A Good Read in Whitefish Review

Whitefish Review
Whitefish Review

Left Coast Writer® Ethel Mays has a poem in Whitefish Review, the twice yearly non-profit literary journal “created to publish the distinctive literature, art, and photography of mountain culture.” 2009 has been a good and busy year for Ethel, witnessing the publication of a short story and several poems in ten journals, reviews, and anthologies, and over 40 featured and open readings in fourteen cities in seven California counties.

If you’d like to read an online version of the poem, you can do so on the Whitefish Review site.

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Cutthroat Magazine Finalists

logo_op_585x600Left Coast Writer® Jeff Kingman is a finalist for Cutthroat Magazine‘s 2009 Rick DeMarinis Short Story Award.  First prize in each genre is $1250 and publication in Cutthroat. Second prize in each genre is $250 and publication in Cutthroat. All finalists are acknowledged in CUTTHROAT and considered for publication.  Winners are announced in Poets and Writers, Winning Writers and the AWP Chronicle.

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Poetry for Water

Roger Housden
Roger Housden

Such a simple idea – have an evening of spoken word, poetry and readings in the Bay Area, and send the money raised to those in need. A village in India can then have clean water for the first time and prevent three or four children a month dying from water borne diseases. There are thousands of villages throughout India without clean running water.

All it takes to change that is $8,000 -10,000 per village. That sum pays for a well with simple hand pump, a rainwater collection tank, and eco-sanitation toilets. The groundwork is done by a UK charity, Wherever The Need, which also has non-profit status in the US.

Poetry for Water with Anne Lamott, Roger Housden, Nina Wise (more…)

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Illuminating Holiday Reading

Roger Housden
Roger Housden

Roger Housden has a new book out. And as we are huge fans of his collections, we want to mention it here. It’s a new anthology of 99 poems with his commentary. It’s available in November. Perfect for the holiday season.
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The Grand Finale

home_bwtw2009Join Left Coast Writers Pamela Bass, Laurie McAndish King and others for an evening of challenging, amorous, dangerous, elegant, amusing, courageous, poignant, and possibly downright foolhardy women’s travel adventures. Local contributors to Travelers’ Tales’ The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2009 will read at the Larkspur Library, 400 Magnolia Avenue on Thursday, October 8 at 7 p.m. (more…)
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Breakthrough Artist

LCW member and how-to writer Elisa Southard loves to stir up new perspectives and take the guesswork of out risky endeavors.  In October, Elisa’s article, Make Road Kill out of Three Myths for Beginning Riders, will be published in HelmetHairMagazine.com, the online quarterly magazine serving the female motorcycle fan.

Break Through the Noise by Elisa Southard

The author of the Amazon best seller, Break Through the Noise, 9 Tools to Propel Your Marketing Message,  Elisa cruised into the California DMV with her Motorcycle Safety Foundation certification just this summer, and now cruises on a Honda Rebel 250. Elisa is also working on her second book, Bring Your Inner Newbie Out for professional women launching into a new sport or pursuit.

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Kilimanjaro Mountain High

Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Linda Watanabe McFerrin

What is it about mountains—super-high mountains—that is so attractive? Is it the challenge they represent? The excitement they provoke? The wonder they inspire? Even if it weren’t the highest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, rising 19,304 feet above the Great Rift Valley in northern Tanzania, would be awe striking. I remember seeing it from a distance on a long-ago trip to Africa when I was writing a story on the Lunatic Express for the San Francsico Examiner/Chronicle travel section. I was reading Ernest Hemingway’s classic The Snows of Kilimanjaro at the time. I’m crazy about mountains, but I never dreamed of climbing Kilimanjaro, so I was delighted to hear about the 2009 publication of Michel Moushabeck and partner Hiltrud Schulz’s book, Kilimanjaro: A Photographic Journey to the Roof of Africa (Interlink Publishing Group, Inc., 2009). If, like me, you are mesmerized by this particular mountain and have no immediate plans to scale it, you should get the book. Moushabeck’s pleasant, diaristic narrative and Schultz’s well-edited images make you feel as if you are along for the climb.

A few years back a dear friend, photographer Alison Wright, author of Learning to Breathe, decided to exercise the body she’d damaged in a major bus accident by climbing Kilimanjaro for her 40th birthday. She called us at a Christmas party where we, her assembled friends, were celebrating many things, one of which was her big day. “Hey, I’m calling you from the top of Kilimanjaro,” she gasped over the phone. I think we were all dazed and impressed. It was hard to imagine her summit: the slow, slow (pole, pole) climb, the altitude sickness, the way your strength is sapped and every step requires tremendous exertion, the exhilaration of making it to the top. Now, thanks to Kilimanjaro: A Photographic Journey to the Roof of Africa, I get it … in great detail, in living color. The book makes “Kili” accessible. Enjoy the climb.

Other favorite books on mountain adventures:

  • Coronation Everest by James (now Jan) Morris
  • Into Thin Air by John Krakauer
  • The Climb of My Life by Laura Evans
  • A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby
  • A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
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