LCW Reads: An Elephant Ate My Arm by Laurie McAndish King đź—“

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Laurie McAndish King

LCW Reads: An Elephant Ate My Arm by Laurie McAndish King
Book Passage, Corte Madera
Saturday, June 12th 2pm

Left Coast Writers At Book Passage
That’s right: at Book Passage in Corte Madera, outside on the patio, for the first on-site event of the year.

Left Coast Writers® at Book Passage is pleased to present the latest book by Laurie McAndish King, An Elephant Ate My Arm: More True Stories from a Curious Traveler.

The third book in a series that includes Lost, Kidnapped and Eaten Alive and Your Crocodile Has Arrived this new collection of travel tales is far ranging, exciting, and often hilarious. Laurie’s reading will be accompanied by wine, snacks and Cuban salsa music (possibly dance lessons, too).

“Halfway through An Elephant Ate My Arm, King describes her own method: ‘I had a nose for weirdness.’ Indeed, King finds weirdness and wonderfulness all over the world, and she describes both with verve and humor. But something else is at play here: a willingness to explore not just the outer world, but the inner one, too. To this personal journey she brings understated grace.”
—Constance Hale, Journalist, travel writer, and author of Sin and Syntax

PS: Please order your copy of An Elephant Ate My Arm from Book Passage in advance to ensure availability. Call 415 927 0960

To join Left Coast Writers go to: https://www.bookpassage.com/salon-registration/left-coast-writers-registration

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Left Coast Writers Book Event: The Encampment by Stephen Davenport đź—“

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LCW Book Event: The Encampment by Stephen Davenport

Stephen Davenport
Stephen Davenport

Please join us at 6pm on March 5th for a Left Coast Writers Zoom Event celebrating Stephen Davenport’s latest book, The Encampment, chosen by Kirkus Reviews as a Best Indie Book of 2020.

In this third installment of Davenport’s Miss Oliver’s series, which centers around the choices made by privileged girls at a prestigious boarding school, two young women who encounter a homeless man on the school grounds are confronted with the need to choose between doing the correct thing and the right thing, the latter being a decision with significant consequences.

“Davenport is an accomplished stylist with a keen ear for nuanced dialogue; he also has a knack for making serious political points with a light touch that makes them broadly accessible….A thoughtful and compelling account of the responsibilities that come with privilege.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

Stephen Davenport is the author of Saving Miss Oliver’s, the first novel of the Miss Oliver’s School for Girls series. He is a retired teacher and leader of day and boarding schools, earning The Capital Area Distinguished Teacher Award from Trinity College early in his career. His writing has been published in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Sunday (more…)

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LCW Book Launch: Dr. Joan Steidinger, CMPC, Author of Stand Up and Shout Out đź—“

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Joan SteidingerLEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Stand up and Shout Out: Women’s Fight for Equal Pay, Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities in Sports

Saturday, March 14, 2020 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Women, take action! Join the crowd for an impassioned discussion between women and the men who support them with Dr. Joan Steidinger, CMPC.

Today, women have greater opportunities to participate in sport than ever before, particularly due to the passage of Title IX in 1972. Yet, despite all this growth, women still struggle to hold leadership positions, become coaches of both girls and boys teams, receive equal pay, and get even adequate coverage in the media.

In Stand Up and Shout Out: Women’s Fight for Equality in Sports, Joan Steidinger explores the three crucial areas in sport that remain huge concerns for women: leadership, money, and media. Steidinger looks at the number of ways in which women experience vast inequalities by examining topics such as the politics of sport, sexual assault, the #MeToo (more…)

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LCW Book Party: Sheldon Greene, Author of Waiting for the Messiah đź—“

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LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Waiting for the Messiah by Sheldon Greene

Sheldon GreeneMonday, March 9, 2020 || 6pm
Book Passage-San Francisco|| San Francisco Ferry Plaza ||
www.bookpassage.com

Join us for what Kirkus Review calls “A profoundly funny meditation on how one can find strength in religion.
“In Greene’s novel, the director of a new Jewish boarding school rankles the community with his offbeat style—and there are rumors that he might be the Messiah.

Nudelman, a successful and irrepressible truck salesman proposes a novel idea to the Synagogue Board in the Jewish community in Bolton, a small town in Western Pennsylvania: to start a Jewish boarding school. Although they initially reject the proposal, Nudelman wins them over, suggesting that an old retirement home has plenty of room to house incoming students, and the endowment that sustains it is considerable enough to be partially repurposed. The board hires a Russian school director, Lev Kyol—“tall, angular man, weathered as an unpainted barn”—who admits a Palestinian boy to the school, inaugurates a celebratory Palestinian Day, and organizes a fundraiser for a Catholic hostel. Some members of the community are apoplectic—teacher Martin Schweig schemes to get Lev deported—while others think that he’s the Messiah. The author’s artful brew of farcical comedy and theological provocation may remind readers of the work of (more…)

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LCW Book Launch: Natalie: in the Shadow of the Swastika by Antoinette Constable đź—“

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LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH:  Natalie in the Shadow of the Swastika by Antoinette Constable

Antoinette ConstableSaturday, February 8, 2020 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Help us celebrate a landmark publication this coming Saturday! Author Antoinette Constable, who was a young girl in WWII France, has written a compelling coming-of-age novel for young adult readers. Natalie: in the Shadow of the Swastika. Set in 1940 occupied Paris, eight-year-old Natalie and her family—a Jewish mother, gentile father, and two sisters—cope with the harsh facts of war and Hitler’s occupying army. When her ailing father suddenly disappears, Natalie’s safe surroundings are forever changed. Her struggles with the painful family separation and the dangerous threats against her Jewish mother reveal a growing maturity in the face of confusing loss. Natalie’s fierce resolve to hold onto hope and her love of family leads her from innocence to understanding and resilience, despite the violence of war.

Born and raised in France, Antoinette Constable, a career nurse holding British and American degrees, has lived in the United States for many years, where she raised her four children as a single mother. Antoinette’s work has won the PENFirst Prize for Poetry, as well as the Ann Stanford Award from the University of Southern California, and has appeared (more…)

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Left Coast Writers Book Launch: Wild Colors of the West by Elaine Miller Bond đź—“

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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 đź—“

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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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Left Coast Writers Book Launch: The Unexploded Ordnance Bin by Rebecca Foust đź—“

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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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Ferry Plaza Book Party: Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Author of Navigating the Divide đź—“

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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 đź—“

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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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