Bring the kiddies. Please join us for a delightful night of wine and juice and great readers as Left Coast Writer’s Simplie Indie publisher, Bill Walker, takes the stage with two of his authors.

Connie A. Walker always planned on being a writer when she grew up. When she was seven years old, she won her first writing contest with a short story called “Stop, Look, and Listen.” It was about a dog who acted as a crossing-guard, which is an example of her early interest in fantasy. She attended the University of Utah and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and a Master’s degree in social work. She has been a foster care caseworker, a psychotherapist, and a clinical programs manager. Her children’s book, Timmy and the K’nick K’nocker Ring, is a fantasy about a young boy who is transported to a world where his special talents are considered magic.

The Spire of Kylet, a young adult fantasy, is the first book in The Wolkarean Inscription Trilogy. Katrine is a fifteen year old girl who thinks she has her life all planned out, but discovers fate has something different in mind for her. The second and third books in the trilogy, The Eyes of Landor and Triumph at Serpent’s Head, will be available in 2011. Connie is currently working on a second Wolkarean trilogy.

David R. Christensen first pictured himself as an author when, for a class in college, the assignment was to select ten topics from a list of about fifty and write a paragraph about each. He chose to weave more than a dozen of these topics into a short story. While pursuing a career as an engineer, he developed ideas suitable for children’s books. One of his first ideas evolved into his first book, Tivoli’s Christmas, published in 2008.

His next idea developed into, The Mystery of the Grinning Buddha, the first in a series entitled The Millerville Mysteries, which was published in 2009. This mystery series is geared to the 8 to 12 year olds. The Mystery of the Ugly Bottle was published in 2010. Shortly after a devastated hurricane hits the Gulf Coast, Jeremy’s father is reported missing. A few days later a package appears on the porch of the Miller Bungalow.  In the package is a bottle which contains notes from Father to the members of the Miller family. The contents of the notes make it apparent that the boat Father is on may sink at any time. The third book in the series, The Mystery of the Haunted Lighthouse, is in work.

James J. Patterson

Joanna Biggar

Monday, July 12, 2010 || 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Join us for an evening that will take you from the good old USA to Paris, France, as ASP writer and publisher, James J. Patterson, and noted writer and teacher, Joanna Biggar, team up for an evening of all-American chatter and fine French bonhomie. North Beach dive? French cafe? Try the wine and fancy cheese, and you tell us.

Political satirist, musician, songwriter, dramatist, essayist, and novelist, James J. Patterson, will read from his new collection of essays, Bermuda Shorts. In this volume Patterson meanders delightfully, ominously, frightfully, hilariously through his life and times, touching down at specific moments in the nation’s history as well as his own, as seen from the back alleys, barrooms and his hidden sanctum in what he calls The Capital of the Empire, Washington, DC. More than just a garment, Bermuda Shorts, according to Patterson, is a state of mind.

Then, allow yourself to be carried away to Paris by Joanna Biggar.

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.

Judith Horstman

Monday, June 14, 2010 || 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Microchips in your brain. Thought-controlled technology. Cures for Alzheimer’s, depression, and mental retardation.  Treatments to erase memories, pills to make you smarter, and bionic spare parts to restore lost neural functions.

Sound like science fiction? Science fiction, meet science fact. These and more startling probabilities, based on current and ongoing research in neuroscience, are engagingly explored in The Scientific American Brave New Brain (Jossey-Bass). Gleaning from the latest research and articles from Scientific American and Scientific American Mind, journalist Judith Horstman offers a comprehensive and entertaining gaze into the science—and wonders—possible in our brains’ very near future. Contrasting science fiction of the recent past and present with scientific breakthroughs that can be even more fantastic, Horstman shows what could be in store for our brains over the next few decades and the potential economic, legal and ethical fallout of this rampant change and progress.

Based on research outlined in the book, experts’ top five predictions for the future of mental power are that:

• Microchips in or on our brains will enhance memory, store data, and connect wirelessly to the internet, eliminating our cell phones and allowing us to control machines via mental Wi-Fi.
• Advances in neuroscience and bioengineering will render Alzheimer’s, brain damage, depression and perhaps even mental retardation largely preventable, curable and possibly reversible.
• Neuroenhancers – from smart pills to mechanical devices – will improve thinking, enhance creativity, relieve depression, erase traumatic memories and boost mental endurance.
• Bionic or biological spare brain parts that already restore hearing and give sight to the blind could restore movement and speech to the paralyzed—and give super powers to the healthy.
• Neuroimaging that now “reads” brains to detect disease will be able to accurately detect deception, antisocial tendencies, and dangerous inclinations––in addition to predicting behavior.

Find out how neuroscience, brain-machine interfaces, neuroimaging, psychopharmacology, epigenetics, the Internet, and our own minds are stimulating and enhancing the future of mental power.

Judith Horstman (Sacramento, CA) is an award-winning journalist and author whose work has appeared in USA Today and numerous magazines, publications by Harvard, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins universities, and on the Internet. She is the author of four other books including The Scientific American Day in the Life of Your Brain. Visit her Web site at www.JudithHorstman.com

Rebecca Foust

Kirsten Neff

Saturday, June 12, 2010 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera || 51 Tamal Vista Dr.
Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

Please join us at a book party for two of our favorite poets: Rebecca Foust and Kirsten Jones Neff. You’ll be treated to beautiful poetry, the sparkling ambiance of our favorite Bay Area bookstore, a celebratory champagne toast for the authors, cookies, and excellent company.

Rebecca Foust’s All That Gorgeous, Pitiless Song recently won the Many Mountains Moving Book Award. Also forthcoming in 2010 is God, Seed, a book of environmental poetry with watercolors by a local artist. Foust’s chapbooks, Mom’s Canoe and Dark Card won the Robert Phillips Poetry Prizes in 2007 and in 2008, and her poetry is or will be published in Atlanta Review, Margie, North American Review, The Hudson Review, and elsewhere.

Kirsten Jones Neff’s first chapbook, When The House is Quiet, won the 2009 Starting Gate Prize and a 2010 Pushcart nomination from Finishing Line Press.  Kirsten Jones Neff is a writer, gardening teacher and documentary filmmaker whose work has appeared in several PBS films, periodicals and anthologies, including When The Muse Calls: Poems for The Creative Life, The Believer, Englishcafe.com, Writer’s Advice, The Poetry Farmer’s Almanac, Ode, 34th Parallel and The Marin Poetry Center Anthology.

Come early. These two poets have been known to draw crowds!

Monday, June 7, 2010 || 7pm
Book Passage || Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

We have a “killer evening” in store for everyone at the next Left Coast Writers Literary Salon!

Mixing fun and fundraising for charities seemed like the perfect job for Presley Parker when she’s suddenly downsized from her position teaching abnormal psychological at the university. Pres is psyched about her first big gig—hosting a “surprise” wedding for the San Francisco Mayor at notorious Alcatraz prison.

But the party’s over when the bride bolts faster than an escaping prisoner, and is later found dead floating in the bay, a victim of poisoned chocolates. When Presley becomes prime suspect, she looks to her quirky Treasure Island co-workers for help, but it’s the attractive, mysterious crime scene cleaner Brad Matthews who helps tidy up her tarnished reputation. If she doesn’t solve this mystery, she’ll be exchanging her party dress for prison stripes.

“Penny Warner dishes up a rare treat, sparkling with wicked and witty San Francisco characters, plus some real tips on hosting a killer party.”
~ Rhys Bowen, award-winning author of the Royal Spyness mysteries.

Jeff Kingman

We want to congratulate Left Coast Writer Jeff Kingman. His short story, “Marriage,” will be published in the Skuylkill Valley Journal on May 2 (in print and online at http://www.svjlit.com) and his novel, Moto Girl, reached the semifinalist level in the 2009 Dana Awards.

with MARSHA BLACK,  Author of The Accidental Photographer

(1 workshop) (2 weeks)

Don’t know how you got that fantastic shot that everyone it raving about? Learn simple, easy-to-remember techniques so that you can use your camera more effec­tively. Topics include how to: define your subject to tell your story; manage the available light so that it is perfect in the final photograph; use the three basic photographic composition techniques – color, pattern, and action. Bring camera; there will be an easy photo assignment. Fee includes a copy of The Accidental Photographer.

Instructor: Marsha Black … graduate, New York Institute of Photography; author of The Accidental Photographer; educator, traveler, photographer.

• Schedule #4504.901 June 19; Sat., 1:30 – 4:30 pm
• Schedule #4504.902: Aug. 14;  Sat., 1:30 – 4:30 pm
• Schedule #4504.903: July 14 – July 21; Wed., 6:30 – 8 pm

Fee: $60 / Dist. Res. $50

Community Ctr.: Upper Club Rm.

To register: use the internet, at www.pleasanthillrec.com or call 925-676-5200 or by fax 24 hours a day at 925-676-5630

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED AT LEAST THREE DAYS PRIOR TO CLASS. PLEASE REGISTER EARLY; CLASSES WITH LOW ENROLLMENT ARE SUBJECT TO CANCELLATION.

Many of you know Elaine Miller Bond, author illustrator of Affimals: Affirmations + Animals. Left Coast Writers is pleased to announce that Elaine will be hosting the Left Coast Writers Ferry Plaza Book Party and Reading series at Book Passage in San Francisco beginning in April. Many thanks to Colette Obrien, our terrific prior emcee. We hope she’ll return to host future events from time to time.

Elaine will be emceeing the April Book Party featuring poet Dave Seter, author of Night Duty.

Monday, April 12, 2009 || 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

Elaine Miller Bond is the author/illustrator of the book, Affimals: Affirmations + Animals, published in 2009. She took her graduate degree from Cambridge University, England and began her career as a science writer with the University of California Natural Reserve System. Her writing and photography have appeared on the Discovery Channel and in The American Naturalist, The Washington Post, and other popular and scientific media. Her photographs of rare Utah prairie dogs and their behaviors will be published in the upcoming books, Prairie Dogs with White Tails by Dr. John L. Hoogland and Squirrels of the World by Dr. John L. Koprowski. She currently makes her home in California’s San Francisco Bay Area.

Mary Lou Peters Schram

For the self-published writers: We just want to share Mary Lou Schram’s encouraging review of Pursuing Happiness from the Writers Digest Self-Published Book Awards:   In part:

“I was immediately impressed with the conciseness, fluency, energy, and intelligence of the prose.  Great dialogue too, dialogue that has the ring of ‘real’ speech.  Focused on characters the reader can really care about, this novel does what all the best novels do: it meshes comedy and pathos, like life.  The ending is about as good as an ending can get.  Simply a wonderful novel – sensitive, intelligent, funny, sad and true.”

Of course, we’re delighted because we loved the book too. Some of the best books ever written have never made it into print. For sure. Good work, Mary Lou. Thanks for sharing the news.

Self-published writers should definitely check out the Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards. The next entry deadline is May 3, 2010.

Nancy Bruning of Nancercize

Join the conversation on blogtalk radio Thursday, January 28th at 9a.m. PST with Nancy Bruning, creator of Nancercize, and author and LCW founder, Linda Watanabe McFerrin. They’ll be talking about Great Getaways.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day: The discussion is on some of the best getaways going. Here or there, long or short—studies show that the getaway break is good for your health. Why and where are the questions Nancy and Linda will be chatting about. If you have want to recommend a lovely getaway or share your thoughts on the matter, just call.

Nancercize is hosted by Nancy Bruning, best-selling author of 25 books and renowned wellness coach and expert. Nancy and her guests reveal how you can quickly and easily take control of your health and body and re-capture your self-confidence through fun and simple lifestyle changes. Her unique approach to fitness helps excess weight melt away and your spirits soar.