Ferry Plaza Book Party: Dr. Clark J. Chelsey, Author of The Radicalization of Thomas Jefferson 🗓

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Dr. Clark J. Chelsey, Author of The Radicalization of Thomas Jefferson

Dr. Clark J. Chelsey

Monday, January 13, 2020 || 6pm Book Passage || Ferry Building, San F

rancisco ||www.bookpassage.com

Jefferson lived through world-altering upheavals in his lifetime. Not only was he one of the most important founding fathers, but he also served his new nation as one of the most influential precepts of civic responsibility in a democracy. All of this came at a time of three converging revolutions in history: the democratic revolution in America and France, the Scientific Revolution, and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In The Radicalization of Thomas JeffersonDr. Clark J. Chelsey traces the living fabric of Jefferson’s ideas through these turbulent changes and how Jefferson modified, refined, and increasingly radicalized them in a coherent and systematic way. (more…)

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Left Coast Writers Book Launch: Wild Colors of the West by Elaine Miller Bond 🗓

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Wild Colors of the West by Elaine Miller Bond

Elaine Miller Bond

Saturday, January 11, 2020 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Is your favorite color warm and sunny, or is it cool like water? Does it appear with the rain, or does it glow and shine in the sun? In Wild Colors of the West, the latest board book from the author of Living Wild, photographs of animals in their natural habitats show young readers the prismatic hues found in nature, from the tangerine of monarch butterflies to the fresh green of new sorrel. Each page names and locates the Western park or city where author Elaine Miller Bond photographed the featured species. (more…)

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Left Coast Writers Book Launch: Pocket in the Waistcoat by RC Marlen 🗓

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Pocket in the Waistcoat: Scenes of Oregon County by RC Marlen

Saturday, December 14, 2019 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

RC Marlen will share stories from and about her latest book on Saturday, December 9th, at Book Passage in Corte Madera.

When four girls from the Tillamook and Clatsop People befriended Joseph Gervais, he changed from the cantankerous French-Canadian fur trapper to become an amusing storyteller and hero. One day, he saved a Metis girl from being snatched by a stranger and earned respect from the Chinook and Clatsop Tribes as well as the love of a child who claimed she would become his wife. And she did.

It was a time of turmoil at Fort Astoria: the British and Americans vied for control of the Northwest, yet it was a time of rapport between the native people and the fur trappers. In fact, three daughters of Tyee Koboway, Chief of the Clatsop People, sought to marry white men; however, their Tillamook friend Pocket did not want to marry anyone; she strove to be a shaman and to speak English.

This story tells about the Native People living in the Northwest since time immemorial and how their lives and cultures once were harmonious with the Americans and Canadians.

RC Marlen spent her first forty years in St. Louis, Missouri and completed a degree from University of Missouri. She taught Mathematics and went on to earn a master’s from Webster University. After moving to Los Gatos, California she started a business, teaching adults how to utilize computers in the office, and fell in love with Henry Schele who took her to live in Chile and Argentina for fourteen years. In the year 2000 she finished the manuscript that would become her first three novels and three months later she became a widow. (more…)

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Ferry Plaza Book Party: Tania Romanov, Author of Never a Stranger 🗓

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Tania Romanov, Author of Never a Stranger

Tania Romanov

Monday, December 9, 2019 || 6pm Book Passage || Ferry Building, San Francisco ||www.bookpassage.com

Please join us on Monday, December 9th, for a heartwarming evening of adventure and connection with Bay Area travel writer and photographer Tania Romanov as she introduces her latest book, Never a Stranger.
From her past in Croatia and Russia, to finding a son in Bhutan, to befriending women in Africa, one woman’s stories of travel, connection, and self-discovery.
Tania Romanov hangs from the final limb of a family tree of generations of unintentional travelers—exiles, refugees, displaced people. She grew up with stories of exile—stories of adventure. Perhaps that’s why, as an adult, Tania started living her own adventures—and hasn’t stopped since.
In India, she learned that to Indians the way she mourned her husband was far less personal than their custom of dropping cremated bodies into a river; in Japan, that her ancestors could find her in the oddest of circumstances. In Bhutan, she found family, and in Namibia she learned to ease her fears of being trapped in her own past.
In Never a Stranger, Tania shares those experiences and more, unforgettable stories of travel, connection, and self-discovery.

(more…)

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LCW Literary Salon: Michael Shapiro, Author of The Creative Spark 🗓

Literary Salon:  Michael Shapiro, Author of The Creative Spark in Conversation with Linda Watanabe McFerrin 

 

Michael ShapiroMonday, December 2, 2019 || 7pm Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte

Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Madera || www.bookpassage.com

How about this for a stellar way to end they year! We are having an end-of-the-year Celebration and a close look at creativity with well-known Bay Area journalist, Michael Shapiro and LCW Founder, Linda Watanabe McFerrin. Please join us for wine, scintillating conversation, and a book that looks at creativity in conversations with some of the best in every business.

 

Creativity: how do we access it, nurture it, and sustain it? This question propelled journalist Michael Shapiro during more than a decade of interviewing many of the foremost creators of our time. In The Creative Spark: How musicians, writers, explorers, and other artists found their inner fire and followed their dreams, his just-published collection of conversations with Amy Tan, Smokey Robinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Lucinda Williams, Francis Ford Coppola, Lyle Lovett, David Sedaris and so many others, Shapiro reveals how these luminaries fire up their creativity and sustain it throughout their lives. Prefaced by short biographies, these interviews serve as guideposts for how each one of us can kindle our own creative sparks.

Shapiro will appear in conversation with Linda Watanabe-McFerrin, author of Navigating the Divide: Selected Poetry and Prose, a career-spanning, multi-genre collection. In profoundly personal poetry and prose, Watanabe-McFerrin’s multi-faceted collection spans spiritual and physical, thought and desire, identity and others. A renowned writing instructor, Linda will speak with Michael about the life-affirming force that is creativity.

Michael Shapiro writes about the performing arts, travel, food, books, and environmental issues for U.S. newspapers and magazines including National Geographic Traveler and American Way. For four years he wrote a column for the San Francisco Chronicle’s travel section and now covers music and the arts for The Press Democrat.

Linda  Watanabe McFerrin is a poet, travel writer, novelist and contributor to numerous newspapers, magazines and anthologies.She is the author of two poetry collections and a winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. Her novel, Namako:  Sea Cucumber, was named Best Book for the Teen-Age by the New York Public Library. In addition to authoring an award-winning short story collection, The Hand of Buddha, she has co-edited twelve anthologies. Her latest novel, Dead Love (Stone Bridge Press, 2009), was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a Novel.

Linda has judged the San Francisco Literary Awards, the Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence and the Kiriyama (more…)

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Ferry Plaza Book Party: Joanna Biggar, Author of Melanie’s Song 🗓

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Joanna Biggar, Author of Melanie’s Song 

Monday, November 11, 2019 || 6pm Book Passage || Ferry Building, San Francisco ||www.bookpassage.com

Come to Book Passage in the Ferry Plaza and visit with an author and a character in her novel!

Joanna Biggar will be in conversation with one of her characters in Melanie’s Song: Evelyn, in the person of Ms. Chris Berardo. They will discuss what is real and what isn’t and what it feels like to become a character in a novel. What’s more: you can join in on the conversation, enjoy some wine and snacks and the Left Coast Writers literary vibe on the lovely San Francisco waterfront. Hope to see you there!

Joanna Biggar has traveled solo in the most remote areas of China, chaired a school board in Ghana, worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., and taught school kids in Oakland, California. She is a member of the Society of Woman Geographers, mother of five, grandmother of eight, all of whom love books! Joanna’s first novel, That Paris Year, is written in English but captures that French novel feel in a truly classic style. If you’ve been to Paris, she will welcome you back, if you haven’t, (more…)

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Left Coast Writers Book Launch: The Unexploded Ordnance Bin by Rebecca Foust 🗓

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  The Unexploded Ordnance Bin by Rebecca Foust  

Saturday, November 9, 2019 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

LEFT COAST WRITERS presents a book launch celebration for a new chapbook, THE UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE BIN by longtime LCW member Rebecca Foust, joined by cover artist Lorna Stevens.

“The ticking IS the bomb,” Nick Flynn says, and the idea of events from our genetic, cultural, historic, and experienced past–coiled and waiting to explode in our lives–lies at the core of this Rebecca Foust’s new collection, winner of the 2018 Swan Scythe Press Chapbook Award. The Unexploded Ordinance Bin presents new poems that ignite a long, sparking fuse about contemporary culture, society, and political events now dividing families and creating a generation of lost children. The author will be joined by the book’s cover artist, Lorna Stevens, who has collaborated with Foust on a number of books and projects marrying image with text.

Rebecca Foust’s books include The Unexploded Ordnance Bin and Paradise Drive, winner of the Press 53 Poetry Award and reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement and widely elsewhere. Recognitions include the CP Cavafy and James Hearst poetry prizes, the Lascaux and American Literary Review fiction prizes, the Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize, and fellowships from The Frost Place, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Sewanee. Foust was Marin County Poet Laureate in 2017-19 and works now as Poetry Editor for Women’s Voices for Change, an assistant Editor for Narrative Magazine, and co-producer of a new series about poetry for Marin TV, Rising Voices. (more…)

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Literary Salon: Authors & Publishers with Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar 🗓

Literary Salon:  Authors & Publishers with Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar 

Monday, November 4, 2019 || 7pm Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

We hope all of you will be able to join us on Monday, November 4th, for a book talk about the author-editor-publisher-reader relationship: how to find it, how to develop it, how to enjoy it.

It isn’t easy finding the right editor, the perfect publisher, or the reader who will appreciate your message. Please come and weigh in on this well-researched look at how it works and a frank discussion of the best and worst of the process.

Longtime authors and contributors to literary and commercial publications as well as colleagues and co-editor/publishers of the Wanderland Writers anthologies Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar have floated down the Canal du Midi in France, danced in the sunlight of southern Greece, toasted the best of times in Ireland, devoured the culture and countryside of southern Italy, wandered through landscapes lost and found in Costa Rica, and explored Bali, the Indonesian island that is known as an earthly Paradise. This fall they both have books out from Alan Squire Publishing, a much respected literary publisher in Washington, DC.

Not only will they share their work, they’ll be talking about the ups and downs, the ins and the outs and answering questions about the many ways to establish and grow literary relationships and navigate the sometimes daunting path to publication.

Joanna Biggar has traveled solo in the most remote areas of China, chaired a school board in Ghana, worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., and taught school kids in Oakland, California. She is a member of the Society of Woman Geographers, mother of five, grandmother of eight, all of whom love books! Joanna’s first novel, That Paris Year, is written in English but captures that French novel feel in a truly classic style. If you’ve been to Paris, she will welcome you back, if you haven’t, you may just want to pack your bags! That Paris Year is a truly splendid read! Now, in Autumn of 2019, she follows Melanie, the heroine of That Paris Year, to California in her long-awaited sequel, Melanie’s Song.

Linda Watanabe McFerrin is a poet, travel writer, novelist and contributor to numerous newspapers, magazines and anthologies.She is the author of two poetry collections and a winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. Her novel, Namako:  Sea Cucumber, was named Best Book for the Teen-Age by the New York Public Library. In addition to authoring an award-winning short story collection, The Hand of Buddha, she has co-edited twelve anthologies. Her latest novel, Dead Love (Stone Bridge Press, 2009), was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a Novel.

Linda has judged the San Francisco Literary Awards, the Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence and the Kiriyama (more…)

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Ferry Plaza Book Party: Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Author of Navigating the Divide 🗓

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Author of Navigating the Divide 

Monday, October 14, 2019 || 6pm Book Passage || Ferry Building, San Francisco ||www.bookpassage.com

It’s another Octoberfest!

Please come to this San Francisco celebration for LCW Founder Linda Watanabe McFerrin’s newest book: Navigating the Divide.

Navigating the Divide is a career-spanning, multi-genre collection from the award-winning Asian-American writer and indie lit legend Linda Watanabe McFerrin. In poetry and prose that is sometimes profoundly personal, sometimes astoundingly surreal, this world traveler and devoted literary explorer breaks down walls, bridges, cultures, and genres, delighting and instructing the reader. This rich, multi-faceted collection really does “navigate the divide” between spiritual and physical, between thought and desire, between identity and others.

Linda Watanabe McFerrin is a poet, travel writer, and novelist. She is the author of two poetry collections, two novels, a collection of award-winning short stories, and a travel guidebook. Her literary honors include the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction and various travel writing, poetry, and fiction awards. Her latest novel, Dead Love, was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a Novel. As the founder of Left Coast Writers, Watanabe McFerrin has taught and mentored a long list of writers and is a beloved figure in California’s rich, historic literary culture. She has led workshops around the world, and with ASP author Joanna Biggar, she co-founded the Wanderland Writers series of workshops and anthologies, which they co-edit.

Reading Linda’s work is like being mesmerized by a snake before it swallows you whole.   The words shimmer, (more…)

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Left Coast Writers Book Launch: Sleep, Pray, Heal by Donna Fado Ivery 🗓

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Sleep, Pray, Heal by Donna Fado Ivery  

Saturday, October 12, 2019 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Don’t miss this chance to get spirited. This is going to be an evening of CELEBRATION!

When a 200-pound glass partition fell on Donna Fado Ivery’s head, causing brain injury and disability, her life was changed forever … but Donna did not let that stop her.

Sleep, Pray, Heal shares her struggle through medical and church prejudice, and her journey to recovery. Most of all, Sleep, Pray, Heal is a warm, surprisingly humorous, and insightful personal memoir that can enlighten the mind and lighten the heart of any reader.

Donna Fado Ivery is a United Methodist clergywoman whose pastorate was interrupted by disabling injuries sustained in a 1994 restaurant accident. While brain injury impaired her ability to speak, stand, concentrate, and remember, Donna painted her prayers. With pain too deep for words, Donna relied on the Spirit to lead her. Today Donna is a dynamic speaker whose keynote addresses and workshops have taken her across the U.S. 

Sleep, Pray, Heal is a modern sermon on faith — a beautifully articulated, joy-based sermon, full of ups and downs (more…)

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