canada, and Asia. His last book Lessons for the Living: Stories of Forgiveness, Gratitude, and Courage at the End of Life, received six national and international awards.
His books have been translated into Chinese, Indonesian, and Portuguese. Currently, He writes, consults on issues of change, and offers training to hospices and caregiver groups.

“Statistics show that at least once in almost everyone’s life, they will become a caregiver. Though an estimated 35 million currently provide care for someone terminally or chronically ill, those who accept this responsibility often feel as alone as if they were in a frightening foreign land. Whether visiting occasionally or caregiving 24/7, they are brushing up against life’s sharpest point.”

—Stan Goldberg, Leaning Into Sharp Points: Practical Guidance and Nurturing Support for Caregivers

Stan has received glowing endorsements for his new book Leaning Into Sharp Points: Practical Guidance and Nurturing Support for Caregivers from Diane Gray of the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation, Andy Miller of Livestrong, The Lance Armstrong Foundation, and Gloria C. Horsley of the Open To Hope Foundation.

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Cara Black, Author of Murder in the Latin Quarter and the Aimée Leduc series of mystery novels

Monday, March 5th, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

We are thrilled to host an exhilarating evening with murder/mystery writer Cara Black. Cara is the author of the popular Aimée Leduc series of mystery novels including Murder in the Rue de Paradis which was on The Washington Post‘s Best Books of 2008 list and Murder in the Latin Quarter which is a finalist for Best Novel NCIBA (Northern California Independent Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Left Coast Writers on Romance that is out of this world!

Monday, February 13th, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Did you miss our Lovefest?

Don’t worry; you can still come out and celebrate the Big Day with Left Coast Writers©!  On Monday at Book Passage in the Ferry Plaza some of our members will share stories about love, sex and romance that is quite literally out of this world.  The readers will be Debbie Goelz, Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS PRE-VALENTINE’S DAY EVENT: Party for the day of the heart, with a few heart-felt readings as well!

Saturday, February 11th|| 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

Join us for the ultimate pre-Valentine’s Day party. Hot Flashes editors Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Laurie McAndish King and a host of past contributors (Claire Savage, Kunal Mukherjee, Saul Isler, Marianne Betterly, and more) will serve up wine, chocolate, romance-inducing gifts and some super-sultry works of literature just in time for the special day. Single or paired or in a big group, we want you to come and enjoy the love-ly vibe!

About Hot Flashes:
We confess, we’re on a mission. We think that the pleasures of being human and “in the flesh” get short shrift in our daily lives. Too often, in our culture, a natural captivation with the senses and their allure is suppressed, closeted, twisted, and this isn’t healthy at all. So, we want to present an unadulterated and avidly expressed lust for the sensual and all its permutations. This collection isn’t about anger and rebellion. It’s about love-about a good old erotic hankering for everything hot and steamy, warm and juicy, tasty, fragrant, visually exciting and vibration-filled. It’s about quickies: flash fiction, non-fiction and poetry guaranteed to raise a reader’s temperature in a way that is positively hormonal. These sexy short stories and poems demonstrate how simple it is to find pleasure almost anywhere when we are willing to slow down and attend to our feelings, our memories, and our senses.

Linda Watanabe McFerrin has been traveling since she was two and writing about it since she was six. She is a contributor to numerous literary journals, newspapers, magazines, anthologies, and online publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Modern Bride, San Francisco Bride, Bay Nature, various Travelers’ Tales anthologies, and Salon.com. A popular speaker and panelist and an award-winning writer, she has authored two poetry collections, a novel and a short story collection, and has edited four books, including a northern California guidebook and a travel anthology. Linda has served as an NEA panelist and past judge for the San Francisco Literary Awards, the Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence and the Kiriyama Prize, and is founder and President of Left Coast Writers®, LLC.

Laurie McAndish King is a travel writer whose essays have been published in anthologies such as 30 Days in Italy, The Thong Also Rises, and the award-winning The Kindness of Strangers. Her work has also been published in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine and aired on KUSF radio. Laurie’s adventurous spirit has led her to chase lemurs through the mountains of Madagascar, study medicinal plants in the jungles of Brazil, track lions on foot-without a gun-in Botswana, study with an urban shaman in San Francisco, and trap and band raptors in the Marin Headlands. Laurie earned her master’s degree in Internet-based education and publishes an online newsletter for travel writers. She is an officer and board member of Bay Area Travel Writers, and indulges her passions for travel and natural history as often as she possibly can.

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: An Evening with Lonely Planet: Alison Bing

Monday, January 2, 2012 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

If you have a thirst for literary adventure, don’t miss our first salon of 2012.

The New Year takes off with a look at the world as we spend an evening with Lonely Planet, the largest travel guide book and digital media publisher in the world.

The company, now owned exclusively by BBC Worldwide, was founded by Maureen and Tony Wheeler in 1973 when they published Across Asia on the Cheap.Originally called Lonely Planet Publications, the company changed its name to Lonely Planet in July 2009 to reflect its broad travel industry offering and the emphasis on digital products. As of 2010, it publishes about 500 titles in 8 languages, as well as TV programs, a magazine, mobile phone applications and websites.

Lonely Planet author, Alison Bing, will be our guide as we explore the globe, travel writing, and the literary landscape … Lonely Planet style.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Thanasis Maskaleris, Translator and Editor of The Terrestrial Gospel of Nikos Kazantzakis:  Will the Humans Be Saviors of the Earth?

Thanasis Maskaleris

Saturday, December 10, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

So come and celebrate with our earth loving, tree hugging tribe and share in this moving ode to our planet.

“This ‘terrestrial gospel’ is just the kind of bracing slap the world needs, a reminder from a great writer about what’s real and vital.”
—Bill McKibben Founder, 350.org, Author of Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

“Kazantzakis’s stentorian message needs to be hear far and wide,
as we persist in our sometimes mindless assaults on our fragile plane.”
—Dr. Leonidas Perakis, Scientist, Writer

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Peter Lang, Social Media Strategist and CEO of Uhuru Network

Peter Lang

Monday, December 5, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

Wondering about websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and so on and how they can possibly help you get the word out about your work? We’ve asked Social Media Strategist and CEO of Uhuru Network, Peter Lang, to come to the Bay Area for the second time this year (he was also at the Book Passage Travel Food and Photography Conference) to share his knowledge and demystify the social media and online worlds for you.

Peter is co-founder, CEO and lead strategist of Uhuru Network. He is also a co-creator and English author at Tricksfacebook.com, a multilingual tech blog focused on Facebook; co-creator and photographer for Stylishlyme.com, a personal fashion / travel blog; and co-creator of the LingoYou educational project, which uses blogging in high schools to connect and create a global conversation between two schools with different languages.

He built his first computer at the age of 10. By the time he graduated with a Degree in International Business and a Certificate in Finance, this dynamic young business consultant and new media strategist had already created a marketing department for one of the largest logistic brokers in the U.S., worked with the World Trade Organization as a lobbyist for a major growers’ association, and served as Operations Director for an up-and-coming educational and environmental non-profit. He served as President of his college fraternity and studied strategic marketing, international logistics, and international management at the ESCE (Ecole Superieure du Commerce Exterieur) in Paris. As an assistant in the computer lab for his college Engineering Department, he created servers, built networks, advised on all upgrades and conversions, and trained faculty and students on the equipment for 7 labs housing hundreds of computers.

“I believe we’re in the midst of the biggest opportunity since the industrial revolution,” says Peter. “My goal is to take away the stress and fear of social media. The internet is an outstanding resource for people and information. I love removing barriers so that clients can address it professionally, responsibly, fearlessly and with curiosity and spontaneity. Networks bring people closer together. They facilitate opportunities and help us find people with similar ideas and passions. That’s power. They increase our capabilities and our reach. They remind us that we are not alone.”

Today, he brings his far-ranging travels and experience to bear in his work teaching and advising in the areas of new technology and social media strategy. Through Uhuru Network, Peter and his team are designing communication experiences and tools centered on what their partners hope to achieve with a focus on strategy, content development, graphic design, and online skill development. Peter Lang is changing lives, supplying businesses with the tools to navigate the rapidly changing netscape and teaching young and old a whole new “LANGuage.”

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY:  Chicken Soup for the Soul Find Your Happiness: 101 Stories about Finding Your Purpose, Passion, and Joy with Anne Sigmon

Anne Sigmon

Monday, November 14, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

On Monday night we’ll be celebrating the publication of Chicken Soup for the Soul Find Your Happiness: 101 Stories about Finding Your Purpose, Passion, and Joy, a new anthology featuring Bay Area writers Anne Sigmon and Nicole Guiltinan.

• Anne Sigmon reads “Why I Still Travel to the Wild” a reflection on her determination to continue traveling to remote corners even after her health was compromised by a stroke and autoimmune disease.

• Nicole Guiltinan reads “Happiness Through Forgiveness” a story that looks back to her mother’s death when Nicole was twelve years old.

In Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Happiness, Anne, Nicole and the other contributors share stories that will inspire readers to find their own purpose, pursue their passions, and let joy into their lives, no matter what their circumstances.

Anne Sigmon is a Bay Area freelance writer who writes about stroke and autoimmune disease (AnneSigmon.com) as well as adventure travel for people with health concerns (JunglesPants.com).  She is currently finishing a memoir bout surviving stroke and resuming travel to wild locations from Burma to Uzbekistan.  Anne’s stories have appeared in national publications such as Good Housekeeping and Stroke Connection magazines and the 2010 travel anthology Wandering in Costa Rica.

Nicole Guiltinan is a first-year college student in Northern California who is planning a career in social work.  She enjoys reading, art, and writing poetry.

Come and enjoy wine & hors d’oeuvres plus a drawing for prizes. Books will be available for purchase at the reading.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Robbi Sommers Bryant, Author of The Beautiful Evil

Robbi Sommers Bryant

Saturday, November 12, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Do you believe in fairy tales? Well, the little devils wreak havoc in Robbi Sommers Bryant’s thriller, The Beautiful Evil

Constance Sartone Jaconson never recovered from the sudden death of her father when she was only five. Devastated by her husband’s death and the scandal that ensues, Constance’s mother, Madeline, does little to comfort her scared and lonely daughter. With nowhere to turn, Constance protects herself by closing by off her emotions. Through vivid dreams and daytime visions, Constance’s father calls to her from a horse-drawn stage coach. These visions help Constance cope with her humdrum life and failing marriage. But things are about to change.

On a business with her husband, she purchases an antique Greek vase. Upon opening it, a stream of purple light hisses from the vase, and a tribe of wasp-like creatures pour out. One of the creatures shape-shifts into a ravishing fairy and offers Constance a way out. Desperate to feel anything, Constance listens to the fairy’s advise. But as her confidence grows, she begins to make all the wrong decisions, catapulting her into a web of lies and deceit. As her life spins future and further out of control, Constance soon finds herself staring into the abyss, forced to make one final heart-wrenching decision.

A rollercoaster ride into the chaos of a personal hell, The Beautiful Evil, is a captivating, psychological thriller that will keep you questioning reality until the final ultimate act.

Sex. Crime. Deceit. Murder.

… And wine.  So do come, and bring your pals.

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Jasmin Darznik, Author of The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life

Jasmin Darznik

Monday, November 7, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

Please join us for an evening with one of our favorite writers: New York Times best selling author, Jasmin Darznik, who got her start right here at Book Passage in Corte Madera.

Jasmin’s first book, The Good Daughter : A Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life, was published in January 2011 by Grand Central. It was a New York Times Bestseller and will be published in thirteen countries. The book has just been released in paperback.

Jasmin is an award-winning essayist and short story writer whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications.

She was born in Tehran, Iran, grew up in Marin County, and received her Ph.D. in English from Princeton University. She is a professor of English and creative writing at Washington and Lee University and has also taught Iranian literature at the University of Virginia. As a 2011-2012 fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, she’s now at work on a novel set in 1960s Iran.

The Good Daughter was first conceived in a Book Passage workshop led by Linda Watanabe McFerrin. She counts the aforementioned Linda Watanabe McFerrin as her best teacher, ever.

For more about Jasmin and her book you can visit www.jasmindarznik.com

Here’s what reviewers are saying about The Good Daughter.

“An eye-opening account that disturbs with its depiction of the place
of women in Iranian society, but warms the heart in its portrayal of
their gritty endurance.”—Kirkus

“Riveting.” —Vogue

“Superb … riveting … a moving tribute.” —The Cleveland Plain Dealer

LEFT COAST WRITERS AT THE FERRY PLAZA:  Colette Obrien, Author of The Nobility of the Robe, emcees an evening filled with spooky tales!

Colette Obrien Hosts

Monday, October 10, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Join author and emcee Colette Obrien, Unity Barry, Debbie Goelz and Patricia Ljutic on Monday evening as Left Coast Writers share spooky tales. This event is open to the public, so share the news and bring your family and friends for a special treat.  That’s the Halloween spirit!

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Tina Vierra and Contributors to Cyberfeasts & Foodstocks

Tina Vierra

Saturday, October 8, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

This is an extra yummy event!

Editor Tina Vierra presents Cyberfeasts & Foodstocks. Vierra will talk about the process of creating this cookbook, which features more than 270 recipes, tips, quips, and useful cooking instruction from the experienced chefs, caterers, food shop owners, and cooks in The International Foodwine Discussion Group. Recipes from the book will be served!

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Laurie McLean, Agent

Laurie McLean

Monday, October 3, 2011 || 7pm

Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

Get the scoop on the latest trends in publishing and what agents are looking for these days from our October speaker, Laurie McLean.

Laurie McLean joined the Larsen Pomada Agency in 2005 following a 20-year stint as the CEO of a successful Silicon Valley public relations agency. Laurie was able to switch gears in 2002 to immerse herself in writing. She penned three manuscripts, and if that wasn’t enough, decided that the life of a literary agent would be the perfect complement to her duties as a writer of fantasy and romance.

Laurie has been writing professionally since high school—first as a journalist, then as a public relations agent. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the State University of New York and a Master’s Degree at Syracuse University’s prestigious Newhouse School of Journalism.

Laurie specializes in adult genre fiction (romance, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, westerns, horror, etc.) plus middle-grade and young adult children’s books.

For more on Laurie, check out her blog at www.agentsavant.com.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY:  Daniel Bacon, Author of Barbary Coast Trail Official Guide and Laurie McAndish King, co-creator of the SF Waterfront App.

Daniel Bacon

Monday, September 12, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Who isn’t in love with the San Francisco Waterfront? We have two experts on hand to explain its most exciting points: Daniel Bacon, founder of the Barbary Coast Trail and author of Barbary Coast Trail Official Guide and Laurie McAndish King, co-creator of the SF Waterfront: Bridge to Ballpark App.

The Barbary Coast Trail is a designated path that connects 20 historic sites—many of them along the S.F. Waterfront—and local history museums in San Francisco, California.

The Barbary Coast Trail was founded by historian Daniel Bacon in collaboration with the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society. The trail was inaugurated in May 1998 and originally marked with painted images. The first 150 bronze medallions to mark the trail were installed by 2000. The medallions were designed by Daniel Bacon and illustrator Jim Blair.

Laurie McAndish King

Laurie McAndish King’s S.F. Waterfront App., great for anyone exploring the area, is available from Sutro Media and can be downloaded through iTunes.

We can’t think of a more appropriate Ferry Plaza event. Visitors and locals will discover new things to enjoy!

Eat, Play, Love: Cooking and Writing from the Heart in the Lowcountry with Linda Watanabe McFerrin and the Southern Sampler Artists Colony, April 17-24, 2012

The 2012 workshop will fill up quickly, so if you if you have any interest you should let the organizers know!

Welcome home!

The rocking chairs beckon. Can you smell the salt air? Stir, fry, mix, mold, blend, stew, bake, roast, whip, sprinkle, dip, fold—embrace old and new friends, celebrate community, and create shared stories to be embellished in time.

Event Highlights:

“Marsh-to-Plate”: Cast your net with Captain Anton. Oysters, clams, crabs, redfish and flounder anyone? Dinner will feature the catch of the day. Anton will help in the preparation, and read from the book he is writing.

The Dark and Light Side of Chocolate: Discover the magic of chocolate making with renown chocolatier, David Vagasky.

Certified Organic Produce, Fresh and Local: A personal tour of the Joseph Fields Farm, located on Johns Island, wouldn’t be complete without supper on the banks of the nearby Stono River. Alluette, owner of Alluette’s Café, will be in charge. And don’t forget live jazz and poetry under a starry sky.

Lawn Party: Brush up on your croquet game, concoct a Southern drink for the occasion, and devil some eggs. Charleston friends will join in the fun.

The Spice of Life: From delicate to tangy and sweet, Sea Island Savory Herbs, located on Johns Island, has it all. A private tour will feature innovative use of heirloom herbs in the art of cooking.

Stirring the Creative Juices with Cathleen O’Brien

• Create your very own Altered Book.
• Contribute to a Collective Workshop Cookbook
• Learn how to make fish prints with artist, Sue Wallace.

Writing Workshop with Linda Watanabe McFerrin

• Workshop 1: Starters
• Workshop 2: Word Salad
• Workshop 3: Comfort Food
• Workshop 4: Toasts, Boasts, and Roasts
• Workshop 5: Lovely Desserts

Cost of Colony Experience: Cost is $1,800 ($1,950 if paid after December 15, 2011) for a private room, and $1,600 ($1,750 if paid after December 15, 2011) for a shared room. The choice of private and separate rooms depends upon availability at time of registration.

In order to assure workshop placement please send a $500 check deposit (fully refundable before October 10th) made out to Southern Sampler Artists Colony with private or shared room preference to: Mary Brent Cantarutti, 233 Santa Margarita Drive, San Rafael, CA 94901.There will be ten workshop participants; placement will be finalized in order of receipt of deposits.

The company is everything! Charleston here we come!

Mary Brent & Martha

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Adrienne Amundsen, Author of Cassandras Falling

Adrienne Amundsen

Saturday, September 10, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Please join us for a celebration and a good amount of revelation as poet Adrienne Amundsen shares her poetic observations on politics, the environment and our humanity. You’ll find a great deal to cheer in this first collection by a talented poet. Her poems are a call to action! We’ll provide Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Spud Hilton,  San Francisco Chronicle Travel Editor

Spud Hilton

Tuesday, September 6, 2011 || 7pm

Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Back from those summer travels? Maybe it’s time to write about them. And what better way to find out how than during a relaxing evening with Spud Hilton.

Spud Hilton is the travel editor of The San Francisco Chronicle, where in the past 10 years he has written about, reported on and been hopelessly lost in destinations on five continents. His attempts to divine, describe and defy the expectations of places — from Havana’s back alleys to Genoa’s churches to the floor of a hippie bus in Modesto — have earned five Lowell Thomas Awards, and have appeared in more than 60 newspapers in North America, several of which are still publishing. Spud also writes the Bad Latitude travel blog at SFGate.com, and is working on a book. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Ann, and he plays cornet in an early New Orleans traditional jazz band.

Our Tuesday night salon (Monday is Labor Day) will be a super intro to this talented writer and editor. Writers who want to spend more time with Spud can sign up for an evening with him at Book Passage in the Ferry Plaza where they will learn how to “chart their story’s course.”

Reflections from a Book Passage Travel & Food Writing & Photography Conference Newbie

©2011 by Diane Susan Petty

I used to be wealthy and successful—number one in my industry.

Now I sit on a bench contemplating a “No Barking” sign, the “P” graffitied over with a “B”. I observe the cars are indeed parked in front and the dogs are quiet. I notice a sign saying an 18-pound male cat named PhiPhi has run away and wonder if it was because the other kitties were teasing him about his name.

I recently became an unemployed, broke mortgage banker. After announcing my desire to make a major life change and become an unemployed, broke travel writer, a mutual friend introduced me to travel writing guru, Don George.

Don’s advice? “Come to the Book Passage Travel & Food Writing & Photography Conference. Meet Spud. It’ll be life changing.”

Down to our last $1000, my husband suggested we might want to use that money for groceries; why not wait and go next year? Groceries be damned; I could drop a few pounds anyway. I’m going to the conference.

One minute I’m excited and hopeful for the future; the former confident me has returned. The next I’m petrified about attending, convinced I’m grasping at straws out of pure desperation. What do I know about travel writing? Keep reading …

WANDERLAND WRITERS WORKSHOP: Wandering and Writing in Bail with Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar

September 26 – October 3, 2011

There is only one spot available.

Wanderland Writers Workshops generally sell out before they are even posted, but, due to a cancellation, there is a chance to participate in this one.

You can join Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar for a week of writing and adventure in a tropical paradise — BALI!

Dates: September 26th – October 3, 2011

Place: Gorgeous island-style resort with airy villa accommodations, terraces, restaurant, pool, spa and more in the mountains above Ubud, Bali’s artistic capital. Accommodations: Shared rooms in private villas

Amenities:

• Swimming pool
• Spa
• Conference area
• Gardens
• Restaurant
• Wireless broadband
• Cable TV
• Outdoor exercise facility
• Maid service for laundry

Included in price:

• Transportation to and from airport
• Eight days/seven nights accommodations
• Seven breakfasts, afternoon tea daily, two lunches, four sumptuous dinners
• Five 2-hour workshops
• Private consultation with instructors
• Time and space to write
• Welcome dinner
• Temple visit
• Monkey forest visit
• Museum tour
• Balinese dance evening
• Banquet by a local chef
• Access to local attractions
• Plenty of time to explore on shared and personal adventures

Cost: $2,400

Optional Add-ons:

• Spa treatments
• Visits to craft studios and galleries in Ubud
• Balinese shadow puppet show
• Bird walks
• Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (October 5-9, 2011)
• Extra days at the resort, to be negotiated with owner

VERY limited space!!!! Reply to   jobiggar@gmail.com

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Mary Jo McConahay, Author of Maya Roads: One Woman’s Journey Among the People of the Rainforest

Saturday, August 20, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Join us for the launch of Mary Jo McConahay’s new book, Maya Roads: One Woman’s Journey Among the People of the Rainforest.

A transporting blend of history, adventure and eyewitness experience, this beautifully written book is a deep and authoritative account of the people, politics, archaeology and magic of the Central American rainforest, the cradle of Maya civilization.

“She is innocence and experience, discoverer and knowing witness.  The Maya believe we are nearing an end time.  I cannot imagine a better chronicler of this time and place than Mary Jo McConahay.”–PBS NewsHour Commentator Richard Rodriguez, Author of Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, and Brown: The Last Discovery of America.

“From the moment she steps into the deep Mexican jungle, you will follow her anywhere.”–Laura Fraser, Author of An Italian Affair, and All Over the Map.

Journalist Mary Jo McConahay covered Central America as a war correspondent and lived in Mexico and Central America for fifteen years.  Her award-winning work has apeared in more than thirty magazines and periodicals and is collected in a half-dozen books, including True to Life Adventure Stories by Women and Best Travel Writing 2011. She coproduced the PBS documentary Discovering Dominga, awarded the Cine Golden Eagle and numerous other film honors, and is widely used in college classrooms.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY:  Todd Crawshaw, Author of Light-Years in the Dark

Monday, August 8, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Todd Crawshaw shares selections from his new book of story-poems, Light-Years in the Dark.

Todd Crawshaw has been writing fiction for 39 years. He attended the University of Oregon, studying at the School of Architecture and Allied Arts, where he graduated with a bachelor of science degree in psychology. He is the author of Exploits of the Satyr, the fourth in a line of five (and now approaching six) novels he has written, along with a collection of stories and poems … and a few screenplays too.

In 1975, he established a graphic design studio, Crawshaw Design. This San Francisco venture has changed and evolved over the years, significantly with the advent of computers and their global proliferation. He provides integrated brand marketing for print and the web, having developed more than 200 corporate identity programs for major corporations and individual proprietorships. It’s an interesting business. Check it out:www.crawshawdesign.com.

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Kelly Booth, Creative Director at Weldon Owen Publishing

Kelly Booth

Monday, August 1, 2011 || 7pm

Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera ||www.bookpassage.com

Let’s get wildly creative. Kelly Booth, Creative Director at Weldon Owen Publishing will show us how.

A life-long traveler, Kelly Booth was once told by a Cuban Santeria that her work would be translated into many languages—a prediction that came true. As an award-winning Creative Director at Weldon Owen Publishing in San Francisco, a large number of the books she helps to create are published and distributed internationally. The global phenomenon Show Me How, a visual how-to guide, has been translated into more than 25 languages and sold in over 30 different countries including China, Turkey, and Brazil.

Flip through that book, and you might spot an illustrated version of Kelly showing you how to samba dance in Rio’s Carnival, or throw knives in Pen and Teller’s Las Vegas show. Those are two examples of the experiences she collects anytime her lust for adventure lures her into another pungent, frozen, dangerous, or dazzling locale. The mountains of northern Peru turned up an especially surprising episode involving a witch doctor—Kelly’s account of that incident was anthologized in A Woman’s Path: Women’s Best Spiritual Travel Writing.

Always drawing inspiration from those far flung explorations, Kelly now leads a talented ensemble of artists and designers who collaborate closely with authors and editors to create visually compelling books and digital editions on a wide range of topics such as sex, fashion, science, and zombies—though thankfully, not usually at the same time. Some of the team’s recent bestselling titles include Parenting Magazine’s The Happiest Mom, and Field & Stream’s Total Outdoorsman Manual.

A graduate of the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, Kelly is also an accomplished fine artist who has served as Artist-In-Residence with the US Department of the Interior at Buffalo National River, and at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley California. Her art works have been shown internationally, at venues such as SFMOMA Artist’s Gallery, Art House Co-op in Brooklyn, New York, and GRID 09 in Stockholm, Sweden.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Terry Sue Harms, Author of Pearls My Mother Wore and Tami Casias, Author of Crystal Bound

Tami Casias

Monday, July 11, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Get out the crystals and the pearls. Seriously. We want you all to wear them when you come to the Ferry Plaza for our sparkling summer celebration of the work of two terrific authors, both self-published, both devoted to getting the word out on their books. That’s the spirit we love in a writer: bright and undaunted. These are our heroes.

Terry Sue Harms

Terry Sue Harms has been a practicing hairdresser since 1977 and currently owns her salon.  In 1992 she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Mills College.  In May of 2005, she was inspired, in response to the new reality TV craze, “to write a story where the losers were the winners.”  Pearls My Mother Wore was born of that inspiration.  Terry lives in Northern California with her husband, Lutrell.

Tami Casias wrote local news for years while raising four children. Nowadays, writing fiction for young adults while sitting in coffee shops has taken the place of city council meetings. She uses her degree in Journalism to research new ideas for stories. Tami lives with her husband, teenage son, and Yorkshire terrier, Bruiser, in Sonoma, California.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Patricia Volonakis Davis, Author of The Diva Doctrine

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED!

Patricia V. Davis

Saturday, July 9, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Calling all Divas …

It’ll be pure fun on Saturday night, so we hope most of you will have it in you to join the colorful characters that will assemble to celebrate  The Diva Doctrine with Patricia Volonakis Davis. Patricia will be dishing up advice and discussing the 16 universal principles of Diva-hood. You’ll want to bring your friends just to make sure you are all on the same page. No Diva can do it alone.

PATRICIA V. DAVIS’ aim is to leave her spot of the world just a little bit better than it was before she got there. She focuses on that through her writing, teaching, philanthropic work, and the promoting of other people whom she believes have that same goal.

Patricia is the author of the award-winning Harlot’s Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss and Greece, and The Diva Doctrine: 16 Universal Principles Every Woman Needs to Know. She has been called a “Renaissance Woman” by The Orange County Register, and as founder and editor-in-chief of the non-partisan HS Radio e-magazine and podcast, Patricia loves encouraging new writers and interviewing other “Renaissance people”, such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jane Friedman, and more. She also hosts an “Expert in Failed Relationships” Advice Column there.

Patricia holds a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing and Education, and has conducted seminars extensively in various venues and schools throughout the US and overseas. She was  named one of Top 25 Mentors for Young Women and Girls 2010 and 2011, by the Hot Mommas Project. The Diva Doctrineis an extension of the guidance and support she hopes to give to women.

Roger Housden

THE ART OF SOULFUL MEMOIR: WHERE YOUR OUTER LIFE MEETS YOUR INNER WORLD

A FOUR WEEK CLASS WITH ROGER HOUSDEN
Author of the Ten Poems Series and Saved By Beauty: Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran

Soulful memoir uses the raw material of your life to reveal the deeper intelligence of your life’s journey. In this class you will weave into words as truthfully as possible the ongoing thread of your lives. Please bring work you want to develop, and whether or not you have prior material, come ready to develop some during the class.

WHEN: FOUR TUESDAYS IN JULY: JULY 5, 12, 19, 26.
WHERE: 8. Eden Lane, Larkspur
COST: $180.00. $50 DEPOSIT to Roger Housden at address above.
FURTHER INFO: CALL ROGER ON 415 924 6061.

CLASS LIMITED TO EIGHT PARTICIPANTS

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Elaine Miller Bond, Author of Affimals: Affirmations + Animals

Elaine Miller Bond

Monday, June 13, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

At last! We cordially invite you to the long awaited U.S. book launch party for Elaine Miller Bond’s Affimals: Affirmations + Animanls.

Affimals is an uplifting journey into the kind of happiness we can all have in our lives, with affirmations like WILD HORSE: Unbridle your passion, and FIREFLY: Spark imagination. With every turn of the page, the reader is greeted by another beautiful illustration, along with a story based on both positivity and the latest developments from the scientific community. The book brings joy to all members of the family and serves as tool for connecting with the natural world. It’s part-inspiration, part-environmental education, all-heart.

“Animals can teach us so much, whether they are caring for their young, exhibiting altruism, communicating with each other, or just surviving. Elaine Miller Bond’s Affimals is an inspiration and a lesson — from all creatures great and small to all readers young and old.”— Michael Markarian, Exec. vice president, The Humane Society of the United States

“A delightful book! With vivid descriptions, whimsical tales, and stunning artwork, Elaine Miller Bond has created a wondrous and inspiring book for children of every age. Let all, like her bluebird, “rise up singing”! — T.A. Barron, Author of The Great Tree of Avalon, Merlin, and Merlin’s Dragon

Elaine Miller Bond grew up in the Berkeley Hills, wandering the creeks for newts and falling asleep to the spring choruses of tree frogs. She immersed herself in the environment for her graduate degree abroad at Cambridge University, having, at UC Berkeley, combined her love for the Earth (Geography) with her mind for the written word (English).

Her career began as a science writer with the University of California Natural Reserve System, where she also developed outdoor programs that served to educate underserved high school students. Her writing and photography have appeared on the Discovery Channel and in BBC Earth News, The American Naturalist, The Washington Post, and other popular and scientific media. Her field-based photographs of rare Utah prairie dogs have been used for education by Lucasfilm and leading universities, and will be published in three upcoming books, including the new edition of the popular textbook, An Introduction to Behavioral Ecology, by N. B. Davies, J. R. Krebs, and S. West.

Bond’s own book — which she wrote and illustrated — is entitled, Affimals: Affirmations + Animals. It’s part-inspiration, part-environmental education, all-heart.

She and her boisterous cat Cyrano currently make their home on the hooting, gobbling edge of her favorite childhood park — with scorpions — in Orinda.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Colette Obrien, Author of The Nobility of the Robe, Book 1 of the Mirari Chronicles

Saturday, June 11, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Roger Housden, Author of Saved by Beauty:  Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran

Roger Housden

Monday, June 6, 2011 || 7pm

Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

We invite you to step out and into the “creative pause,” a chance to relax and listen in on the secrets of writing, travel, discovery, beauty and engaging the heart with one of our favorite philosopher-writers: Roger Housden.

Roger Housden is the author of some twenty books, including the best-selling Ten Poems Series. All his books, whatever the subject – poetry, art, a journey through Iran or India – share a common aim: to inspire himself and others to question the way we live, encouraging us, before we die, to live into the best that we are. One of his recent works, Seven Sins For a Life Worth Living, is an unusual reflection on the nature of pleasure, including the pleasure of doing nothing – “the creative pause” – and the pleasure of not being perfect. His book on Iran, Saved by Beauty:  Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran, has been called “a pilgrimage, a prayer, a heartfelt reminder, a poet-traveler’s window into the eternal soul of Iran …” (Jack Kornfield, best-selling author of A Path With Heart and After the Ecstasy, The Laundry).

Roger’s work has been featured many times in The Oprah Magazine, in The New York Times, and in the Los Angeles Times. He now  lives in Marin County and runs periodic classes on Spiritual Memoir in the Bay Area.

“I grew up in the cleft of a Cotswold valley on the edge of Bath, England. Living in the shadow of an ancient stone circle, I always felt us to be creatures with one foot in this world and one in another, less visible one. To weave these two realms – this gritty world of action and the world of silence, imagination, and being – into one cloth, rich with meaning, is what I feel we are here for. Poetry, art, meditation and also travel have given me a language for this experience of a life deeply felt, and also an entry directly into it.”

—Roger Housden, Author of Saved by Beauty:  Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran

If you want to bring a friend to this event, just let us know and we will be happy to add them to the guest list.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Alan Squire Publishing

Publisher Jimmy Patterson and Author Joanna Biggar share the stage

Monday, May 9, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

We hope you’ll join us as visiting publisher and author James J. Patterson (Bermuda Shorts) teams up with local favorite Joanna Biggar (That Paris Year) for a night of remembrances. The authors will chat about memoir, or in the case of Patterson … men-moir .. and tell tales about life and love in the city of light and the good old USA.

James J. Patterson grew up with a foot planted in each of two worlds — one in Washington DC, the Capital of the Empire as he calls it, and one in rural Ontario, where his Canadian mother insisted the family spend their summers. His father, one of the wizards of 20th Century newspaper publishing, introduced him to the city’s wheels of money and power, which he would later navigate as an entrepreneur, starting his first business at 20. But those Canadian summers introduced him to a different world – one where a cedar strip boat was better than any car, and where the ghosts of those who’d previously inhabited the family’s island house floated out over the water of Lovesick Lake. It is those two worlds that blend in Bermuda Shorts, a collection on what it means to be a man, an artist, an iconoclast, a patriot, and a lover, as the 20th Century rolls over into the 21st.

A life long student of history, philosophy and politics, Patterson has managed country bands, delivered newspapers, adapted Sherlock Holmes short stories for radio plays, and published a highly regarded sports magazine. As a singer-songwriter, Patterson was half of the political satire folk music duo, The Pheromones, one of the first acts to be featured on MTV and one of the last bands to play on American Bandstand. With the Pheromones, he toured the US for over fifteen years.

Joanna Biggar turned twenty in Paris, where she was a student at the Sorbonne, and went on to earn degrees in Chinese language and French literature. Since then she has chaired a school board in Ghana, traveled solo to remote regions of China, worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., and taught inner-city school students in Oakland, California, where she lives. She is married, has five adult children and six grandchildren, who love books. A member of the Society of Woman Geographers, her special places of the heart remain France and the California coast.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Aaron Pribble, Author of Pitching in the Promised Land: A Story of the First and Only Season in the Israel Baseball League

Aaron Pribble

Saturday, May 14, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Baseball and books? Two all-American favorites team up for a wonderful Left Coast Writers night at Book Passage in Corte Madera.

It was the first (and last) season of professional baseball in Israel. Aaron Pribble, twenty-seven, had been out of Minor League Baseball for three years while he pursued a career in education when, at his coach’s suggestion, he tried out for the newly formed Israel Baseball League (IBL). Of Jewish descent (not a requirement, but definitely a plus) and a former pro, Pribble was the ideal candidate for the upstart league, which in many ways resembled the ultimate baseball fantasy camp, with its unforgettable cast of characters: the DJ/street artist third baseman from the Bronx, the wild-man catcher from Australia, the journeymen Dominicans who were much older than they claimed to be, and, of course, seventy-one-year-old Sandy Koufax, drafted in a symbolic gesture as the last player.

After falling in love with a beautiful Yemenite Jew, enduring an alleged terrorist attack on opening day, witnessing a career-ending brain injury caused by improper field equipment, participating in a strike, and venturing into the West Bank despite being strongly advised against it, Pribble must decide whether to forego a teaching career in order to become the first player from the IBL to sign a pro contract in the United States. His is a story of coming of age spiritually and athletically in one short season in the throes of romance, Middle Eastern politics, and the dreams of America’s pastime far, far from home.

Aaron Pribble played collegiate baseball at the University of Hawaii, then professionally in the Western and Central Baseball Leagues, in France, and in the Israel Baseball League. He has a masters degree in political science and teaches at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California. Aaron lives in San Francisco.

“A touching and enlightening tale of political and cultural awakening, conveyed through the vehicle of baseball. . . . [A] unique voyage of discovery, both on and off the diamond, and populated by a rich cast of characters, from Pribble’s Yemeni girlfriend to his Canadian guide in Palestine to his Australian, Dominican, and Israeli teammates.”—Robert Elias, author of The Empire Strikes Out

“Aaron Pribble has written what I call the Oy! Testament, a true, detailed accounting of his year playing ball in Israel, of all places. Chock full of color about Jewish life in the Promised Land, it delves into the politics of new settlements in this volatile region, from the perspective of a Californian with a Jewish mother and a Christian dad, all painted against the backdrop of Our National Pastime in the desert.”
—Steven Travers, author of The 1969 Miracle Mets

“Pitching in the Promised Land is a thrilling odyssey of sport, religion, love, and politics, of finding common ground on the baseball field in the most unlikely of places—Israel. In his debut memoir, Mr. Pribble has established himself as a gifted storyteller with extraordinary insight, observation, and humor.”
—Logan Miller and Noah Miller, authors of Either You’re in or You’re in the Way

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: James J. Patterson, noted musician, Co-Founder of Alan Squire Publishing and Author of Bermuda Shorts

Monday, May 2, 2011 || 7pm

Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

We’re ecstatic about a VERY SPECIAL guest publisher and author visiting from Washington D.C. and hope you will join us for a lively evening of humor and celebration. In honor of James Patterson’s visit, we will be opening the salon to your special guests … just let us know (leftcoastwriters@aol.com) who you want to add to the guest list.

James J. Patterson grew up with a foot planted in each of two worlds — one in Washington DC, the Capital of the Empire as he calls it, and one in rural Ontario, where his Canadian mother insisted the family spend their summers. His father, one of the wizards of 20th Century newspaper publishing, introduced him to the city’s wheels of money and power, which he would later navigate as an entrepreneur, starting his first business at 20. But those Canadian summers introduced him to a different world – one where a cedar strip boat was better than any car, and where the ghosts of those who’d previously inhabited the family’s island house floated out over the water of Lovesick Lake. It is those two worlds that blend in Bermuda Shorts, a collection on what it means to be a man, an artist, an iconoclast, a patriot, and a lover, as the 20th Century rolls over into the 21st.

In clothing, Bermuda Shorts are casual formal wear – and in this collection of essays, Bermuda Shorts is the perfect metaphor for James J. Patterson’s fundamentally serious but playful literary style. Patterson writes like the love child of Henry Miller and Mary Karr, with all the contradictions that implies —a philosopher who thinks best over a glass of fine wine; an ex-Catholic still
haunted by the image of the Crucifixion; an irreverent political satirist whose patriotism flies the flag of another iconoclast, Thomas Paine.

A life long student of history, philosophy and politics, Patterson has managed country bands, delivered newspapers, adapted Sherlock Holmes short stories for radio plays, and published a highly regarded sports magazine. As a singer-songwriter, Patterson was half of the political satire folk music duo, The Pheromones, one of the first acts to be featured on MTV and one of the last bands to play on American Bandstand. With the Pheromones, he toured the US for over fifteen years.

Alan Squire Publishing (Patterson’s independent press) also published Oakland author Joanna Biggar (That Paris Year).

Trust us: You will NOT want to miss this evening.

Visiting Author/Publisher James J. Patterson will be speaking and reading at a number of special events while he is in the San Francisco/Bay Area. Left Coast Writers is a participating organizer of many of these events and will be providing refreshments. We are posting his entire schedule in the hope that you will be able to join us at some of these occasions.

Thursday, April 28th, 2011 @5:30pm
Towne Center Books
w/Joanna Biggar author of That Paris Year
555 Main Street, Pleasanton, CA
925 846 8826

Monday, May 2, 2011 @7pm
Book Passage w/Left Coast Writers Literary Salon
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
Corte Madera, CA  94929
415 927 0960
Left Coast Writers and Invitation only

Wednesday, May 4, 2011 @7pm
A Great Good Place for Books
w/Joanna Biggar
6120 LaSalle Avenue
Oakland, CA  94611
510 339 8210

Friday, May 6, 2011 @7pm
Friends of Left Coast Writers Salon
Sonoma, CA
Invitation only

Saturday, May 7, 2011 @7pm
Friends of Left Coast Writers Salon
Oakland, CA
Invitation only

Monday, May 9, 2011 @6pm
Book Passage/Left Coast Writers
w/Joanna Biggar
1 Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA 94111
415 835 1200

Tuesday, May 10, 2011 @7:30pm
The Booksmith
w/Linda Watanabe McFerrin & Joanna Biggar
1644 Haight Street
San Francisco, CA  94117
415 863 8688
http://www.booksmith.com/event

Thursday, May 12, 2011 @7pm
The Double Play Sports Bar & Restaurant
w/Dan Fost, Jason Turbow, Steve Hermanos, and Aaron Pribble
2401 16th Street
“The Mission”
San Francisco, CA 94103
415 621 9859

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Joanna Biggar and Wanderland Writers

Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar in transit

Monday, April 11, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Readers, writers, travelers—adventuresome to armchair—and lovers of Costa Rica, you won’t want to miss an evening of exciting travel tales from this delightful group of travelers. Colette Obrien fills in as host for Linda Watanabe McFerrin at Book Passage in the Ferry Plaza.

When workshop leaders Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar gathered a baker’s dozen of their favorite travelers and writers, they had no idea how transformative the journey would be. Nurtured and inspired in an environment beyond compare, the assembled explored Costa Rica, gathering tales from across the country. From rainforests, volcanoes, tropical beaches, butterfly gardens, colorful towns and villages, the writers wandered the country and brought back a fine collection of poetry and stories that present Costa Rica in richly personal style.

On this night, members of the merry band will share some of these travel stories and more as they prepare in spirit for yet another adventure: This year they head for Bali in search of more marvelous tales from the road.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY:  Patricia Volonakis Davis, Author of Harlot’s Sauce and The Diva Doctrine: 16 Universal Principles Every Woman Needs to Know

Patricia V. Davis

Saturday, April 9, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Please join us for an evening with Patricia Volonakis Davis as she shares her work: the award-winning Harlot’s Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss and Greece, and The Diva Doctrine: 16 Universal Principles Every Woman Needs to Know.

Patricia’s aim is to leave her spot of the world just a little bit better than it was before she got there. She focuses on that through her writing, teaching, philanthropic work, and the promoting of other people who she believes have that same goal. She has been called a “Renaissance Woman” by Carine Nadel in The Orange County Register for her writing. As founder and editor-in-chief of the non-partisan HS Radio e-magazine and podcast, Patricia loves encouraging new writers and interviewing other “Renaissance people”, such as Neal deGrasse Tyson, James Redford, Jane Friedman, and more. She holds a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing and Education, and has taught, spoken, read, and conducted seminars extensively in various venues and schools throughout the US and overseas. Patricia was  named one of the Top 25 Mentors for Young Women and Girls 2010, by the Hot Mommas Project. Her latest work, The Diva Doctrine, is an extension of the guidance and support she hopes to give to women.

SOUTHERN SAMPLER ARTISTS COLONY PRESENTS:
A Writer’s Workshop
with Linda Watanabe McFerrin
April 5-12, 2011

ONE SPOT JUST OPENED UP!

Ready to wrap your tongue around the Gullah language and relish the dark, tangy sensations that feed the soul and lift the spirit? Want to discover a history like no other, a history bound in slavery, tempered in Lowcountry rice fields, and raised to glory in slow primal beats? Join us! Celebrate a side of Charleston that not all locals, much less tourists, know exists.

We’ll stay in a charming and rambling turn-of-the century home on Sullivan’s Island, only minutes from downtown Charleston and only a block away from one of South Carolina’s pristine white-sand beaches. Keep reading …

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Diane LeBow, MJ Pramik & Kate Crawford

Monday, March 14, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Please join our Left Coast Writers Travelers’ Tales Solas Award winners and honorees and contributors to The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 for an evening of wine and wonderful stories about travel. Diane LeBow will read from her Afghan story, “Tea in Kabul,” winner of the Solas Gold Award for Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010. MJ Pramik will read from her Solas Award winning tale about Running in Puglia. Kate Crawford will be reading from her Solas Award winning story, “Elephant Driving 101.”

Since the publication of A Woman’s World in 1995, Travelers’ Tales has been publishing award-winning books by and for women. They continue this tradition with The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010, the sixth collection in our annual series guaranteed to inspire women to take their first trip—or to continue exploring the world with wit, soul, and verve, as so many adventurous women do each and every day.

This best-selling, award-winning series presents the finest accounts of women who have traveled to the ends of the earth to discover new places, peoples — and themselves. The common threads connecting the stories are a woman’s perspective and lively storytelling to make the reader laugh, cry, wish she were there, or be glad she wasn’t. From climbing a volcano in Ecuador to running a kennel for pariah dogs in India to helping prepare meals in Iran, the points of view and perspectives are global and the themes eclectic, including stories that encompass spiritual growth, hilarity and misadventure, high adventure, romance, solo journeys, stories of service to humanity, family travel, and encounters with exotic cuisine.

In The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010:

• A search for the perfect wave in New Zealand provides a lesson in love
• Curiosity leads to an understanding of political activism and human rights in Burma
• A childless American is adopted by a six-year-old and becomes part of the family in Italy
• Cultural understanding deepens in surprising ways through language lessons in
  Vietnam
• On a fact-finding mission in Afghanistan, a retired professor learns that peace is
  everything
• A day on a nude beach in the Netherlands gives a self-described “prude” a new appreciation of body types, and comfort with her own
  …and much more.Travelers’ Tales books luxuriate in that complicated, beautiful, shadowy place where the best stories begin, and the most compelling characters roam free.”
  —ForeWord Magazine

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY:  Joanna Biggar, Author of That Paris Year

Joanna Biggar

Saturday, March 12, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Spring travel is already in the air! Allow yourself to be carried away to Paris by Joanna Biggar. We’ll supply the wine and snacks.

Who has not dreamed of escaping to Paris? When wildfire ravished the landscape of Los Angeles, five young co-eds, house-mates in the rundown Maison Française, found the freedom to pursue that dream. They set sail on a rusty boat in the summer of 1962 determined to enroll in the Sorbonne. It was as if Mary McCarthy’s “Group” had landed on a mystifying Left Bank, exotic and compelling as Durrell’s Alexandria. What they lost was more than their virginity, their bad American accents, and their beloved clichés about “meaning”; what they gained, as they traded notes, clothes, dreams, loves and identities was the gift of geography — the tectonic shift that occurs upon discovering that place, native or adopted, is an integral part of who we are.

Joanna Biggar turned twenty in Paris, where she was a student at the Sorbonne, and went on to earn degrees in Chinese language and French literature. Since then she has chaired a school board in Ghana, traveled solo to remote regions of China, worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., and taught inner-city school students in Oakland, California, where she lives. She is married, has five adult children and six grandchildren, who love books. A member of the Society of Woman Geographers, her special places of the heart remain France and the California coast.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Tami Casias, Author of Crystal Bound

Tami Casias

Saturday, February 12, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

We hope you’ll join us for wine, juice, cookies and a lovely evening suitable for the whole family.

Tami Casias discusses her young adult novel Crystal Bound ($19.95).

Julie hopes to skate under the radar on her first day at a new high school. But when she inherits powers that compel her to help others, she is forced out of both her comfort zone and her sense of reality. As she tries to fade into the background, the powers force her to deal with serious issues that threaten to shatter her dreams.

Tami Casias wrote local news for years while raising four children. Nowadays, writing fiction for young adults while sitting in coffee shops has taken the place of city council meetings. She uses her degree in Journalism to research new ideas for stories. Tami lives with her husband, teenage son, and Yorkshire terrier, Bruiser, in Sonoma, California.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Patricia Ljutic

Patricia Ljutic

Monday, February 14, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Treat  yourself, a friend or partner to a playful stop on Valentine’s Day.

You’re invited to join Patricia Ljutic for a reading about love and lovers.

Come for free wine and chocolate compliments of Left Coast Writers, love poems by a surprise guest, a story of long-term-love, and a reading from a sensual fantasy. There will also be a raffle and you could WIN THE PERFECT VALENTINE’S DAY GIFT for your loved one.

Patricia Ljutic reads Love Check published in Colleen Sell’s A Cup of Comfort for Couples: Stories That Celebrate What It Means to Be in Love ($11.95). This book is a collection of true stories that share the laughter, tears, hugs, and kisses of fifty wonderful couples.

Patricia Ljutic’s work has appeared in regional and national publications including My Mom Is My Hero, A Cup of Comfort for Couples and Chicken Soup of the Soul: Family Matters. She received her MA in Nursing Administration from the University of California at San Francisco and works as a nurse manager and writer. Patricia lives with Kirby, her husband of nearly thirty years, and their creative family in a home filled with paper, paints and the makings of several great works of art still in progress.

You can make this the start of a Valentine’s Day to remember, and follow the reading with dinner. Make a reservation at a nearby San Francisco restaurant (below).

Restaurant Suggestions:

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Li Miao Lovett, Author of In the Lap of the Gods

Li Miao Lovett

Monday, January 10, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Set in present day China, In the Lap of the Gods is a story about the heartbreak and challenge that families face today. When the world’s largest dam rises up, entire cities and villages go under water. The past is erased in the name of progress. Liu has lost all that is dear to him; his wife and unborn child have died, and his old town was flooded by the Three Gorges dam. In battling their own demons, Liu and Fang encounter the underbelly of China’s rampant growth. This is a story of defiance, weaving together a poor man’s struggle to survive in the modern world and a rich man’s attempt to reclaim the past.

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Charles Entrekin, Author of Listening: New & Selected Work

Charles Entrekin

Saturday, January 8, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Charles Entrekin was born in 1941 in Birmingham, Alabama,.  He took his BA in English from Birmingham Southern College, in 1964.  He left Birmingham in 1965 and lived in various states (New York , Tennessee, Alabama, and Montana) while pursuing advanced degrees in philosophy and creative writing.  Arriving in California in 1969, he fell in love with the West Coast scene and the Hotel California experience.  He now lives in Berkeley with his wife, poet, Gail Rudd Entrekin.

Charles has taught at almost every educational level.  He taught pre-school language skills to six-year-olds with he Head Start program in Birmingham, Alabama; taught introduction to set theory to disadvantaged high school graduates with the Upward Bound Program in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; taught composition, English literature, creative writing, philosophy at the college level, and was the founder of the Creative Writing Program at John F. Kennedy University’s Orinda, California campus.

For 24 years, Charles was the managing editor of The Berkeley Poets Cooperative and The Berkeley Poets Workshop & Press. The story of the Berkeley Poets Workshop & Press was written up as the cover story in the August 29, 1976 issue of the New York Times Magazine.

The Managing Editor of Hip Pocket Press (www.hippocketpress.com), Charles is also the author of In This Hour, a collection of poems, BPW&P, 1990; Casting For The Cutthroat & Other Poems, BPW&P, 1986; Casting For The Cutthroat, Thunder City Press, 1978, Birmingham, Alabama; All Pieces Of A Legacy, BPW&P, 1975, Berkeley, CA. His novel, Red Mountain, Birmingham, Alabama, 1965, was published May, 2008, by El Leon Literary Arts www.elleonliteraryarts.org .

We are celebrating his latest publication: Listening: New and Selected Work.

In “Listening: New and Selected Work,” Charles Entrekin presents us with a remarkable poetic legacy. Written between 1975 and the present, the poems in this collection are passionate and darkly lyric. Always grounded in physical reality, they transcend time and place, revealing both the great and small moments of life as seen from the perspective of eternity.
—Mary Mackey

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Laurie McAndish King and  Suzanne Rodriquez get “App Happy” at our first salon of the year!

Laurie McAndish King

Suzanne Rodriquez

Monday, January 3, 2011 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Happy New Year!

We want to share the newest and best in what’s happening in the world of words and publications with you this year.

So to begin, get “App Happy” with Suzanne Rodriguez and Laurie McAndish King at our first salon of 2011.

Smartphone apps are the latest “it” format for writers—and with good reason. With 85 million iPhones/iPads/iPod Touches, 300,000 apps, and 4 billion app downloads from Apple alone, the market is already huge … and it’s growing ever-bigger at an ever-faster pace.

App developers Laurie McAndish King and Suzie Rodriguez tell us why they’re excited about the mobile app marketplace, how they collaborated to develop San Francisco Waterfront: Bridge to Ballpark (released by Sutro Media in December), and how you, too, can get in on the mobile applications phenomenon. They’ll discuss choosing a topic, assessing your market, writing for the mobile format, sourcing images to accompany the text, and the advantages of mobile apps over traditional travel guidebooks.

Suzanne Rodriguez is the author of three non-fiction books and hundreds of articles. Suzanne’s writing covers numerous topics, including high tech … but she really loves to focus on food, wine, and travel.

Laurie McAndish King is an award-winning travel writer and photographer, as well as publisher of Travel Writers News. Laurie has also written and edited erotica, as you might guess after reading the entry for Hog Island Oysters in the San Francisco Waterfront app.

Suzie and Laurie will also discuss free and inexpensive ways to market your app and the prospects for making money with it. One or more free downloads of San Francisco Waterfront: Bridge to Ballpark will be available as a prize for the audience member(s) whose head is packed with the most trivia about the San Francisco waterfront.

Here’s a headstart question: Which San Francisco beach was the 1986 birthplace of the Burning Man festival?

Do you know?

It’ll be a lively and entertaining evening. Mobile media welcome. See you there!

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Rebecca Foust, Author of God, Seed and Molly Fisk, Author of The More Difficult Beauty with guest reader Robin Ekiss

Molly Fisk

Foust and Stevens

Monday, December 13, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Join us for a reading and celebration of works by Bay Area poets Molly Fisk and Rebecca Foust with a special guest appearance by Robin Ekiss. Molly will read from her new book of poems, The More Difficult Beauty (Hip Pocket Press 2010). Rebecca will read from God, Seed (Tebot Bach Press 2010), a book of environmental poetry with art by Lorna Stevens, who will attend to answer questions. Please arrive early for seating as there is sure to be quite a crowd.
Molly Fisk is also the author of Listening to Winter and a recipient of fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council and Marin Arts Council grants in poetry, and the Robinson Jeffers Tor House, Billee Murray Denny, and Dogwood Prizes. She teaches on-line at www.poetrybootcamp.com and www.voiceofyourown.com, and provides weekly radio commentary at community station KVMR in Nevada City.

Rebecca Foust’s previous book, All That Gorgeous Pitiless, Song, won the 2008 Many Mountains Moving Book Prize. Her chapbooks, Dark Card and Mom’s Canoe won the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prizes in consecutive years and were published by Texas Review Press in 2008 and 2009.

Lorna Stevens received her MFA in sculpture from Columbia University. She exhibits widely in galleries and public spaces. Her work has been featured or reviewed in The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Marin Independent Journal, and Artweek, and has been acquired by the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, and the di Rosa Preserve in Napa, California.

Robin Ekiss is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford, recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award for emerging women writers, and author of The Mansion of Happiness, winner of the 2010 Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize and a finalist for both the 2010 Northern California and California Book Awards.