Salons - Left Coast Writers

Literary Salon: Jill K. Robinson

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Jill K. Robinson, Award-winning Freelance Journalist talks about freelancing in the New Millennium

Monday, March 7th, 2016 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Freelancing is quite possibly one of the most exciting writing jobs and freelancing travel is definitely the most exhilarating of those, but it isn’t easy to nab a constant stream of literary assignments, especially if you are just starting out. Join us on a night with energetic, talented and highly praised freelance journalist, Jill Robinson, as she shares the ups and downs of her profession and the road she recommends for success in that field.

Jill K. Robinson is an award-winning freelance journalist and photographer. Her articles have been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, AFAR, National Geographic Traveler, Every Day With Rachael Ray, Coastal Living, Robb Report, ISLANDS, Saturday Evening Post, San Francisco magazine, American Way, Celebrated Living, Delta Sky, and more. She has received a Solas Award, ALTO Award, and Society of American Travel Writers awards for travel writing, as well as the Bill Muster award for (more…)

Literary Salon: Rita Lakin

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Rita Lakin, The Only Woman in the Room

Monday, January 4th, 2016 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Writers, if you are thinking about taking your writing from the page to the screen at some point, you might want to take advantage of the opportunity to spend an evening with notable staff writer, producer and show biz professional, Rita Lakin.

Rita Lakin was a pioneer, a female script writer in the early 1960s when Hollywood Television was exclusively male. For years, in creative meetings she was literally the only woman in the room. In this breezy but heartfelt remembrance, Lakin exposes us to a long-forgotten time when women were not considered worthy or welcome at the creative table. Widowed with three young children, she talked herself into a secretarial job at Universal Studios in 1962, despite being unable to type or take dictation. But with guts, skill and humor she rose from secretary to free-lancer, to staff writer, to producer, to executive producer and show-runner, meeting hundreds of famous and infamous show biz legends along the way during her long and unexpected career. She introduced many women into the business and was a feminist before she even knew she was a feminist. Unknown to the general public, she reached an audience of millions week after week, year after year. (more…)

Literary Salon: Herbert Gold, Author of When a Psychopath Falls in Love

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Herbert Gold, Author of When a Psychopath Falls in Love

Monday, December 7, 2015 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Literary legend Herbert Gold will be this month’s speaker. From the beatniks to post-war Paris to San Francisco and more, Herbert Gold has been an important figure in many of the most iconic writing scenes of the century, all the while writing dozens of novels, short stories, essays, and an autobiography or two to boot. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll come and see one of the most well-known and respected authors of the last six decades who is, as the title of one of his more recent books so proudly proclaims, still alive!

Herbert Gold was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1924. After several of his poems were accepted by literary magazines, he moved to New York at age seventeen and studied philosophy at Columbia University. While there, he befriended many Beat Generation writers, including Anaïs Nin and Allen Ginsberg. Gold won a Fulbright fellowship and moved to Paris, where he did graduate studies at the Sorbonne and worked on his first (more…)

Literary Salon: Don George

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Don George, Author of The Way of Wanderlust

Monday, February 1st, 2016 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

He has guided, edited, and published the work of some of the world’s top travel writers and now, finally, we have a winning collection of his own work.

Don George’s new book is The Way of Wanderlust, is a collection of his best stories and essays, from climbing Kilimanjaro and contemplating the magic of Uluru to exploring the jungles of Cambodia and the backcountry temples of Shikoku.

Don has made his living as a travel writer and editor virtually since college. His first real job was as a travel writer for the San Francisco Examiner. From there he moved onto a short stint as an editor at the Examiner’s Sunday magazine, then he became the travel editor for the Examiner & Chronicle for nine years.

When the allure of cyberspace became irresistible, Don joined Salon.com and founded theirgroundbreaking travel site, Wanderlust. Then he moved on to become Global Travel Editor for Lonely Planet Publications. After an exhilarating ride there, he is now Editor at Large and Book Review Columnist for National Geographic Traveler magazine, Special Features Editor and Blogger for Gadling.com, and Editor of Geographic Expedition’s online magazine, Wanderlust: Literary Journeys for the Discerning Traveler. (more…)

Literary Salon: Vanessa Rodriguez and Peter Lang, Social Media Strategists, Co-Founders of Uhuru Network

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Vanessa Rodriguez and Peter Lang, Social Media Strategists

Monday, November 2nd, 2015 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Don’t miss this! If you have ever wondered about websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and so on and how they can possibly help you get the word out about your work, we have the answers. We’ve asked Digital Marketing Consultants and Uhuru Network Co-Founders, Peter Lang and Vanessa Rodriguez, to come to the Bay Area to demystify the social media and online worlds for you and show you exactly how to bump up your readership online.

Peter and Vanessa are co-founders of Uhuru Network, a Digital Marketing Agency with a recently relocated HQ in SF and Rome, Italy. The Agency expertly manages their clients’ inbound marketing efforts to drive revenue and conversions at the lowest cost. They also created two online publications: TrucchiFacebook, an Italian Tech Blog focused on Facebook, and Stylishlyme, a fashion, style, and travel blog, that reach over 1 million unique visitors a month.

(more…)

Literary Salon: Jack Shoemaker

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Jack Shoemaker, Co-Founder, Editor and Publisher of Counterpoint Press

Monday, October 5th, 2015 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Writers, you won’t want to miss our next salon. You’ll have an opportunity to listen to and ask questions of legendary editor and publisher, Jack Shoemaker who, through his respected imprints, has introduced authors like Annie Lamott to the reading public and shepherded them to success. Today, Jack is the co-founder, editor and publisher of Counterpoint Press.

COUNTERPOINT LLC was created in 2007 through the acquisition of three notable independent presses: Counterpoint, Shoemaker & Hoard, and Soft Skull Press. In January 2008, the company began publishing two imprints, Counterpoint and Soft Skull Press. Shoemaker & Hoard titles are now being published under the Counterpoint imprint.

Author-driven, they devote all energy to the fresh, cutting-edge, and literary (more…)

Literary Salon: Robbie Scott

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Robbie Scott, Author of The Queen’s Sceptre and engineer at Bandcamp.com, working on audiobooks

Tuesday, September 8th, 2015 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

On Tuesday eve—not Monday eve, due to the holiday weekend—Robbie Scott will talk about the trials and tribulations of taking a self-published book to audio. He’ll cover such topics as recording your own audio, the benefits of working with a professional narrator, and navigating legal and financial issues like contracts and revenue sharing. He’ll touch on the rise of audiobooks in general, the current players, like audible and iTunes, the self-publishing market, and the plans of independents like Bandcamp. Audiobooks, with a market growth ranging between 6% to almost 50% from year to year, depending who you talk to, are one of the bright spots in book publishing. How will that pan out for the self-publishing crowd?

Robbie Scott is the author of the well-received Mystery of Rascal Pratt, an historical fiction for middle grade readers, set in the Marin Headlands, which has made its way onto summer reading lists and into classrooms across the states. He finished his second novel, The Queen’s Sceptre, for that same audience early this year and has been working with narrator David Marcus Gibson this spring and summer, preparing its audio version.

He is also a software engineer at Bandcamp, the San Francisco-based music and audio distribution platform, the artist-centric service favored by independent musicians (more…)

Literary Salon: David Corbett

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: David Corbett, Author of The Mercy of the Night

Monday, August 3rd, 2015 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Don’t miss the salon in August when renowned mystery writer David Corbett will be joining us to discuss character, sub-genre subtleties, and all things mysterious.

For fifteen years, David Corbett worked for the San Francisco private investigation firm of Palladino & Sutherland, and played a significant part in a number of high-profile criminal and civil litigations, including the Lincoln Savings & Loan Case, The DeLorean Trial, the Coronado Company marijuana indictments, The Cotton Club Murder Case, The People’s Temple Trial, the first Michael Jackson child molestation case, and a RICO civil litigation brought by the Teamsters against former union leaders associated with organized crime—as well as numerous other drug, murder, and fraud cases.

In 1995, he eased out of private investigation work to serve as office manager and “Man Friday” for his wife, Terri, as she launched her own law practice, specializing in probate litigation, estate planning, and small business law. (For more on Terri, see Cesidia on this website.) She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in September, 2000, and in January, 2001, passed away at age 46.

Six weeks before Terri’s death, Ballantine purchased David’s first novel, The Devil’s Redhead. Widely praised, it was nominated for both the Anthony and Barry Awards for (more…)

Literary Salon: Deirdre Cerkanowicz

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: Deirdre Cerkanowicz, Marketing and Promotions Specialist at Berkeley Public Library

Tuesday, July 7th, 2015 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Join us at 7pm for hosted wine and beverages as we celebrate libraries and all they do for writers. We’ll begin with a short mixer, which will be followed by an inspiring and informative presentation by Deirdre Cerkanowicz. Deirdre has worked in libraries for over 25 years. She is also a writer and photographer, having started and produced a monthly newsmagazine for six years; as well as written numerous book reviews for publications such as Booklist. She worked for Book Passage before attending library school and still frequents both locations.
She currently is in charge of publicity for the Berkeley Public Library and promotes the Library’s numerous free public (more…)

Literary Salon: David Downie

LEFT COAST WRITERS LITERARY SALON: David Downie, Author of A Passion for Paris: Romanticism and Romance in the City of Light

Monday, June 1st, 2015 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

A Passion for Paris: Romanticism and Romance in the City of Light is a combination of memoir, history, and travelogue, an irreverent quest to uncover why Paris is (or is claimed to be) the world’s most romantic city—and has been for over 150 years.

A Passion for Paris is about Paris’s secluded, atmospheric parks, artists’ studios, cafes, restaurants and streets little changed since the 1800s, a treasure hunt exuding romance. The art and architecture, the cityscape, riverbanks, and the unparalleled quality of daily life are part of the romantic equation.

But the city’s allure derives equally from hidden sources: (more…)

Literary Salon: Jill K. Robinson

Literary Salon: Rita Lakin

Literary Salon: Herbert Gold, Author of When a Psychopath Falls in Love

Literary Salon: Don George

Literary Salon: Vanessa Rodriguez and Peter Lang, Social Media Strategists, Co-Founders of Uhuru Network

Literary Salon: Jack Shoemaker

Literary Salon: Robbie Scott

Literary Salon: David Corbett

Literary Salon: Deirdre Cerkanowicz

Literary Salon: David Downie

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