Book Launch: Days of the Dead by James A. Jacobs

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH: Days of the Dead, with author James A. Jacobs 

James A. Jacobs
James A. Jacobs

Saturday, March 12th, 2016 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Join us at a book party for journalist and emeritus professor, James A. Jacobs.

Jacobs’ second novel featuring Daniel Mendoza takes us on a storied journey through the festivals and furies of a complex world that should be shockingly familiar to readers concerned with the glories and agonies of Mexico today. Mendoza works hard to keep the lid on extreme violence exercised by the Mexican government, including enforced disappearances of hundreds of the nation’s children. But that’s just the first act of Mendoza’s complicated mission to seek justice, retribution … and just possibly salvation. A searing but very satisfying story.

—Timothy Kennedy, PhD, University of Tampa, author of Where the Rivers Meet the Sky: A Collaborative Approach to Participatory Development

James A. Jacobs, an ex-Marine, worked for United Press International in Mexico City 1968, and witnessed many of the events described in the novel. The author earned BS (English) and MA (Newspaper Journalism) degrees from Syracuse University. Upon his return from Mexico, he also earned a MSS degree (Interdisciplinary Social Science), also at Syracuse University, focusing on Latin American Studies and Cultural Anthropology with a special interest in Revival (Millenarian) Movements. He is professor (more…)

Read More

Literary Salon: Jill K. Robinson

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

Jill K. Robinson
Jill K. Robinson

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…)

Read More

Left Coast Writers Poetry: Todd Crawshaw

Left Coast Writers Poetry: Todd Crawshaw, Author of heretofore and Exploits of the Satyr

Todd Crawshaw
Todd Crawshaw

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

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 March is Todd Crawshaw.

Todd Crawshaw is a Bay Area author, artist, and founder of San Francisco-based graphic design firm Crawshaw Design.  His published works include heretoforeExploits of the Satyr, and Light-Years in the Dark: StoryPoems. (more…)

Read More

Book Party: To Oldly Go, with contributors MJ Pramik and Anne Sigmon

LEFT COAST WRITERS FERRY PLAZA BOOK PARTY:  To Oldly Go, with contributors MJ Pramik and Anne Sigmon

Ann Sigmon (left) and MJ Pramik (right)
Ann Sigmon (left) and MJ Pramik (right)

Monday, March 3rd, 2016 || 6pm
Book Passage || San Francisco
1 Ferry Building, San Francisco ||www.bookpassage.com

Left Coast Writers will celebrate publication of a lively new anthology with a festive book launch party on Monday evening, February 8, 2016, at Book Passage’s San Francisco Store, 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA 94111. Phone: (415) 835-1020.

MJ Pramik and Anne Sigmon are delighted to join distinguished British and international travel writers between the covers of the new travel anthology To Oldly Go, just published by Bradt Guides.

There’ll be wine, international-themed snacks (including chocolate, of course!), prize drawings (could a Cuban cigar be involved?), music, and other surprises. MJ and Anne will read selections from their own stories and those of esteemed writers like Hilary Bradt, Colin Thubron, and Dervla Murphy.

The party is free and open to the public, so come and bring your friends. It’s an easy walk from Embarcadero BART or the parking lot directly across the street (Ace Parking Washington-Embarcadero).

To Oldly Go is a collection of challenging and unusual travel escapades by the over-60s. Some stories are thrilling, some thought-provoking, and some just plain fun, but all celebrate an irrepressible appetite among people who refuse to retire quietly.

While they don’t really think of themselves as “oldlys,” MJ and Anne are proud to be part of this collection of 41 true travel tales from the over-60 crowd: Dervla Murphy travelling in Cuba at the age of 74, Matthew Parris swimming the Thames at 60, and Colin Thubron climbing the last stronghold of the Assassins. They, along with Anne & (more…)

Read More

Left Coast Writers® Live: Anne Sigmon and MJ Pramik

Melinda Adams, aka Lilycat

On Sunday, February 21st from 12-2pm, join Left Coast Writers® Live on FCCFREE RADIO’s popular show, Lilycat on Stuff. Lilycat’s guest on Sunday will be Anne Sigmon and MJ Pramik, Contributors to To Oldly Go: Tales of Intrepid Travel by the Over-60s

A brand new collection of remarkable travel tales from ‘Silver Travellers’. Dervla Murphy travelling in Cuba at the age of 74, Matthew Parris swimming the Thames at 60, and Colin Thubron climbing the last stronghold of the Assassins in his 60s are among the writers recounting their adventures, often defying expectations – and the odds – and going outside their comfort zone to take a less-travelled path in later life. Published with participation from the Silver Travel Advisor, this single volume brings together contributions – some original, some previously published – from independent-minded souls whose experiences have been entertaining, amusing, thrilling, and even a little irresponsible. Other contributors include Roger Bray, ‘Green Goddess’ Diana Moran and Bradt Guides’ very own Hilary Bradt. – See more at: http://www.bradtguides.com/to-oldly-go-pb.html#sthash.WoFyrnBe.dpuf

Mary Jean Pramik, a coalminer’s daughter and a great, great-granddaughter of the Mongolian pain, has hitch-hiked across the United States, tracker May apples in Ohio, chased children through wet mountains of California, fended off bill collectors in tropical San Francisco, and counted sharp-taloned bird carcasses along the Pacific’s Point Reyes sands. Communicating with screeching penguin hoards in Antarctica remains a high point of her sojourn on this planet. MJ earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in biological sciences, and completed an MFA in writing. She moonlights as a medical writer, penning such scientific thrillers as Norenthindrone, The First Three Decades, the fast-paced history of the first birth control pill extracted from a Mexican yam. Winner of the coveted Mary Women Medal and a Travelers’ Tales Solis Award, MJ’s articles and essays have appeared in Nature BiotechnologyDrug Topics, and Cosmetic Surgery News, and mainstream publications such as Good HousekeepingOdyssey, and the National Enquirer. She has contributed to the “Venturing in” travel series on the Canal du Midi, Southern Greece, Southern Ireland, and Puglia, Italy, and the “Wandering in” series for Costa Rica, Bali, and Cornwall. MJ teaches graduate writing skills in the College of Science and Engineering at San Francisco State University.

Anne Sigmon flunked jump rope in seventh grade and washed out of college PE. After college, she headed for San Francisco and a career in public relations. Exotic travel was the stuff of dreams until, at 38, she married Jack, took tea with erstwhile headhunters in Borneo and climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro at 43. Five years later, she was zapped by a career-ending stroke caused by an obscure autoimmune disease called Antiphospholipid Syndrome (APS). She may be stuck with blood thinners and a damaged brain, but she’s still traveling to isolated regions ranging from Botswana to Burma and, most recently, to Syria, Jordan, and a remote rainforest in Costa Rica. Anne’s personal essays and travel stories have appeared in local and national publications including Good Housekeeping and Stroke Connection magazines and the anthologies Wandering in Costa RicaChicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Happiness, and Travel Stories from Around the Globe. She is currently working on a memoir about her experience with stroke and autoimmune disease. Anne’s blog www.JunglePants.com offers travel tales and tips about adventure travel off the beaten path. On her author website, www.AnneSigmon.com, she writes about—and offers tips on—living with stroke and autoimmune disease.

The ongoing spot on Lilycat on Stuff is scheduled for the third Sunday of every month. Left Coast Writers® are invited to participate in the programming. Listeners are (more…)

Read More

Left Coast Writers Poetry: Elaine Miller Bond

Left Coast Writers Poetry: Kunal Mukherjee, Author of My Magical Palace

Elaine Miller Bond
Elaine Miller Bond

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

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 February is Elaine Bond.

When Elaine Miller Bond was 8 years old, her teacher secretly sent a poem she wrote to the Oakland Tribune. This little ode to Berkeley’s holiday lights was Elaine’s first publication. Since that time, Elaine has worked as a University of California science writer, photographed prairie dogs for a popular science book, seen her photos on tv and in print (Discovery Channel, Science, NPR, BBC, The Washington Post, Berkeleyside), and written/photographed books for kids (forthcoming from Heyday Books). She has also written poems, her impressions of life events. Some are light; others are deep. All reflect a degree of wonder, as seen through the eyes wildlife photographer, and of an 8-year-old, looking at holidays lights.

Kawika's LogoAbout Kawika’s Deli:

David Nottage and his wife Joanne Pappas Nottage bought this San Francisco business a year and a half ago and transformed a (more…)

Read More

Workshop: Writing Sexy Stuff with Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Saturday, February 13th, 2016 || 10am-4pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Treat yourself or a loved one to something extra-special for Valentine’s Day.If you have trouble steaming up the page, this is the workshop for you. Spend a day with poet, travel writer and novelist Linda Watanabe McFerrin loosening up and learning the techniques for adding spicy, sensual, and sometimes hilarious sizzle to your work. The class is full of quick free-writes and entertaining exercises that will have you moving from comfort zones to erogenous zones in no time. Linda’s workshops have ushered may a writer into the award circle and bestseller spotlight. She’s the founder of Left Coast Writers® and co-editor of the Hot Flashes: Sexy Little Stories and Poems series. The workshop fee includes, champagne, chocolate, and copious creativity.

A careful investigation will also reveal that you can receive Dominican College credit for this workshop.

The workshop will be held on Saturday, February 13th, from 10am-4pm at Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd, Corte Madera, CA, 94925.  Sign up here.

Poet, travel writer, novelist and Left Coast Writers® founder 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 (more…)

Read More

Book Party: Linda Watanabe McFerrin & Laurie McAndish King

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Linda Watanabe McFerrin & Laurie McAndish King introduce writers on the topic of “Love in the 21st Century”

Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Laurie McAndish King
Laurie McAndish King

Saturday, February 13th, 2016 || 7pm
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
www.bookpassage.com

Linda Watanabe McFerrin & Laurie McAndish King, editors of Hot Flashes: Sexy Little Stories and Poems, will introduce writers on the topic of “Love in the 21st Century”.

Poet, travel writer, novelist and Left Coast Writers® founder 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 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 BridgePress, 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 mentor for the Loft Mentor Series and been guest faculty at the Oklahoma Arts Institute. A past NEA Panelist and juror for the Marin Literary Arts Council, she has led workshops in Greece, France, Italy, Ireland, Central America, Indonesia and the United States and has mentored a long list of accomplished writers and best-selling authors toward publication.

Laurie McAndish King grew up in rural Iowa, studied science and philosophy at Cornell College, and has traveled to nearly forty countries, observing with an eye for (more…)

Read More

Wandering in Cornwall reading at A Great Good Place for Books

Reading with Wanderland Writers at A Great Good Place for Books, Authors of Wandering in Cornwall: Mystery, Mirth, and Transformation in the Land of the Ancient Celts

Wandering in Cornwall CoverWednesday, January 20th, 2016 || 7pm
A Great Good Place for Books|| 6120 LaSalle Avenue Oakland, CA 94611 ||
http://www.ggpbooks.com/

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

This time Wanderland Writers venture deep into Cornwall, exploring its 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, and 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 (more…)

Read More

Left Coast Writers® Live: Ivan Light

Melinda Adams, aka Lilycat
Melinda Adams, aka Lilycat

On Sunday, January 17th from 12-2pm, join Left Coast Writers® Live on FCCFREE RADIO’s popular show, Lilycat on Stuff. Lilycat’s guest on Sunday will be Ivan Light, Author of Deadly Secret of the Lusitania

In 1915, a German U-Boat sank the British passenger liner Lusitania. Many Americans, including women and children, were among the 1,200 dead, so the crime caused a storm of protest in America, and helped plunge the U.S. into World War I. In this gripping novel, an insurance investigator and his fiancée help a murdered longshoreman s widow who’s been unjustly denied her husband s life insurance. Finding themselves in possession of documents detailing the Lusitania s secret cargo, the couple are targeted by German and British spies, Irish republicans, a rogue socialist, and the newly-formed FBI, all wanting to use the suppressed material for their own purposes.

Ivan Light is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. The author of seven books, he received the Distinguished Career Award from the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association in 2000 in recognition of his pioneering publications dealing with immigrant and ethnic minority entrepreneurship. His Deflecting Immigration received the American Sociological Association Best Book (more…)

Read More