Litquake San Rafael 2015

Litquake San Rafael | Sunday, Oct. 11th
Downtown San Rafael | 10am-7:15pm

LitquakeLitquake is upon us again and we have a number of Left Coast Writers shaking things up in San Rafael this year.

LCW Founder, Linda Watanabe McFerrin will be reading with Laurie McAndish King, Debbie Goelz, Mary Brent Cantarutti, and Toni Picininni to answer the question “Erotic Relationships: What Makes the Heart Grow?” amid a dazzling array of exotic, erotic lingerie at Pleasures of the Heart. (http://www.litquake.org/…/erotic-relationships-what-makes-h…).

  • Cyra McFadden (“The Serial”) will serve up “The Morning After: Stories of Dish and Revenge”.
  • Book Passage co-owner and author Bill Petrocelli will tell “Tales Worth Telling”. (more…)
Read More

Southern Sampler Artists Colony 2016!

Southern Sampler Artists Colony RoomSouthern Sampler Artists Colony presents:

The Heart in Art, 2016
Charleston, South Carolina

April 20 – 27, 2016

Words . . . Images . . . Music

Inspiring ties and friendly tides of the South Carolina Lowcountry

Want to experience the real Charleston, celebrate belonging with new and old friends, discover the Gullah culture, bask in creative renewal, and feel the sand between your toes? Join us!

Heartfelt Workshop Experiences:

Writers Workshops
Workshops are taught by award-winning author, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, as well as individual consults on your literary and creative projects.

McLeod Plantation
Gain a fresh historical perspective of the Lowcountry, from the cultivation of indigo to sea island cotton and lives of freed slaves. We’ll also tie-dye with indigo, plantation style, and invent our own fifty shades of blue!

Threads that Bind
Create a SSAC indigo quilt with Sharon Cooper-Murray, aka The Gullah Lady. Yes, we’ll use the fabric dyed at McLeod Plantation! The quilt will be dedicated to the spirit of the twelve people who gathered at Emanuel AME Church to study the scripture and whose congregation led the world in forgiveness.

Music Café Evening
We’ll clap; sway and feel the spirit moving. Praise Be to a celebration of music, food, wine, and most of all company, in the historic home of Charleston friends.

SSAC Anthology Launch Gala
Raise a glass to Charleston & the South, A Sampler of Stories . . . Poetry . . . Recipes & Art, and get ready to dance. In addition to classic swing tunes, Mary Edna (more…)

Read More

Wandering in Andalusia Writing Workshop

Wandering in AndalusiaFrom Wanderland Writers Workshops:
Wandering in Andalusia:  Seville and The Alhambra—March 11-March 18, 2016

“Near the walls of Seville/ At my friend’s house, Lillas Pastia/ I will dance the Séguedille/
And drink Manzanilla.” From Carmen, by Georges Bizet.

Well-known writers and instructors Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar are off on another adventure and invite you to join them in Andalusia. In this legendary region of Southern Spain many worlds meet: classical (Hercules was the supposed founder of Seville) and medieval; Jewish, Christian and Moorish; colonial, imperial, and modern. From our hotel in central Seville, with its graceful Moorish-style tiled decor, its fountains and secluded courtyards, we will explore them all through art (Murillo and Velásquez were native sons), architecture, music and food.

Adapting our curriculum to the locale—and our schedule to the land of the siesta—we will give several workshops and private consultations while offering many ways to discover the city, including: a walking tour; visits to the Cathedral, with its splendid altar, its tomb of Columbus, and its towering minaret, the Giralda, next door, and the royal palace of the Alcázar; a trip to the Flamenco Museum and a night of flamenco; an afternoon of soaking and tea at the Baños Arabes; an evening across the river in the Tirana District, once  famous for the factories which attracted gypsies like Carmen, now famous for bars and clubbing. We will savor tapas and sherry, wine and guitar music.

There will also be time to write and discover on one’s own, from high-end shopping, to cycling, to a choice of museums, to bullfighting. And, of course, there is Seville’s (more…)

Read More

Wanderland Writers at Laurel Books

Wanderland Writers, Authors of Wandering in Cornwall: Mystery, Mirth, and Transformation in the Land of the Ancient Celts at Laurel Books

Wandering in Cornwall CoverFriday, October 2nd, 2015 || 6pm
Laurel Bookstore || Oakland
1423 Broadway Oakland, CA ||www.laurelbookstore.com

It’s another Wanderland Writers celebration. Wine, snacks, readings, and a brand new book in the series.

This time Wanderland Writers venture deep into Cornwall, exploring it’s castles, its contrast. They find, of course, its legacy of Camelot, the lingering shadows of Arthurian legend, tragic love, magic, and Merlin. They also find its sorrows, buried deep in its history like the now closed mines, where the windswept moors and jagged coasts made everyday events of shipwrecks, isolation, cave-ins. Yet, as workshop leaders Joanna Biggar and Linda Watanabe McFerrin and their fellow travelers discover, that is not the whole story. They also encounter the wonderful and hospitable Cornish, with their enchanting accents, their delightful yarns, their humor, their endurance. They wander, bicycle, hike and kayak to explore hills, waterways, villages and moors in search of the spirit of artists and writers who have come before them to leave an imprint on this untamed land.

Wandering in Cornwall is a beguiling collection of stories and poems about the extreme west of England. Everything that makes Cornwall so special is here: pasties, clotted cream artists, smugglers, the South West Coast Path and even the thieving seagulls. Readers who know Cornwall will be inspired to return and newcomers to this land of myth and legend will vow to see it for themselves.
—Hilary Bradt MBE, Co-founder of Bradt Travel Guides

“Careful, reader. This book is a delight, no doubt about it. But now I have to go to Cornwall.”
—Tim Cahill, Author of Jaguars Ripped My Flesh and Hold the Enlightenment

Writers reading will include: Unity Barry, Daphne Beyers, Antoinette Constable, Tom Harrell, Kitty Hughes, Laurie McAndish King, Ethel Mussen, MJ (more…)

Read More

Workshop: The Plot Thickens with Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Linda Watanabe McFerrin

 

The Plot Thickens Workshop
with Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Saturday, October 10th, 2015, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Boulevard, Corte Madera, CA 94925
$120

Register here

Aristotle called plot “the most important element of storytelling.” But to plot properly, you must have a plan, and the plan must give rise to emotion. Does the plot always seem to elude you? Spend a day planning and plotting and find out what you’re missing. Bring your flat-lining fiction and nonfiction and fix it.

Poet, travel writer, and novelist Linda Watanabe McFerrin (www.lwmcferrin.com) is a contributor to numerous newspapers, magazines and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry collections, past editor of a popular Northern California guidebook 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 several anthologies, including the Hot Flashes: sexy little stories & poems series. Her latest novel, Dead Love (Stone Bridge Press, 2009), was short-listed as (more…)

Read More

Wandering in Japan, A Writers Adventure with Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Japan_-_walkwayJoin noted author, editor and Left Coast Writers founder, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, if you can, for a breathtaking once-in-a-lifetime introduction to Japan, land of mountain temples, soothing onsens and people known for their extraordinary grace and generosity. It was her home for many years, a place she has returned to again and again and one that she’s always excited to share with others both on the page and in person.

Participants will depart on Saturday, September 5th to arrive in Tokyo, “the new capital”, on Sunday, September 6th. From quiet Shinto shrines to silvery high-rise towers, from the ancient to the newer-than-new, you’ll be dazzled by one of the world’s most exciting metropolises. From there a bullet train will whisk you to “the old capital”, Kyoto, truly one of the most picturesque places on the planet, where you will relax and explore surrounded by beauty while enjoying the cultivated experience of the literati and glitterati of this centuries-old center of art and enlightenment. The journey doesn’t end in Kyoto. You’ll also enjoy a temple stay (more…)

Read More

Left Coast Writers Poetry: TC Currie

Left Coast Writers Poetry: TC Currie, Author of Questions to a Butterfly: A Collection of Transformational Poetry

TC Currie
TC Currie

Kawika’s Ocean Beach Deli
734 La Playa St, San Francisco, CA 94121
Sunday, June 7th from 5pm-7:15pm

Announcing a new series featuring Left Coast Writers poets. Join a featured LCW poet at the First Sunday of the Month Happy Hour Poetry series at Kawika’s Ocean Beach Deli. Our featured poet’s reading is followed by an open mic for other poets to share original work, or even just to read favorite poems aloud. Happy Hour starts at 5pm, and after our featured poet reads for 30 minutes, open mic (three minutes per poet) goes until 7:15 pm. Celebrate creativity and poets while supporting a local, community-oriented, and family owned business! Enjoy $1 off your sandwich with the purchase of a glass of wine or bubbly! Up in June is TC Currie, Author of Questions to a Butterfly: A Collection of Transformational Poetry.

In Questions to a Butterfly, TC Currie uses familiar objects from everyday life and humor to connect the reader to the toil of transformation, their triumphs, and their connection to the Divine, offering comfort and hope for those in the midst of struggle. Full of universal truths, familiar problems, cookie dough, and psychic vampires, TC’s poems follow the path of those who have the courage to take an honest look at their lives, evaluate their actions, and do the hard work to move through personal transformation from darkness into energy, connection and light.

As a girl of five, TC Currie was delighted to discover that books allow her to escape into other worlds. She has been armchair traveling and writing ever since. After parlaying her degree in Asian Religions into a career as a software developer, TC gained a reputation for being able to (more…)

Read More

May 31st: Marianne Betterly and Other Widow’s Handbook Contributors Read in SF

Widows' HandbookSunday, May 31st, 2015 || 9:30-10:45am
First Unitarian Universalist Society || San Francisco
1187 Franklin Street at Geary, San Francisco ||

Marianne Betterly and other contributors to the Widows’ Handbook: Reflections on Grief and Survival will be reading and speaking on May 31st from 9:30-10:45 a.m. at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco.

The Widows’ Handbook is the first anthology of poems by contemporary widows, many of whom have written their way out of solitude and despair, distilling their strongest feelings into poetry or memoir. This stirring collection celebrates the strategies widows learn and the resources they muster to deal with people, living space, possessions, social life, and especially themselves, once shock has turned to the realization that nothing will ever be the same. As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says in her foreword, losing one s partner is a loss (more…)

Read More

Workshop: The Plot Thickens with Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Linda Watanabe McFerrin

The Plot Thickens Workshop
with Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Saturday, February 21st, 2015, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Boulevard, Corte Madera, CA 94925
$120

Register here

Aristotle called plot “the most important element of storytelling.” But to plot properly, you must have a plan, and the plan must give rise to emotion. Does the plot always seem to elude you? Spend a day planning and plotting and find out what you’re missing. Bring your flat-lining fiction and nonfiction and fix it.

Poet, travel writer, and novelist Linda Watanabe McFerrin (www.lwmcferrin.com) is a contributor to numerous newspapers, magazines and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry collections, past editor of a popular Northern California guidebook 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 several anthologies, including the Hot Flashes: sexy little stories & poems series. Her latest novel, Dead Love (Stone Bridge Press, 2009), was short-listed as a finalist in the 2007 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Competition and was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a Novel in 2009.

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

Read More

Linda Watanabe McFerrin is talking about Writing Sexy Stuff at Redwood Writers

Writing Sexy Stuff with Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Redwood Writers
Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015, 3-5 p.m., 
Flamingo Hotel, Empire Room
2777 Fourth Street, Santa Rosa, CA 95405
707-523-4745
Fee: $5/Members (of Redwood Writers), $8/Non-members

Does having to write sexy stuff make you a little nervous? It’s time to overcome your trepidation. Whether you write commercial or literary fiction, poetry, screenplays, plays, creative nonfiction or even journalism, there are times when you want to be able to subtly articulate the sensual/sexual realm of experience with greater finesse, humor and originality.

So come and find out how to steam up the page. Tips and techniques for adding spicy, sensual, and sometimes funny sizzle to your work and a very special free write will have you moving from comfort to erogenous zones in no time.

Award-winning poet, travel writer, and novelist, Linda Watanabe McFerrin has also served as the editor for eight literary anthologies and a guidebook. Linda has judged the San Francisco Literary Awards, the Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence and the Kiriyama Prize, served (more…)

Read More

Join Us

To join Left Coast Writers you can either call Book Passage at (415) 927-0960 or make use of the button below.

Library

Browse and buy books by Left Coast Writers® members.

Calendar

Also on social media:

Archives