Lori Tobias
Writer's Workshop Participant '94 and '95Her memoir, Storm Beat, A Journalist Reports from the Oregon Coast, will be published by Oregon State University in August, 2020.
Omnium Gatherum: Alumni & Teaching Staff News
Welcome to the Community of Writers Omnium Gatherum & Alumni News. We invite you to find out what our community has been up to recently. You may view by date or by program (see left sidebar). Sign up for monthly updates here.
We also invite alumni and staff to submit your news here. Please note that news must be less than 12 months old, brief and to the point, and may be edited for brevity and/or clarity.
Joanna Solfrian
Poetry Workshop participant '06Her second book of poems, The Mud Room, was released by MadHat press in April, 2020.
Judy Batalion
Writers Workshop participant '11Her new book, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos, will be published by HarperCollins in June, 2020.
Alice Jones
Poetry Participant, '88, '89; Teaching Staff, Writing the Medical ExperienceHer book, Vault, was published on July 1, 2020, by Apogee Press.
Erica Plouffe Lazure
Writers Workshop participant '18Her short story, “The Duck Walk” appears in the Spring 2020 issue of Phoebe Journal.
Cornelius Eady
Poetry Workshop Teaching Staff '92, '99, '01, '04He was interviewed for Yale University’s Beinecke Library Corona Series. He discussed the on-going music project he is working on remotely with his folk trio (himself, with guitarists Lisa Liu and Charlie Rauh). Check it out here.
Lise Haines
Writers Workshop participant '99She has an essay up on the Broad Street Blog.
Penny Cagan
Poetry Participant '92, '93; Writers Workshop participant '92She has entered into a 7 1/2 year cycle called Daf Yomi, where people around the world read the same portion of the Talmud each day. She has been writing daily about the readings from a literary perspective in the Times of Israel. Her blog can be found here.
Lorraine Comanor
Writers Workshop participant '09Her essay “Walking with Birds” was published in the Fall 2019 issue of Boulevard.
Leslie Hsu Oh
Writers Workshop participant '14, '19She recently received 2 gold medals from the NATJA Travel Media Awards. “Painting the Next Chapter,” published in Adventure Journal won gold in Lifestyle, Personality & Profiles and “What It’s Like to Break Bread in the Desert” in Saveur Magazine won gold in Family Travel.
Attended with the help of The O’Dwyer Scholarship
Grace Talusan
Writers Workshops Participant '98; Published Alumni Reading Series '19The paperback of her memoir, The Body Papers, was published by Restless Books in March 2020 with a new afterword, reading guide, and interview. Winner of The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Grace Talusan’s memoir The Body Papers bravely explores her experiences with sexual abuse, depression, cancer, and life as a Filipino immigrant, supplemented with government documents, medical records, and family photos. The memoir is on the Must Reads (long list) for the 20th Annual Massachusetts Book Awards.
Anthony Cody
Poetry Participant '18His debut Borderland Apocrypha was recently published in April 2020 with Omnidawn. The collection was the winner of the 2018 Omnidawn Open Book Prize by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge. In her citation Berssenbrugge writes, “Intense feeling, empathy, rage, compassion swerves language, torques the page. History and data inflict. Intelligence composes, sequence wrestles with violence. It must be witnessed, expressed. The love is expression. Witness is form.” The collection is now available for purchase.
Attended with the help of Galway Kinnell Memorial Scholarship
Vonetta Young
Writers Workshops Participant, ‘18Her short story, “Sand and Salt,” from which she began the novel chapter she workshopped at the Community of Writers, was published in the anthology, Furious Gravity in May, 2020. She also published another short story, “As Far Away,” in Gargoyle issue 71.
Ann Tweedy
Poetry Participant, '20, '15, '12, '07, '04, '00, '97Her chapbook Beleaguered Oases, first published in 2010 by tcCreativePress, was republished in Seven Kitchens Press’s Rebound Series in April 2020.
Susan Henderson
Writers Workshop Participant, '09She has an essay in the upcoming anthology, Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of COVID-19, published by Central Avenue. All net profits will be donated to The Book Industry Charitable Foundation, helping indie booksellers in need.
Attended with the help of Lojo Foundation scholarship
Vishwas Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant, '14He was a finalist in The Chautauqua Institution’s 2020 Janus Prize “for daring formal and aesthetic innovations that upset and reorder readers’ imaginations.”
Kris Newby
Writers Workshop participant '17She was recently awarded a Nautilus Award (Silver) for her book Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons. With a Kirkus starred review, it was also listed as one of the “best books of 2019” by Bookworm and Stanford Medicine, as well as the #1 book in public health by BookAuthority.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Sarah Maclay
Poetry Participant, '97, '06, '19Her poem “A Mirror of Leaves” appears in the Winter 2020 volume of Hotel Amerika.
Erin L. McCoy
Poetry Participant, '16She recently won second place in the 2019–2020 Rougarou Poetry Contest, judged by CAConrad, for her poem, “How a lake flash-froze a herd of horses.”
Kristi Maxwell
Poetry Participant, ‘02Her seventh book of poems, My My, was published by Saturnalia Books in May, 2020.
Gail Reitano
Writers Workshop Participant, '97,'98,'99,'02,'03,'19Her personal essay “Wanting Warhol: My Connections to Andy Warhol” appears in the June 2020 issue of Catamaran Literary Reader.
Alice Jones
Poetry Participant, '88, '89. Teaching Staff, Writing the Medical experienceHer newest collection, Vault, was recently published by Apogee Press. A poem in the book, “Spell,” won the first annual Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize.
Vishwas R Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant, '14His short story “Kismet” was published in Pembroke Magazine, Issue No 52, 2020.
Lyndsey Ellis
Writers Workshop participant '17Her debut novel, Bone Broth, will be published in spring 2021 by Hidden Timber Books.
Ken Haas
Poetry Workshop participant '08, '11, '13, '16, '19His first full-length poetry collection, Borrowed Light, was recently published by Red Mountain Press, and won the 2020 Red Mountain Discovery Award.
Wayétu Moore
Writers Workshop participant 2009; Published Alumni Reading Series 2019Her memoir, The Dragons, The Giant, The Women, was published June 2, 2020, by Graywolf Press.
Maxima Kahn
Poetry Participant, '07; Writers Workshops Participant '06, '10Her first full-length collection of poems, Fierce Aria, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in summer 2020.
Attended with the help of Mary Turnbull Scholarship
Shelley Blanton-Stroud
Writers Workshops Participant, '04Her novel, Copy Boy, will be published by She Writes Press, June, 2020.
Meryl Natchez
Poetry Participant, '87...2013Her second book of original poetry, Catwalk, is forthcoming in June, 2020, from Longship Press. Preorders available here.
Christina Adams
Writers Workshop participant '00She was recently awarded the Nautilus Book Award for her book Camel Crazy: A Quest for Miracles in the Mysterious World of Camels.
Scott Edward Anderson
His book, Falling Up: A Memoir of Second Chances, was recently awarded the First Literary Prize from Letras Lavadas, in conjunction with PEN Azores.
Janyce Stefan-Cole
Writers Workshop Participant '04Her short story, “The Runaway,” appeared in The Broadkill Review, January – February 2020 issue. An essay, “How I Lost My Vegan,” appeared in the February 2020 issue of Literary Veganism; Editions Bibliotekos.
Gail Reitano
Writers Workshops Participant, '97,'98,'99,'02,'03,'19Her novel, Italian Love Cake, will be published by Bordighera Press, April 2021. Italy and America collide in this story of feminism and political awakening in late 1930’s America.
Eileen Garvin
Writers Workshop Participant '17Her novel Bee Music was purchased at auction by Dutton for publication in 2021. The novel chronicles the story of three lonely residents in a rural Oregon town, each struggling to deal with one of life’s curveballs — a teenager who has just become paraplegic after a freak accident, a middle-aged widow suffering from panic attacks, and a young man with social anxiety — who come together on a local honeybee farm where they find surprising friendship, healing and maybe even a second chance. Eileen is the author of How to be a Sister: A Love Story with a Twist of Autism and has written for PsychologyToday.com, The Oregonian and Creative Nonfiction Magazine (forthcoming).
Susan Starbird
Writers Workshop Participant '04Nonfiction fragmentologist Susan Starbird launched the fifth issue of Susan The Magazine, with the theme of Varmints. Prior issues focused on water, women, work, and cars. All are available from Amazon, findable if you search the author’s name.
Richard Tayson
Poetry Participant, '93His poem, “Antigone’s Dream,” appears in the Spring 2020 issue of Colorado Review.
Elison Alcovendaz
Writers Workshop participant '16His flash fiction piece, “The Assimilation of Boyboy Santos” (originally published in Lost Balloon magazine), was selected for inclusion in the Best Small Fictions 2020 anthology.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Christine Sunderland
Writers Workshops Participant, ‘05Her seventh novel, Angel Mountain, has been published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. Set on Mount Diablo in the present day, the story is about a holy hermit, a Holocaust survivor, a literary librarian, and a Christian geneticist who search for peace and happiness in a culture of chaos. Themes include history and memory, faith and science, human dignity and free speech. “In Angel Mountain, Christine Sunderland has created a gripping and theologically rich novel, in which four remarkable people make their way through a shifting cultural landscape ringed with apocalyptic fire, revolutionary politics, and end-times expectancy.” Wilfred M. McClay, University of Oklahoma (jacket endorsement).
Lynne Goldsmith
Poetry Participant '00Her book, Secondary Cicatrices, won a Human Relations Indie Book Award for poetry.
Leah Naomi Green
Poetry Participant '08Her essay “Return, Investment, Return” appeared in The Paris Review in April 2020 around the debut of her book The More Extravagant Feast (Graywolf Press), selected by Li-Young Lee for the 2019 Walt Whitman Award of The Academy of American Poets.
Jesse Bedayn
His article, “Inside the Bay Area’s Geriatric Homeless Shelter,” was recently published in the New York Times. Jesse has been a Poetry Elf during our summer writing workshops for the last four years, and is currently getting his Masters in Journalism, with a focus in narrative writing, at University of California, Berkeley.
Robert Stone
The Eye You See With: Selected Nonfiction is a vast collection of Robert Stone’s nonfiction, from war reporting to literary criticism, and was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in March, 2020. Stone was a staff member from the very early years, and a longtime friend of the Community of Writers
Ryan Ridge
Writers Workshop participant '10His new collection of short stories, New Bad News, will be published by Sarabande Books in May, 2020.
Judy Halebsky
Poetry Workshop participant '06, '09, '11, '14Her newest collection of poetry, Spring and a Thousand Years, winner of the Miller Williams Poetry Prize, was recently published by University of Arkansas Press.
Ksenia Lakovic
Writers Workshop Participant, '12Her short story “A Man at the End of the Hallway” has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. It was published in Scoundrel Time, in October 2019.
Julia Flynn Siler
Writers Workshop participant '03, '04; Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '14, '15, '16, '18, '19Her newest book, The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown, was recently awarded two Golden Poppy Awards, in the Regional Book and Non-Fiction categories. The Golden Poppy Awards honor books published each year by Northern California authors and artists chosen by independent booksellers throughout Northern California.
Tom Lutz
Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '17, '19His new novel, Born Slippy, was published by Repeater Books/Penguin Random House in January, 2020.
Leslie Hsu Oh
Writers Workshop participant '14, '19Her two short stories were recently awarded gold medals at the NATJA Travel Media Awards in the Family Travel and Profile categories.
Diannely Antigua
Poetry Workshop participant '16She was recently awarded the Whiting Award in Poetry for her debut collection, Ugly Music (YesYes Books, 2019). The judges said her poems “layer lyricism, religious language, and the tactile materials of daily life to build altars of affection for the people and things of her world,” each “meticulously shaped by a formal and aesthetic vision that already feels authoritative.”
Elizabeth Kadetsky
Writers Workshop Participant, '98, '04; Alumni Reader, '04Her fourth book, The Memory Eaters, winner of the first Juniper Prize in Creative Nonfiction, was published by University of Massachusetts Press in March 2020. She is currently undertaking her second Fulbright fellowship to India.
Attended with the help of UCI scholarship
David Koehn
Poetry Workshop participant '04, '06, '14His new book of poetry, Scatterplot, will be published by Omnidawn in April, 2020.
John Murillo
Poetry Workshop participant '10His new collection of poetry, Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry, was published by Four Way Books in March, 2020.
Edan Lepucki
Writers Workshop participant '07; Writers Workshop teaching staff '14, '18She edited the upcoming book, Mothers Before: Stories and Portraits of Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them, which is due out April, 2020, from Abrams Image.
Paco Márquez
Poetry Participant, '12His poems “…a petrel” & “Leaf on Water” appear in Fence, Issue #36, Winter 2020.
Beatrice Bowles
Poetry Workshop participant '91Her new storybook, Spider Grandmother’s Web of Wonder, is now available for pre-order on Amazon. It will be published April 30, 2020.
Leah Naomi Green
Poetry Workshop participant '08Her new book, The More Extravagant Feast, will be published by Graywolf Press in April, 2020.
Brenda Hillman
Director of the Community of Writers Poetry ProgramShe was recently awarded the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. This award goes to a poet of progressive, original, and experimental tendencies.
Ann Keniston
Poetry Workshop participant '96, '03, '08, '13Her new collection of poetry, Somatic, is now available for preorder. It will be published by Terrapin Books this spring.
Michele Karas
Poetry Participant '17She has joined the editorial staff of the new online poetry journal The Night Heron Barks, and her poem, “Tulip Cuttings,” appears in the Spring 2020 issue of Mid-American Review.
Devi S. Laskar
Poetry Workshop participant '04, '08, '14; Writers Workshop participant '04, '15; Published Alumni Reading Series '19Her novel, The Atlas of Reds and Blues, recently won the Award for Literature in Adult Fiction from the Asian/ Pacific American Library Association.
Elana K. Arnold
Arnold, Elana K.Her new children’s book, An Ordinary Day, was published in March, 2020, by Beach Lane Books.
Eliot Schain
Poetry Participant, '98, '02, '07, '11, '16; Writers Workshops Participant, '99His second book of poetry, The Distant Sound, will be published in April 2020 by Sixteen Rivers Press.
Alia Volz
Writers Workshops Participant, '11, '14Her debut memoir, Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in April 2020.
Attended with the help of Oakley Hall Memorial Scholarship; Oakley "Tad" Hall Prose Scholarship
Alma Katsu
Writers Workshop participant '03Her new book, The Deep, was published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in March, 2020.
Lucinda Watson
Poetry Workshop Participant '91, '92, '96, '98, '02, '04Her first book of poems, The Favorite, will be published by Golden Antelope Press in spring, 2020.
John DeSimone
Writers Workshop participant '11, '12His new novel, The Road to Delano, was recently published by Rare Bird Books in March, 2020.
Don Mee Choi
Poetry Workshop Staff '14Her newest book of poetry, DMZ Colony, forthcoming from Wave Books in April, 2020, recently received the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize.
Monica Sok
Poetry participant '15Her debut collection, A Nail the Evening Hangs On, was published by Copper Canyon Press in February, 2020.
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Writers Workshop teaching staff '18, '19Her novel, The Revisioners, recently won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction.
Elizabeth Tallent
Writers Workshop teaching staff '16, '18Her new memoir, Scratched: A Memoir of Perfectionism, was published in February, 2020, by HarperCollins.
A. R. Taylor
Writers Workshop Participant, '11Her new novel, Jenna Takes The Fall, will appear September 1, 2020 from She Writes Press.
Lisa Alvarez
Writers Workshop participant; Co-Director of the Fiction Workshop.Her poem, “Imagining my Grandmother on the Laredo Bridge, 1917,” was recently published in the Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review.
Shira Dentz
Poetry Workshop Participant '05Her fifth book, Sisyphusina (PANK Books), a cross-genre collection of prose, poetry, visual art, and improvisatory music centered on female aging is available now. By deviating from formal classical construction, and using the recurring image of a rose, Sisyphusina circles around conventions of beauty, questioning traditional aesthetic values of continuity, coherence, and symmetry. The interweaving of multi-media collaborations, the author’s voice and voices from other sources imbue this book with a porous texture, and reimagines the boundary of THE BOOK as a membrane. Advance praise from Jenny Boully, M. NourbeSe Philip, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Carla Harryman, & artist Kay Rosen.
April Dávila
Writers Workshop participant '18Her new novel, 142 Ostriches, was published in February, 2020, by Kensington.
Jeff Bens
Writers Workshop ParticipantHis new novel, The Mighty Oak, will be out in September 2020 from Blackstone Publishing.
Danusha Lameris
Poetry Workshop participant '00Her new collection of poetry, Bonfire Opera, was published in March, 2020, by University of Pittsburgh Press.
Cai Emmons
Writers Workshop '93, '94, '97, Teaching Staff 2010Her short story collection, Vanishing, won the 2019 Leapfrog Fiction Contest, and was published in March, 2020. Sinking Islands, the sequel to her novel Weather Women, will be published in early 2021. She is pleased to be an Authors Guild ambassador for the new Portland, Oregon chapter.
Genevieve Kaplan
Poetry Participant '18Her new book of poems, (aviary), was released in March, 2020, by Veliz Books.
Monica Sok
Poetry Workshop participant '15Her poem “Ode to the Boy Who Jumped Me” was featured on Poets.org‘s Poem-A-Day on February 20, 2020
Bill Pieper
Writers Workshop Participant '10His new book, Borders and Boundaries, was published by Cold River Press in March, 2020.
Terence Clarke
Writers Workshop participant '72, '73His newest novel, the second in a trilogy, When Clara was Twelve, was published in March, 2020.
Jessica Guzman
Poetry Participant, '18Her collection Adelante was chosen by Patricia Smith as winner of the 2019 Gatewood Prize and was published by Switchback Books in March, 2020.
Susan M. Gaines
Writers Workshop Participant '94; Alumni Reading Series (Carbon Dreams) '01Her new novel, Accidentals, was published by Torrey House Press in March, 2020.
Attended with the help of Scholarship
Anthony Mohr
Writers Workshop Participant '08His essay “The Fairest of the Fair” appeared in Streetlight Magazine.
Andrew Altschul
Writers Workshops Participant, '97His third novel, The Gringa, was published in March, 2020, by Melville House.
Cathy Park Hong
Poetry Workshop Teaching Staff '11, '16Her new book, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, will be published by One World on February 25, 2020.
Aimee Liu
Writers Workshop participant '94Her new novel, Glorious Boy, which will be published by Red Hen Press in May, 2020, was recently selected by Good Housekeeping as one of the best books of 2020.
Meryl Natchez
Poetry Workshop participant '13, '09, '05, '00, '88Hew new book of poetry, Catwalk, will be published by Longship Press in June, 2020.
Lynne Thompson
Poetry Workshop participant '97, '02Her poem “She Talk Like This ‘Cause Me Mum Born Elsewhere, Say!” was recently selected by Paisley Rekdal for 2020 Best American Poetry.
Khadijah Queen
Poetry Workshop participant '09Her new book of poetry, Anodyne, will be published by Tin House Books in August, 2020.
Attended with the help of Cave Canem Scholarship
Caroline Kim
Writers Workshops Participant, '18, '19Her short story collection, The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories, won the 2020 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in October, 2020.
Christine Hemp
Poetry Workshop participant '06Her forthcoming memoir, Wild Ride Home: Love, Loss, and a Little White Horse, was published by Arcade/Skyhorse Publishing on February 4th, 2020.
Jeff Adams
Writers Workshop '19His short story, “The Citron Tree,” will appear in the Spring 2020 issue of The McNeese Review.
Dani Burlison
Writers Workshop Participant, '12Her short story collection, Some Places Worth Leaving, was published by Tolsun Books in February 2020.
Jami Macarty
Poetry Workshop participant '10, '14, '17Her new book of poetry, The Minuses, was published by University Press of Colorado in February, 2020.
Chelsea B. DesAutels
Poetry Participant, '18Her poem “Why I Think of Jungle Crows” will be published in the Winter 2019-20 issue of Ploughshares. Chelsea B. DesAutels’s work appears or is forthcoming in the Missouri Review, Copper Nickel, The Adroit Journal, Pleiades, Willow Springs, and elsewhere. Natasha Trethewey named Chelsea’s manuscript, Metastasis, the finalist for the AWP Award Series Donald Hall Prize in Poetry. Chelsea received an MFA from the University of Houston, where she served as Poetry Editor of Gulf Coast. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Since 1971, Ploughshares has discovered and cultivated the freshest voices in contemporary American literature.
Christine Sunderland
Writers Workshops Participant, 05Her seventh novel, Angel Mountain, has been contracted to be published by Wipf and Stock Publishers in 2020. Set on Mount Diablo in the present day, the story involves a holy hermit, a Holocaust survivor, a literary librarian, and a faithful geneticist who meet in a world of earthquake, fire, and mob violence. Themes include human dignity and free speech, history and memory, faith and science.
Clancy McGilligan
Writers Workshop Participant '17His novella, History of an Executioner, was published in January, 2020, by Miami University Press after winning the 2019 Novella Prize.
Attended with the help of SpringCreek Foundation Scholarship
Meg Day
Poetry Workshop participantThey are the Poem-a-Day Guest Editor for January 2020.
Cameron Walker
Writers Workshops Participant, '02, '04His essay collection, Points of Light, won the 2019 Tamaqua Award from Hidden River Arts Press.
Amanda Eyre Ward
Writers Workshop participant '92Her new novel, The Jetsetters, was published by Ballantine Books in February, 2020.
Joann Gardner
Poetry Workshop participant '91, '96Her chapbook of poetry, The Deaf Island, was published in July, 2019, and was recently named the winner of the Poetry Society of America Chapbook Award.
Gretchen McCullough
Writers' Workshop, '06, '08, '19Her essay “Alexandria Melodies” about Alexandria, Egypt and its writers was published in the Los Angeles Review of Books in December, 2019.
Jami Macarty
Poetry Participant, '10, '14, '17Her full-length collection of poetry, The Minuses, is forthcoming in the Mountain West Poetry Series by The Center For Literary Publishing at Colorado State University, February 2020.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Poetry Workshop participant '11His memoir, Children of the Land, was published in January 2020 from HarperCollins.
Devi S. Laskar
Writers Workshop participant '04, '15; Poetry Workshop participant '04, '08, '14Her novel, The Atlas of Reds and Blues, was recently awarded the Crook’s Corner Book Prize.
Robert Hass
Poetry Workshop Program DirectorHis newest volume of poetry, Summer Snow, and his first collection of poems since 2010, was published by HarperCollins in January, 2020.
Michele Karas
Poetry Workshop Participant '17The San Diego Poetry Annual has nominated Michele Karas’ poem “For First Wives Who Have Considered Suicide” for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry.
Ann Fisher-Wirth
Poetry ParticipantHer sixth book of poems, The Bones of Winter Birds, was published by Terrapin Books in February, 2020.
Lisa Braver Moss
Writers Workshop Participant, '03Her novel Shrug has won first prize in YA historical fiction in the 2019 Moonbeam Awards, and was a finalist in the 2019 “Best Book” awards.
Valyntina Grenier
Poetry Workshop participant '05Her new book, Fever Dream/ Take Heart, was published in January, 2019, from Cathexis North West Press.
Christine Hemp
Poetry Workshop participant '06Her memoir, Wild Ride Home: Love, Loss, and a Little White Horse, will be published by Arcade in February, 2020.
Susan Browne
Poetry Participant '88, '10Her third collection, Just Living, won the Catamaran Poetry Prize, 2019, and was published in November, 2019.
Janine Kovac
Writers Workshops Participant '11, '12, '14, '16Hers memoir, Spinning: Choreography for Coming Home, workshopped at Squaw Valley in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2016, was awarded the 2019 National Indie Excellence Award for memoir.
Attended with the help of George Pascoe Miller Scholarship ('11), Carlisle Family Scholarship ('12), Eshleman Scholarship ('14)
Jeff Kingman
Poetry Participant '12For those in the Bay Area, the book launch for Jeffrey Kingman’s poetry chapbook ON A ROAD will be at Alibi Bookshop, 624 Marin St. in Vallejo, CA on Sunday, January 5th at 3:30pm. Jeff’s book borrows language and places from Kerouac’s On the Road.
Joy Ma
Writers Workshops, 2004Her new book, The Deoliwallahs, was published by Pan Macmillan India in December. It is a non-fiction account of her family and the stories of several Chinese Indians who were interned after the war between India and China in 1962. An essay about it appears on Scroll.In.
Max Byrd
His newest book, Pont Neuf, has just been released as an Amazon Audible Original, and will be published in hardback July, 2020.
Laurel Blossom
Poetry Participant '77Her new chapbook, Un-, a series of short prose poems concerning the search for one of Esther Williams’s understudies and other lost and unsung beauties of 1950s Hollywood, can be pre-ordered now from Finishing Line Press. It will be published on March 13, 2020.
Vanessa Hua
Writers Workshop participant '08, '17; Writers Workshop teaching staff '19Her book of short stories, Deceit and Other Possibilities, recently rereleased with three additional tales, received a starred review from Kirkus.
June Sylvester Saraceno
Poetry Workshop participant '05Her third collection of poetry, The Girl From Yesterday, will be released in January 2020 from Cherry Grove Collections.
Yiskah Rosenfeld
Poetry Workshop participant '01, '03, '19She was recently named runner up for the 2019 Kallisto Gaia Poetry Prize for her poem “Poetry Submission Guidelines,” which will be published in the next issue of the Ocotillo Review. She will be giving a reading together with Lisa Wenzel (Poetry Workshop alum ’19), whom she met while carpooling to the workshop. The reading will be January 6 at 7:30 at Vanne Bistro in Berkeley.
David Watts
Poetry Workshop participant '90, '91, '92, '93, '97, '99, '02, '04, '13His memoir, Christmas in Georgepatch, was rereleased this December in both paperback and Kindle editions.
Sean Marciniak
Writers Workshop participant '09, '14His short story, “Bridge of the Hallelujahs”, appeared in the autumn 2019 issue of Orca, and was nominated for a Pushcart prize.
Nancy Kelly
Screenwriting Workshop participant '83, '00; Writers Workshop participant '06, '16The new digital restoration of her film, Thousand Pieces of Gold, enjoyed several screenings at the Rafael Film Center in November, 2019.
Joan Baranow
Poetry Workshop participant '90, '91, '92, '93, '97, '99, '01, '03, '06, '08, '11, '18Her poetry collection, In the Next Life, was published this year by Poetic Matrix Press. She has poems in recent issues of Blackbird and The Gettysburg Review. Her documentary, The Time We Have, won a nomination for Best Biographical Film at the 2019 New Hope Film Festival. Her film presents an intimate portrait of a teenager facing terminal illness.
James Cagney
Poetry Workshop participant '17He was recently awarded one of the 30th Annual PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Awards for his book Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory, published by Nomadic Press in 2018.
Patrick Smith and Jane Smith
Poetry Workshop participantJane Smith is relaunching Pancake Press, a website devoted to the works of her late husband painter and poet, Patrick Smith. in order to locate new places to exhibit her Patrick’s work, and to identify an institution that will accept a donation of his hospice portraits.
Katherine Rothschild
Writers Workshop participant '03Her YA novel on sisterhood in an untraditional family, Hope and Other Feathered Things, will be published by Soho Teen in early 2020.
Lisa D Alvarez
Writers Workshop participant, '92, '93; Staff since '96.Her poem “9 Line Cento for Now” was recently published by “What Rough Beast.”
Attended with the help of UCI and the Ancinas scholarship
Rosa De Anda
Poetry Participant '18She is the recipient of the Lawrence Ferlinghetti Fellowship from the University of San Francisco.
Betsy Thorne
Poetry Participant, '10Her poetry collection, Measured Words, was published in December 2019 by Main Street Rag Publishing Company.
Lynne Goldsmith
Poetry Participant '00Her book, Secondary Cicatrices, which won the Halcyon Poetry Prize, just got picked as a “Finalist” for the American Book Fest Awards.
Jane Ciabattari
Writers Workshops teaching staff, '16Her new story collection in progress was a finalist for the 2018 Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize. New stories include “Swarm,” upcoming in The Slag Review print edition (published online in March 2020), and “Acqua Alta,” published online in BigOther in September, 2019.
Lawrence Coates
Writers Workshop Participant '18His book of short fiction, Bank Run, has been published by Ascent Literary Journal. This is part of the same novel-in-progress he workshopped at the Community of Writers in 2018.
Elaine Barnard
Writers Workshop participant '11Her short stories have won the first, third and fourth Strands International short story competitions.
Sally Abbott
Writers Workshop participant '85, '01, '03, '06, '13Her novel Miami in Virgo was published by Woodbine Odyssey in October, 2019.
Yiskah Rosenfeld
Poetry Participant '01, '03, '19She has new poems in the current issues of Glintmoon and 2River View. Two were generated at the Community of Writers Poetry workshop. Her poem “Arterials” appears in the Fall 2019 issue of The Bitter Oleander.
Sharon Olds
Poetry Workshop staffHer newest book, Arias, was recently published by Penguin Random House.
Veronica Golos
Poetry Workshop participant '09Her new book of poetry, Girl, was recently published by 3: A Taos Press.
Mame Ekblom Cudd
Writers Workshop Participant '09, '11Her short story, “Into a Neat Line,” was a finalist in Glimmer Train’s Short Fiction Contest. Her novel, Shooting Rockets at The Moon, was a finalist in the Pirate’s Alley William Faulkner Society’s 2019 Novel-in-Progress category.
Erica Plouffe Lazure
Writers Workshop Participant '18Her short story “The Ghost Rider,” workshopped at Squaw Valley, took the editor’s choice award for Carve Magazine’s Raymond Carver short story contest and appears alongside an interview in the 2019 fall issue of Carve.
Andrew Roe
Writers Workshops Participant, '97, '04His short story “Is Someone Going to Say Something to the Woman Crying on BART?” will appear in the Winter 2019 issue of ZYZZYVA.
Joy J Ma
Writers Workshop Participant '04Her new book, The Deoliwallahs, will be published by Pan Macmillan India in December. It is a non-fiction account of her family and the stories of several Chinese Indians who were interned after the war between India and China in 1962.
Diane Schenker
Poetry Participant, '14, '19She has two poems coming out in Pen + Brush In Print No. 4. She will be participating in the launch party and reading on November 6, 2019 at Pen + Brush in New York City.
Merridawn Duckler
Writers Workshop participant '07Her chapbook of poems, Interstate, was recently published by from Dancing Girl Press.
Jeffrey Kingman
Poetry Participant '12His chapbook, On A Road, wherein he borrows words and phrases from Kerouac’s On the Road and adapts them for his own purposes, will be published November 22, 2019, by Finishing Line Press. This is Jeff’s first book publication.
Pallavi Dhawan, Tamika Thompson, Devi Laskar
Tamika Thompson Writers Workshop participant '15; Pallavi Dhawan Writers Workshop participant '15, Devi Laskar Writers Workshop participant '04, '15, Poetry Workshop participant '04, '08, '14Community of Writers alums Pallavi Dhawan, Tamika Thompson, and Devi Laskar have co-edited a new anthology called POC United: Graffiti, released on October 15 and available now through Aunt Lute Books.
Charles H Halsted
Poetry Participant, '18His first full book of poetry Extenuating Circumstances has been published by Finishing Line Press and is available through FLP and Amazon Books. Many of its poems were first conceived and written at the 2018 Poetry workshop. This publication follows his published chapbook Breaking Eighty.
Sharon McElhone
Writers Workshops Participant '06An excerpt from her memoir entitled “He Imitated a Stiff-Legged Frankenstein” appears in the Fall 2019 Volume IX issue of Label Me Latina/o.
Marianne Villanueva
Writers Workshop Participant, July 2014Her memoir-in-flash, A Prayer Answered, was in Signs, a special themed issue of Jellyfish Review: September 2019. Her story “Tu-an Ju” was in the Otherworld/Underworld of University of Hawai’i – Manoa’s e-zine vice-versa. Her story “Things She Can Take” was in the Prairie Schooner Winter 2018 special issue on Opioids.
Kathleen O’Toole
Poetry '01,' 03, '05, '09, '11Her latest poetry collection This Far was released in October, 2019. Her poems have recently been featured in Antiphon, Smartish Pace and are forthcoming in The MacGuffin and Public Poetry.
David Corbett
Writers Workshop participant '88, '89, 91, '99; Screenwriting Workshop participant '01His new book, The Compass of Character: Creating Complex Motivation for Compelling Characters in Fiction, Film, and TV, was published in November, 2019, by Writer’s Digest Books.
Eddy Ancinas
Writers Workshop participant '72The 70th Anniversary Edition of her SKADE Award-Winning book, Squaw Valley & Alpine Meadows: Tales from Two Valleys, was published in October, 2019.
Scott Edward Anderson
Art of the Wild participant, ‘92His newest book, Falling Up: A Memoir of Second Chances, was published by Homebound Publications as part of its Little Bound Books Essay Series in September 2019.
Vishwas R Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant, '14His essay, “Gandhi and the Mantle of the Mahatma” written to mark Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary (October 2nd) was published on Sept 6, 2019, in The Mantle, New York.
Joe Bardin
Writers Workshop Participant '01His essay collection, Outlier Heart: Essays From My Life As An Immortalist, was published by IFERS Press.
Anara Guard
Writers Workshops Participant '16Her new book of poetry, Hand on My Heart, will be published by New Wind Publishing on November 1, 2019.
Evan Brooke
Writers Workshop Participant '16His essay, “The Incredible Shrinking Sentence,” was recently published in the Fall 2019 issue of The Threepenny Review.
Lynne Goldsmith
Poetry Workshop participant '00Her new book, Secondary Cicatrices, was recently named winner of 2018 Halcyon Poetry Prize.
Deborah Casillas
Poetry Participant, '09, '12Her new book of poetry, Quiet at the Edge, has just been published by Finishing Line Press.
Ashley Wurzbacher
Writers Workshop participant '19Her debut novel, Happy Like This, will be published by University of Iowa Press in October, 2019.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Ashley Wurzbacher
Writers Workshop participant '19She was recently named one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honorees, a prize that aims to “recognize young, debut fiction writers whose work promised to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape.” Her debut novel, Happy Like This, will be published on October 15, 2019 from University of Iowa Press.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Jessica Lee
Poetry Workshop participant '18Her poem “Lust Must Have Struck for the First Time” that was written for Sharon’s workshop during the 2018 Poetry program was recently published in the September 2019 issue of The New Yorker.
Jung Hae Chae
Writers Workshop participant '19Her essay “Pojangmacha People” recently won an emerging writers contest at Ploughshares. She brought a version of this essay to the Writers Workshop this past summer.
Kyce Bello
Poetry Participant '19Her debut collection, Refugia, winner of the inaugural Test Site Poetry Series Prize, was published in September, 2019, by University of Nevada Press.
Fellow Community of Writers Poetry alum Danny Kraft reviewed Refugia over at Ecotheo Review. Check it out here: http://www.ecotheo.org/2019/08/god-is-the-apple/
Monica Sok
Poetry Participant, '15Her debut poetry collection A Nail the Evening Hangs On forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in February 2020 is now available for pre-order.
June Sylvester Saraceno
Poetry Participant '05Her novel, Feral, North Carolina, 1965, from Southern Fried Karma Press, hits bookstores on September 17, 2019.
Laurie Ann Ann Doyle
Writers Workshop Participant, '09, '14. Published Alumni Reading Series '17Her book World Gone Missing: Stories is the winner of 2018 Nautilus Book Prize silver medal in fiction.
Olga Zilberbourg
Writers Workshops Participant, '10Her English-language debut Like Water and Other Stories was published by WTAW Press in September, 2019, and received a glowing review from The Moscow Times.
Attended with the help of The Carlisle Family Scholarship
Marjorie Saiser
Poetry Participant, '00Her newest full-length collection, Learning to Swim, forthcoming from Stephen F. Austin State University Press, is a hybrid of memoir and poems.
Michele Karas
Poetry Participant, '17Her poem, “Rose Marie Bentley’s Aberrant Vena Cava,” is published in the Autumn 2019 issue of Rust+Moth. The poem was inspired by the real-life Rose Marie Bentley, who lived to be 99 with organs in all the wrong places.
Vishwas R Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant '14His essay, “Has India Had Its Stonewall Moment?” has been published on Sept 6, 2019, in The Mantle, to mark the first anniversary of the decriminalization of the LGBT community in India. June 2019 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York. Gaitonde looks at both.
Patricia Spears Jones
Poetry Teaching StaffA selection of her poems will be featured in Persimmon Tree. Poems are forthcoming in Plume and The New Yorker.
Elaine Barnard
Writers Workshop Partcipant '11She won the 2019 Strands International Flash Fiction first and third competitions with her stories “Howie” and “The Library.”
Arthur Solway
Poetry Participant '19He wont the 2019 Tupelo Press Broadside Competition for his poem “Night School.”
Gail Reitano
Writers Workshop Participant '97, '98, '99, '02, '03, '19Her novel Italian Love Cake will be published by Bordighera Press in Fall 2020; a personal essay, “Beneath Snowy Foothills,” appears online in the July 2019 issue of Ovunque Siamo.
Ashley Wurzbacher
Writers Workshops Participant, '19Her short story collection, Happy Like This, won Iowa’s 2019 John Simmons Short Fiction Award and will be released on October 15, 2019.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Melissa Fondakowski
Poetry Workshop Participant, '02Her second book-length work, The Sci-Fi Story With the Cat in It – Short Stories, will be published by Balut Press in September 2019.
Aaron D. Graham
Poetry Workshop Participant '14, '17His newest book of poetry, Blood Stripes, was published by Sundress Publications, which won the publisher’s Fall 2018 first place poetry prize.
C Pirloul
Poetry Workshop participant '01, '05, '17Riga Pine, a poem with audio, appears in Interim’s current issue, Carrying Across: Crossing Disciplines as a Form of Translation.
Victoria Dalkey
Poetry Participant '92Her poem “Watching the Olympics on Morphine” was a finalist for the Bellevue Literary Review’s Marica and Jan Vilcek Prize and appeared in BLR‘s Issue 36, Spring/Summer 2019.
Victoria Dalkey
Poetry Participant '92A selection of her poems are included in Tough Enough: Poems from the Tough Old Broads Ann Menebroker, Victoria Dalkey, Viola Weinberg, Kathryn Hohlwein, A Lake House Publication, released by Cold River in March 2019.
Robin Page
Writers Workshop participant '02Her new book, Small Silent Things, was recently published by HarperCollins.
Jeffrey Kingman
Poetry Participant '12His poem, “A Posterity Conceived and Born of Conscious Love,” is published on the Poydras Review blog. The title is a quote from early 20th century birth control activist Margaret Sanger, who went on to be a founder of Planned Parenthood.
Jenn Alandy Trahan
Writers Workshop Participant, '08, '17Her short story, “They Told Us Not to Say This,” published in Harper’s Magazine in September 2018, was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2019.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Colette Sartor
Writers Workshop participant '00Her collection of short stories, Once Removed, will be published in September, 2019, by University of Georgia Press. It recently received the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction.
Mark Coggins
Writers Workshops Participant, '96; Screenwriting Program Participant, '01His newest, The Dead Beat Scroll, the seventh novel in the August Riordan crime fiction series, was recently released from Down & Out Books.
Caitlin McCarthy
Screenwriting Workshop '13Her screenplay Wonder Drug has advanced into the Semifinal Round of the 2019 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, one of only 149 entries to advance from the Quarterfinal Round. During the Semifinals, four Academy members, drawn from a variety of branches, will read Wonder Drug. From 10 to 15 Semifinalists will be selected as Finalists. All Semifinalists will be included in the Nicholl contact list that is forwarded in the fall to agents, development executives, managers, and producers who request it.
Charles Halsted
Poetry Participant, '18His first full length book, Extenuating Circumstances, which contains three of the six poems written at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, is due for publication on October 4, 2019. A second full length book is in preparation.
Scott Edward Anderson
Art of the Wild Participant, '92His new book, Falling Up: A Memoir of Second Chances, is being published by Homebound Publications as part of their Little Bound Books Essay Series in September 2019.
Meg Waite Clayton
Writers Workshop Participant, ‘00Her newest book, The Last Train to London, a novel based on the true story of the Vienna Kindertransports and the extraordinary woman who led the rescues, will be published by HarperCollins and HarperCollins-Canada September 10, and in translation in fifteen languages.
Jeffrey Thomas Leong
Poetry Participant, '97, '00, '02His recent book, Wild Geese Sorrow: The Chinese Wall Inscriptions at Angel Island, was awarded the 2019 Northern California Book Award for translation in poetry.
Maurya Simon
Writers Workshop Participant '84Her 10th volume of poetry, The Wilderness: New and Selected Poems, was published in 2018, and was recently awarded a gold medal from the Benjamin Franklin Independent Book Awards. Her recent work has appeared in the The Georgia Review and The Gettysburg Review.
Caitlin McCarthy
Screenwriting Workshop participant '13Her scientific drama Wonder Drug advanced to the quarterfinals in the prestigious 2019 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition, one of only 365 entries to emerge from the First Round (out of 7,302 scripts entered). Wonder Drug, a Sloan script at the Hamptons Screenwriters Lab, was also a Bitch List honoree and “Featured Script” on the Black List website. In more Nicholl news, Caitlin’s thriller A Native Land placed among the Top 10% of all entries in this year’s competition. Semifinalists will be announced in August.
Claire Boyles
Writers Workshop Participant, '18Her essay, “Riding Ditch”, was recently published in the Summer 2019 issue of Virginia Quarterly Review. Her short story, “Lost Gun, $1000 Reward, No Questions”, won Boulevard’s Short Fiction Contest for Emerging Writers and will appear in the Fall 2019 issue.
Lisa Rappoport
Writers Workshop participant '94, Poetry Workshop participant '00Her new book of poetry, Penumbra, was recently published by Longship Press.
Dedria Humphries Barker
Writers Workshop participant ‘08, 15She featured in a July 2019 Facebook Live event “Poets in Pajamas,” sponsored by Sundress Publications.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Poetry Workshop participant '11His memoir, Children of the Land, will be released in January, 2020 from HarperCollins.
Lester Graves Lennon
Poetry Workshop participant '99, '01, '03, '05, '07, '09, '11, '13, '15, '17, '19He recently became the poetry editor for Rosebud Magazine.
Harryette Mullen
Poetry Workshop teaching staff '06, '14A poem of hers was chosen for poets.org’s Poem-a-Day by Ruth Ellen Kocher and Francisco Marquez. It will be featured on August 2, 2019.
Holly Payne
Screenwriting Workshop participant '08She was recently featured in Forbes, discussing her company Booxby and what led her to founding the Saas cloud platform that uses artificial intelligence to help publishers optimize the acquisition and marketing of their books.
Lorraine Comanor
Writers Workshop participant '09Her essays have recently appeared in The Gold Man Review and Ruminate ( shorts). Two are in press for the Euonia Review and Boulevard.
Danusha Laméris
Poetry Participant, '00Her second book, Bonfire Opera, will be released by the University of Pittsburgh Press in spring 2020. She has also recently been named the 2020 recipient of the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award.
Yoav Potash
Writers Workshops Participant, '05, '08The American Jewish Press Association is honoring Yoav Potash with a Simon Rockower Award for Best Personal Essay, for his piece titled “How I learned all Israelis are not my father,” published by J. The Jewish News of Northern California. The American Jewish Press Association bills the Rockower Awards as “the Jewish Pulitzers.”
Attended with the help of Entrenkin Foundation Scholarship
Max Byrd
Writers Workshop participant '83, Writers Workshops teaching staff '18, '15, '13, '12, '11, '10, '09, '08, '06, '05, '04, '03, '02, '01, '00, '99, '98, '97, '96His newest novel, The Sixth Conspirator, will be released in August 2019 by Post Hill Press.
Andrew Tonkovich
Fiction participant '94; Writers Workshop teaching staffHis new book, The Dairy of Anne Frank (and More Wish Fullfilment in the Noughties) is out now. Tonkovich is the longtime editor of the Santa Monica Review and host of Bibiocracy Radio, a weekly books show on Pacifica’s KPFK in Southern California.
Janet Fitch
Writers Workshop participant '93, Poetry Workshop participant '17, Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '01, '02, '04, '06, '08, '09, '13, '15, '17Her newest novel, Chimes of a Lost Cathedral, the sequel to her best-selling novel The Revolution of Marina M., was published by Little, Brown & Co. in July, 2019.
Heather Altfeld
Poetry Workshop participant '08, '10, '12, '15She has recently been awarded the 2019 Orison Poetry Prize for her manuscript Post-Mortem. She will receive a cash prize and publication of her manuscript by Orison Books.
Mary Freericks
Poetry Workshop participant '89, '91, '00Her second poetry book, Cheer for Freedom, with illustrations of her paintings of her Armenian and Russian family in Iran has been published this year.
Alia Yunis
Writers Workshops Participant '04Her documentary feature, The Golden Harvest, which she wrote and directed, debuted at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in March, 2019, a top 10 international film festival, and was selected as “Best of the Fest” at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival in April, 2019.
Gwen Goodkin
Writers Workshop Participant, '07, '11Her short story collection, A Place Remote, will be published by West Virginia University Press in 2020.
Adair McPherson
Writers Workshops Participant, '04Her debut picture book, Roadkill abc, was published by Xlibris Press in September, 2018.
Frances Badgett
Fiction Participant '99, '00, '02Her story “Half Hitch” that was published in Salamander in the Summer ’18 edition has been selected for Best of Small Fictions.
Jane Ciabattari
Writers Workshops teaching staff, '16Her new short story collection-in-progress, Arabella Leaves & Other Stories, was a finalist for the Dzanc Short Fiction Award. Her short story “Swarm” was published in The Slag Review on March 1, 2019. Her short story “Brooklyn After the Fall” was included in a flash anthology commissioned for Independent Bookstore Day in 2018, and also published in The Literary Hub.
Peter Marcus
Poetry Workshop participant '89, '90, '91, '92, '95, '11His new book of poetry, Dark Square, was recently published by Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press.
Susan Henderson
Writers Workshop Participant, '09Her novel, The Flicker of Old Dreams, (HarperCollins, 2018) won the Western Writers of America Spur Award, in the category of Best Western Contemporary Novel, and was chosen as an Honor Book for the Montana Book Award.
Attended with the help of Lojo Foundation Scholarship
Jeanine Stevens
Poetry Participant '07, '10, '14, '17Her newest book of poems, Limberlost, was released by Future Cycle Press, 2019. Her chapbook of poems, Citadels, is soon to be released by Folded Word Press.
Sharon McElhone
Writers Workshop Participant '06Her first chapter from her collection of personal essays on childcare and immigrant issues is forthcoming in the Label Me Latina/o Fall 2019 issue. The first chapter is entitled “He Imitated a Stiff-Legged Frankenstein.
Lauren K. Alleyne
Poetry Workshop Participant '08She published her second collection of poems, Honeyfish, in April with New Issues Press (US), and in July, with Peepal Tree Press (UK).
Anthony J. Mohr
Writers Workshop participant '08His essay “Super Summer Spectacular” was reprinted in Air (A Hippocampus anthology).
Forrest Gander
His newest book, Be With, was recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry.
Shira Dentz
Her new book of poetry, the sun a blazing zero, is one of SPD’s May Handpicks.
Julia Flynn Siler
Writers Workshops Participant, '03, '04, Writers Workshops Teaching StaffShe was interviewed by KQED Forum host Michael Krasny about her new book, The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown (Knopf, May 2019). The book was also reviewed in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle’s Datebook section, which called it “meticulously researched and inspiring.”
Janet Fitch
Poetry Workshop participant '17; Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '01, '02, '04, '06, '08, '09, '13, '15, '17She recently celebrated the 2oth anniversary of the publication of White Oleander. It was released in May, 1999 from Back Bay Books.
Alex Espinoza
Writers Workshop Participant '04, '05, Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '13, '15, '17His newest book, Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime, will be published in June, 2019, by Unnamed Press.
Natalie Serber
Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '16Children Are Magic, a story from her novel-in-progress, was just published by One Story.
Varley O’Connor
Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '04, '12; Participant '88, '89Her fifth novel, The Welsh Fasting Girl, will be published by Bellevue Literary Press in May 2019.
Karen Stefano
Writers Workshop Participant '08Her debut memoir, What A Body Remembers: A Memoir of Sexual Assault and Its Aftermath, will be published by Rare Bird Books in June 2019.
C. Pirloul
Poetry Workshop participant '17Two poems first drafted at the Poetry Workshop are included in a group of poems in the 2019 issue of Volt (#25).
Allison DeLauer
Poetry Participant, '10, '16Her essay “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” appeared in the collection, Playing Shakespeare’s Characters, Book 1. Playing Shakespeare’s Lovers examines Shakespeare’s romantic characters from multiple perspectives. Contributing actors, directors, educators and scholars bring diverse and wide-ranging insights into the motives, context, history and challenges of performing Shakespeare’s “infinite variety” of lovers. The volume begins with an introductory essay, followed by brief essays and interviews, on various characters within the world of Shakespeare’s lovers.
Karen Laws
Writers Workshop Participant, '06, '16Her story “Shadows Under Trees” is in the current issue of The Antioch Review (Volume 76, No. 4).
Karen’s essay on working with asylum seekers at the border is in the online journal Cagibi, Issue 6.
Amy Tan
Writers Workshop participant '87, Screenwriting Workshop participant '90, Writers Workshop teaching staff '99-'18The Joy Luck Club is celebrating its 30th birthday! A part of the manuscript was workshopped at the Community of Writers when Amy was first a participant.
Molly Fisk
Poetry Workshop participant '92, '95, '98, '04She is the recipient of one of 13 Inaugural American Poet Laureate Fellowships. With the $75,000 she receives, she plans to launch “California Fire & Water,” a statewide teaching, anthology, and public reading project addressing the state’s recent devastating fires.
Rachel Howard
Writers Workshop participant '13, Writers Workshop teaching staff '17, '19Her new novel, The Risk of Us, was released from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in April, 2019.
Kris Newby
Writers Workshop participant '17Her new book, Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons, will be released in May, 2019, from HarperCollins.
Varley O’Connor
Writers Workshop Teaching StaffHer fifth novel, The Welsh Fasting Girl, will be published by Bellevue Literary Press on May 7, 2019.
Clancy McGilligan
Writers Workshop Participant '17His novella History of an Executioner won the 2019 Novella Prize from Miami University Press, and will be published in 2020.
Attended with the help of SpringCreek Foundation Scholarship
Nathania Seales Oh
Writers Workshops Participant '18Her essay, “Orange is the No Black” was published in the September 2018 issue of Coast Magazine and online at the Orange County Register.
Ramona Reeves
Writers Workshop Participant '18Her short story won the Nancy D. Hargrove Editors Prize and appears in the Summer 2018 (Sept.) issue of Jabberwock Review. Another short story was runner-up in the Barry Hannah Prize for Fiction and appears in the Winter 2019 issue of Yalobusha Review.
Katherine Factor
Poetry Participant '10Her first children’s book, Choose Your Own Adventure SPIES: Mata Hari, is forthcoming from Choose CO on May 1, 2019. An interactive game novel, this title stars YOU as a real-life historical spy in an interactive, multiple-ending book with historically accurate events and characters.
Cai Emmons
Writers Workshop '93, '94, '98, Teaching Staff 2010Her novel Weather Woman has won a Nautilus Book Award. The sequel to Weather Woman, called Sinking Islands, has just been sold and will be published in the spring of 2021. Her short story collection, Vanishing, won the 2018 Leapfrog Fiction Contest and will come out in 2020.
Sheldon Gleisser
Screenwriting Participant '14His short story “The Money Shot” was published in the latest issue of the literary magazine Rosebud, issue #65.
Lorraine Comanor
Writers Workshop Participant '09Her essay “The Year There Were No Mushrooms” appeared in November 2018 issue of The Goldman Review. Two pieces of flash non-fiction “The Lost Patient” and “That Which Saves Us” appeared in spring 2018 and recent 2019 issues of Ruminate.
Joe Bardin
Writers Workshop Participant '01His essay, “The Inclusion Orthodoxy,” was published in Literary Yard, his essay, “Big Art,” was published in Image Journal: Good Letters, his short play, Intermission, is being performed at Winding Road Theatre in Tucson, Arizona, and his essay “Drinking from the Air” was selected for inclusion in the Transhumanism Handbook (Springer).
Vishwas Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant '14His trilogy of multimedia essays on India’s 13-year-old music prodigy Lydian Nadhaswaram was published in Serenade magazine in March 2019. Lydian Nadhaswaram won the CBS international talent show The World’s Best, which had competitors from all fields of arts & entertainment from 36 countries.
Amanda Fields
Writers Workshops Participant, '09She co-edited the essay collection, My Caesarean: Twenty-One Mothers on the C-Section Experience and After, which will be published by The Experiment Press on May 1, 2019.
Julia Flynn Siler
Writers Workshop participant '03, '04, Writers Workshop teaching staff '14, '15, '16, '18Her newest book, The White Devil’s Daughters: The Fight Against Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown, will be published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing in May, 2019.
Renato Rosaldo
Poetry Workshop participant '00, '02, '07His newest book of poetry, The Chasers, will be published by Duke University Press.
Nettie Reynolds
Writers Workshop Participant '99Her new ten minute play, “Detecting Obstacles” will be produced as part of the annual “Out of Ink” Scriptworks festival in May. Nettie is currently working on her memoir as well, entitled, This is How You Start Over which details her leaving her PR career to become a spiritual death and dying chaplain.
Keetje Kuipers
Poetry Participant, '05Her third collection of poems, All Its Charms, was published this spring by BOA Editions. It contains poems that appeared in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry Anthologies, as well as Narrative, Tin House, The Believer, New England Review, and Orion.
Jeffrey Thomas Leong
Poetry Participant, '97, '00, '02His book, Wild Geese Sorrow: The Chinese Wall Inscriptions at Angel Island, was published by Calypso Editions in 2018, and is the first new translation in almost 40 years of the iconic immigrant wall poems found carved on the walls of this detention center. His new poetry chapbook, Writ, published by Eastwind Books in March 2019, converses with the translations in WGS, interrogating the interrogators and seeking redemption in his father’s story.
Stephen Long
Writers Workshop participant '95, '06His newest book, All Hat, was recently released from Handin Hand Publishing.
Holaday Mason
Poetry Workshop participant '00, '06Her newest book of poetry, The Weaver’s Body, is forthcoming from Tebat Bach Books.
Stephen Massimilla
Poetry Workshop participant '04, '06His adaptation of a Montale poem recently received a Der-Hovanessian prize citation from The New England Poetry Club.
Stephen Massimilla
Poetry Participant '04, '06His multi-genre Cooking with the Muse (Tupelo), recently won new awards, including the Living Now Award, the IAN Book of the Year Award in Nonfiction, the Apple Award in Cross-Genre, and others. The latest reviews of the book have appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Poetry International, Colorado Review, Five Points, The US Review of Books, USA Today, The Northwest Indiana Times, The Food Poet, Gluten-Free Magazine, Catering Magazine, Green Living, Vital Nutrition, and elsewhere.
Grace Shuyi Liew
Poetry participant '16Her debut collection of poetry, Careen, was published by Noemi Press in April 2019.
Attended with the help of Lucille Clifton Memorial scholarship
Renee Thompson
Writers Workshops Participant, '03, '07, '09Her short story “The Winterist” won second prize in Narrative’s Fall 2018 Story Contest. This is Renee’s third appearance in the magazine; two previous stories appeared as “Stories of the Week.”
Devi S. Laskar
Poetry participant 2004, 2008, 2014 fiction participant 2004, 2015Her debut novel, The Atlas Of Reds And Blues, has been picked up abroad, and is being published by Fleet (an imprint of Little, Brown) in the UK and commonwealth countries and by Hachette India in the subcontinent.
Mark Fitzgerald
Poetry Participant, '06His second book of poems, Downburst, was published by Cinnamon Press in March. The second edition of his first collection, By Way of Dust and Rain, was also recently published by Cinnamon Press.
Shira Dentz
Poetry ParticipantHer fourth book, the sun a blazing zero, is now out from Lavender Ink/Diálogos.
Attended with the help of Scholarship
Justin McFarr
Writers Workshops Participant, '13His short story collection, Controlled Chaos, was published by Wheeler Street Press in April, 2019.
Donna DiGiuseppe (Matcovich)
Writers Workshops Participant, '13Her biographical novel, Lady in Ermine: The Story of a Woman Who Painted the Renaissance, was published in January 2019 by ACMRS/Univ of Arizona. This historical fiction dramatizes the life of Renaissance artist Sofonisba Anguissola, whose work will be a major exhibit at the Prado, Madrid in October 2019.
Martina Newhook
Writers Workshop '15Her essay, “The Lonely Hours Before Supper,” was published in Meat For Tea (March 2019; V.13 (1)).
C Pirloul
Poetry Participant, '01, '04, '17Excerpts of her map-poem appear in Lana Turner 11. Poems and recordings are forthcoming in The Santa Fe Telepoem Project.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Poetry Workshop participant '11His book of poetry, Cenzontle, was awarded the Northern California Book Award and the NCIBA Golden Poppy Book Award, and was recently named a finalist for the Thom Gunn award for poetry and the Lambda Literary Award.
Kenji Liu
Poetry Workshop participant '14His newest book of poetry, Monsters I Have Been, will be released from Alice James Books in April, 2019.
Colleen Morton Busch
Writers Workshop ‘04, ‘15She narrated the audiobook version of her nonfiction book, Fire Monks, the story of how five Zen monks saved a California monastery from a wildfire with a combination of hard work, aplomb, and wisdom. Blackstone released the audiobook in March 2019.
Vishwas R. Gaitonde
Writers Workshop '14His essay “Jaya He! The Story of India’s National Anthem” was published by The Mantle in January 2019. It delves into the history and controversies swirling around the anthem composed by Nobel laureate & polymath Rabindranath Tagore – and also highlights the largely hidden role of an Irish woman’s contribution to the music. You can read it here: http://www.mantlethought.org/arts-and-culture/jaya-h%C3%A9-story-india%E2%80%99s-national-anthem
Anthony J. Mohr
Writers Workshops Participant '08His essay “Nixon for President” appeared in North Dakota Quarterly (Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter 2018). His essay “Love North of Sunset” appeared in Saint Ann’s Review (Winter 2019). His essay “The Last Honors Class” appeared in Glint Literary Journal (Winter 2018).
Kelly Cass Falzone
Poetry Participant, '03She was awarded the 2018 Bea Gonzalez Prize for Poetry for a group of three poems published in Stone Canoe: A Journal of Art, Literature and Social Commentary, published by the Downtown Writers Center, a program of the YMCA of Greater Syracuse, NY.
Susan Henderson
Writers Workshops Participant, '09Her novel, The Flicker of Old Dreams, won the Western Writers of America Spur Award in the category of Best Western Contemporary Novel, and was chosen as an Honor Book for the Montana Book Award. She was additionally awarded a Hawthornden International Fellowship and will spend a month writing at the Hawthornden Castle in Midlothian, Scotland.
Attended with the help of Lojo Scholarship
Max Byrd
Writers Workshop participant '83, Writers Workshops Teaching StaffHis newest novel, The Sixth Conspirator, will be published in August 2019 by Post Hill Press.
Marcia Butler
Writers Workshop Participant '15Her debut novel, Pickle’s Progress, will be published on April 9, 2019. Recent praise from Richard Russo: “The four main characters in Pickle’s Progress seem more alive than most of the people we know in real life because their fears and desires are so nakedly exposed. That’s because their creator, Marcia Butler, possesses truly scary X-ray vision and intelligence to match.”
Grant Hier
Writers Workshops Participant, ’93; AOW ’95; Poetry Participant '98His book of historical flash fiction, California Continuum, co-written with John Brantingham, Poet Laureate of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, is forthcoming in March, 2019.
Juan Alvarado Valdivia
Writers Workshops Participant '13His short story collection, Ballad of a Slopsucker, was published by the University of New Mexico Press in February 2019.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Kate Hope Day
Writers Workshop Participant '15Her debut novel If, Then is forthcoming from Random House March 12, 2019. It has been optioned by Heyday Television. She will be joining us this summer as part of our Published Alumni Reading Series.
Renee Moffett Thompson
Her story, “The Winterist” took second place in Narrative’s Fall 2018 Story Contest.
Juliana Roth
Writers Workshops Participant, '17Her screenplay for her film in independent development, What We Know, which follows a sexual assault survivor as she navigates the Title IX process, is a semifinalist in the 2019 Atlanta Film Festival’s Screenplay Competition and a finalist in the 2019 Socially Relevant Film Festival in New York. The crowdfunding campaign for the film is accepting donations until mid-March on Seed & Spark.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Bethanie Humphreys
Poetry Participant, '15Her debut poetry collection, Dendrochronology, is available for preorder through Finishing Line Press February 11 – April 12, 2019.
Aida Salazar
Non-Fiction Workshop 2007Her debut book, The Moon Within, a middle grade novel in verse, will be released on February, 2019, by Arthur A. Levine Books / Scholastic. The book was called “A worthy successor to Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret” in a Kirkus starred review.
Emily Pérez
Poetry Participant '10, '18Her new chapbook Made and Unmade, a limited edition, hand bound, letterpress, tragi-comic exploration of growing up female in a patriarchy, is now available from Madhouse Press.
Rowan Sharp
Poetry participant, ‘12She has new work in the Beloit Poetry Journal 69.1 (Spring 2019).
Judy Crowe
Poetry Workshop participant '08, '12, '15, '18, Writers Workshop participant '87, '88, '90Her new book of poetry, Flat Water: Nebraska Poems, was recently released from Finishing Line Press.
Ramtin Arablouei
Writer's Workshop participant '05He is the co-host, along with Rund Abdelfatah, of NPR’s first history podcast, Throughline.
Samiya Bashir
Poetry Workshop participant '09She was recently featured on Blue Flower Arts, A Literary Speakers Agency. To check out the profile, click here.
Claudia March Reder
Poetry Participant '08Her book of poems, How to Disappear, was recently published by Blue Light Press.
Sharon Olson
Poetry Participant, '97Her second poetry collection Will There Be Music? was published by Cherry Grove Collections in February 2019.
David Corbett
Writers Workshop participant '88, '89, '91, '99, Screenwriting Workshop participant '01His latest novel, The Long-Lost Love Letters Of Doc Holliday, has been nominated for the Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery. The winner will be announced on March 30th at Left Coast Crime in Vancouver, BC.
Jeffrey Kingman
Poetry Participant, '12His poetry manuscript, Beyond that Hill I Gather, won the Eyelands Book Award (Greece) for best unpublished poetry book. The poems in the collection are mostly portraits of notable women.
Chelsea Rathburn
Poetry Participant, '09Her third poetry collection, Still Life with Mother and Knife, was published by LSU Press in February.
Michelle Bracken
Writers Workshop Participant '17Her essay “When Your Writing Comes Through The Ether” was published in The Superstition Review.
Kate Wisel
Writers Workshop Participant '16Her first book of short stories, Driving in Cars With Homeless Men, has won the prestigious Drue Heinz Literature Prize, which includes a substantial cash prize and publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press. She was selected by judge Min Jin Lee.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Caitlin McCarthy
Screenwriting Workshop '13Her crime thriller screenplay A Native Land has been named an Official Selection at the 2019 Beverly Hills Film Festival. It has also advanced to the quarterfinals in the 2019 Atlanta Film Festival Screenplay Competition. Caitlin is represented by Barry Krost of Barry Krost Management (BKM).
Jeanne Foster
Poetry Workshop participant '88, Writers Workshop participant '89, '92Her poem “Letters to Peter” appears in the Winter 2019 issue of The Southern Review. You can also hear her read the poem in TSR Audio Gallery.
Stephanie Austin
Writer's Workshop Participant, '12Her short story “Carrion” will be in the spring 2019 issue of Pembroke Magazine. Her flash fiction piece “Stray” will appear in the June issue of the Jellyfish Review.
Attended with the help of Joe Heinrich Scholarship
Noah Blaustein
Poetry Workshop participant '07, '11His book of poetry, After Party, will be published on February 15th by the University of New Mexico Press.
His poems have appeared in the last year in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Harvard Review, The Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, Greensboro Review, and The Southampton Review. His review of Christopher Merrill’s Self Portrait in Dogwood was featured in the Los Angeles Review of Books. He was one of one hundred poets selected by the Harvard Review to contribute lines to Renga for Obama, a book length Renga for and presented to President Barack Obama. Most recently he was an AIR fellow with the National Park Service, teaching poetry to homeless youth in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Matthew Murrey
Poetry Participant, '95His debut poetry collection, Bulletproof, was published by Jacar Press in February 2019. It was selected in 2018 by Marilyn Nelson who described it as “A generous range of thought-worthy subjects, approached with simplicity, wisdom, and a deft use of language.”
Karen Moulding
Writers Workshops Participant, '07, '08, '10Her novel, The Naked Shopper, has been selected First Runner Up by Red Hen Press in the Quill Prose Award contest. An excerpt from The Naked Shopper was published in January 2019 in the Capra Review.
Alex Luke
Writers Workshops Participant, '18Her short story “Sweet Blood” was published in Issue 18 of SAND Journal, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Attended with the help of Maat Scholarship
Denise Nicholas
Writers Workshop Participant '01The 10th Anniversary edition of her novel, Freshwater Road, was recently named in Pacific Standard’s “A Martin Luther King Jr. Day Civil Rights Reading List.”
Kathryn Machi
Screenwriting Participant '04 and '10, Fiction Workshop Participant '18.Her “Me, Too” dance thriller Buzz was recently sold as a TV movie to MarVista Entertainment in Los Angeles.
Cynthia Arrieu-King
Poetry Participant, '13Cynthia Arrieu-King’s project, Futureless Languages, is available now from Radiator Press. In it she wrestles with what is happening to the planet and to its nations. It is elegy on language as a home, whiteness, and what matters most to us in life.
Ann Tweedy
'97, '00, '04, '07, '12, '15A poem first written at the Community of Writers Poetry session entitled “The Aspen” was awarded second place in San Antonio Writers’ Guild’s annual contest in 2018. The poems “Anatomy of a Name” and “An Instant” and the creative non-fiction pieces “Rental Property” and “Storm” are forthcoming in the anthology Queer Voices: Poetry, Prose, and Pride, to be published by Minnesota Historical Society Press in May 2019.
Dedria A. Humphries Barker
Writers Workshop Participant, '08, '15Dedria Humphries Barker’s creative nonfiction book, Mother of Orphans: The True and Curious Story of Irish Alice, a Colored Man’s Widow, will be published in April 2019 by 2Leaf Press (distributed by The University of Chicago Press). In which four generations of black women recall their daring 19th century white matriarch, it is the story of Barker’s great-grandmother, Alice Donlan Johnson.
Attended with the help of a community of writers tuition waiver.
Aida Salazar
Writers Workshop Participant '07Her debut novel, The Moon Within, was acquired by Nick Thomas at AALB/Scholastic. This free verse middle grade novel tells the story of 11-year-old Celi, whose life swirls with questions about her changing body, her first attraction to a boy, her best friend’s exploration of what it means to be genderfluid, and her mother’s insistence she have a Chicana moon ceremony for her first menses. Publication is slated for spring 2019; Marietta B. Zacker of the Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency negotiated the deal for North American English and Spanish rights.
Devi S. Laskar
Poetry Workshop participant '04, '08, '14, Writers Workshop participant '04, '15Her new novel, The Atlas of Reds and Blue, was published by Counterpoint Press in February, 2019.
Emmalie Dropkin
Writers Workshop participant '18She is the co-editor, along with Edie Meidav, of the new anthology Strange Attractors: Lives Changed by Chance. It will be released from the University of Massachusetts Press in March, 2019.
Edie Meidav
Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '16, '18She is the co-editor, along with fellow Community of Writers alum Emmalie Dropkin, of the new anthology Strange Attractors: Lives Changed by Chance. It will be released from the University of Massachusetts Press in March, 2019.
Cynthia Arrieu-King
Poetry Workshop participant '13Her book Futureless Languages was recently released by Radiator Press
Ella Martinsen Gorham
Writers Workshop Participant, '18Her short story, Protozoa, appears in the winter 2018 issue of New England Review.
Meg Waite Clayton
Writers Workshop Participant '00Her newest novel, The Last Train to London, will be published later this year as part of a two book deal with HarperCollins.
R.O. Kwon
Her essay “On Being A Woman in America While Trying to Avoid Being Assaulted,” was recently published by The Paris Review.
Danusha Lameris
Poetry Participant, '00Her poems are currently out, or forthcoming in: The New Ohio Review, The Gettysburg Review, TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, and The American Poetry Review. As of September 2018, she has served as the Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California.
Lex Williford
Screenwriting Workshop Participant '97, '04His novella, Balsa and Tissue Paper, is forthcoming as an ebook and in the forthcoming 2019 Solos issue of Ploughshares.
Jami Macarty
Poetry Participant, '10, '14, '17Instinctive Acts, her third chapbook came into the world via Nomados Literary Publishers in October 2018. Her first chapbook, Landscape of the Wait, was reviewed by Michelle Mitchell-Foust in Drizzle Review. And, sixteen additional poems appeared in the Canadian, American, and Australian journals: EVENT, Contemporary Verse 2, The Paddock Review, Light: A Journal of Photography & Poetry, Otoliths, and descant.
Ann Fisher-Wirth
Poetry Participant, '92, '00, '09, '13Her sixth book of poems, The Bones of Winter Birds, was chosen from several hundred submissions and will be published by Terrapin Books in February 2019. Ann’s fifth book, Mississippi, is a poetry/photography collaboration with Maude Schuyler Clay (Wings Press 2018). From May 11-18, 2019, Ann will lead the poetry workshop at Longleaf Writers Conference, in Seaside, Florida.
Berwyn Moore
Poetry Participant '90, '92Her third poetry collection, Sweet Herbaceous Miracle, winner of the 2017 John Ciardi Poetry Prize, has been released by BkMk Press.
Charles Halsted
Poetry Participant, '18.His first chapbook collection of poems, Breaking Eighty, has now been published by Finishing Line Press. A full poetry book Extenuating Circumstances will be published in 2019.
Judy Bebelaar
Poetry Participant, '08, '10She has been named, along with her co-author Ron Cabral, 2019 Library Laureates by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library for their book, And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown, about the students they came to know when Jim Jones sent all the Temple teenagers to the small school where they taught. Bebelaar and Cabral will join other laureates, including Dave Eggers, Samin Nasrat and Wendy McNaughton, Amy Freed, and Tongo Eisen-Martin at the benefit gala on March 8, 2o19.
Marci Vogel
Writers Workshop participant '05, Poetry Workshop participant '17Her new novel, Death and Other Holidays, was recently published by Melville House.
Michael Chabon
Writers Workshop participant '86, '87, Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '00, '02His newest book, Bookends: Collected Intros and Outros, will be published by HarperCollins in January, 2019.
Molly Fisk
Poetry participant, '92, '95, '97, '01Her fourth book of radio commentary, Naming Your Teeth: Even More Observations from a Working Poet, came out in November, 2018, containing 50 three-minute essays that originally aired on KVMR-FM Nevada City, CA.
Terence Clarke
Writers Workshops Participant, '72, '73His 11th book, The Splendid City, was published in February 2019.
Michelle Brittan Rosado
Poetry Participant, '16Her debut poetry collection, Why Can’t It Be Tenderness, won the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. It was published in November 2018 by University of Wisconsin Press.
Paul Watsky
Poetry Participant '07, '09, '11, '13, '17.His poem “What Mattered About The Wind,” begun and set in the Valley, appears in the current issue of The Moth (#35, December 2018).
Terry Shames
Writers Workshop participant '98Her newest Samuel Craddock mystery, A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary, will be published in January, 2019, by Seventh Street Books.
Janet Fitch
Writers Workshop participant '93, Poetry Workshop participant '17, Writers Workshop Teaching StaffHer newest novel, Chimes of a Lost Cathedral, the sequel to her best-selling novel The Revolution of Marina M., will be published by Little, Brown & Co. in July, 2019.
James Jordan
Writers Workshop participant '09His debut novel, The Speed of Life, was published in November, 2018, by Turning Leaf Books.
Charles Harper Webb
Poetry Participant, '91His 12th collection of poetry, Sidebend World, was published in October 2018.
Matthew M. Monte
Writers Workshop Participant '11, '15His debut poetry collection, The Case of the Six-Sided Dream, was recently published by Blue Light Press. It won the 2017 Blue Light Press Poetry Prize.
Owen Prell
Screenwriters Participant '02, '04; Screenwriters Panel (various)His debut novel, Chance to Break, was published in 2018 in both U.S. (North Loop Books) and U.K. (The Book Guild) editions. The next author event will be a reading at Depot Bookstore in Mill Valley on November 30.
Charles Halsted
Poetry Participant, 18His first full length poetry book Extenuating Circumstances has been accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press. It will contain three of the poems written at the Poetry Workshop.
Lynne Thompson
Poetry Participant, `97, `02She won the 2018 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize, selected by Jane Hirshfield, for her manuscript Fretwork, which will be published in 2019. Thompson’s essay “The Family Stories of Jane Cooper” will be published the anthology Jane Cooper: A Radiance of Attention, forthcoming in 2019.
Maxima Kahn
Poetry Participant, '07, Writers Workshops Participant, '06, '10Her poems have appeared this year or are forthcoming in Sweet, The Louisville Review and Orbis Journal, and she was nominated for Best of the Net. Her essays appeared in Just How Cool Is That, The Creative Penn, Tiny Buddha and Positively Positive.
Attended with the help of Mary Turnbull Scholarship 2010
Sally Van Doren
Poetry Workshop participant '01, '03, '06Her poem “Housewife as Poet” from her 2017 book, Promise, was featured on Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry column sponsored by the Poetry Foundation on November 12, 2018.
Liz González
Poetry Participant, '00Her mixed genre book, Dancing in the Santa Ana Winds: Poems y Cuentos New and Selected, was published by Los Nietos Press in July 2018. Her poem “Fall in the Chaparral” appeared in the anthology Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California, 2018 released by Scarlet Tanager Books in October 2018. Her poem “Menudo vs. Hotdogs” appeared in the August 2018 issue of Voices de la Luna: A Quarterly Literature and Arts Magazine.
Leland Cheuk
Writers Workshop participant '01, '02His newest novel, No Good Very Bad Asian, is forthcoming from C&R Press in 2019.
Tom Barbash
Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '14, '16, '18His newest novel, The Dakota Winters, will be published in December, 2018, by HarperCollins.
Joe Bardin
Writers Workshop Participant '01His essay, “In the Name of Not Repeating”, was published in Eclectica.
Katherine Rothschild
Writer’s Workshop participant, ‘03Her YA novel on sisterhood in an untraditional family, Hope and Other Feathered Things, will be published by Soho Teen in early 2020.
Francisco Marquez
Poetry Workshop participant '18As the inaugural recipient of the Letras Latinas Poetry Scholarship to the Community of Writers, Marquez was interviewed by former staff poet Francisco Aragón on the Letras Latinas blog.
D. P. Medina
Writers Workshops Participant, '85, '86His novel, The Madness of the Brave, was published by Moonshine Cove Publishing in Summer 2018. A unique character-driven thriller, the novel is set in the late 70s’ world of political activism, a world of shifting alliances, faceless informants and betrayal and challengeson some of our most fundamental beliefs.
Julia Flynn Siler
Writers Workshop participant '03, '04, Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '14, '15, '16, '18Her newest book, The White Devil’s Daughters: The Fight Against Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown, will be published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing in May, 2019.
Jessica Rae Bergamino
Poetry Workshop participant '11Her new novel, Unmanned, was published in November, 2018, by Noemi Press.
Evie Shockley
Poetry Workshop participant '99, Poetry Workshop teaching staff '9, '10, '13, '15, '18Her book semiautomatic won the Legacy Award for Poetry from the Hurston/ Wright Foundation.
Cerrissa Kim
Writers Workshops Participant, '13She served as editor and contributor to the anthology Mixed Korean: Our Stories. From the struggles of the Korean War, to the modern dilemmas faced by those who are mixed race, comes an assortment of stories that capture the essence of what it is to be a mixed Korean. With common themes of exclusion and recollections of not looking Korean enough, black enough, white enough, or “other” enough, this powerful collection features works by award-winning writers, poets, and scholars, alongside voices of literary newcomers. Mixed Korean: Our Stories is a testament to the courage, strength and resilience of all mixed people. Proceeds will be donated to 325Kamra and KoreanAmericanStory.org.
Alma Katsu
Writers Workshop participant '03Her horror novel, The Hunger, published in March, 2018, by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, was recently named one of the “5 Horror Novels to Read by Women Right Now” by The Writer.
Beverley Bie Brahic
Poetry Workshop participant '08Her fourth collection of poetry, The Hotel Eden, was published in September, 2018, by Carcanet Press (UK).
Cynthia Robinson
Writers Workshop participant '13, '14Her debut novel, Birds of Wonder (Standing Stone Books, 2018), has been named one of four finalists for the 2018 CNY Awards in the fiction category by judge Stephanie Dickson. The winner will be announced on November 8.
Debra Kang Dean
Poetry Participant, '93, '96Her third collection of poetry, Totem: America, was published by Tiger Bark Press in October 2018.
Catherine Staples
Poetry Workshop participant '18Her recent work has been published in The Southern Review and Terrain.
Michelle Bitting
Poetry Participant '05, '06She won the 2018 Mark Fischer Poetry Prize, and her fourth collection, Broken Kingdom, recently won the 2018 Catamaran Prize.
Tim Foley
Writers Workshop Participant, '99, '01, '02His recent short story publications include: “Some Pages From the Journal of James Morris,” in A Book of the Sea (Egaeus Press.) and “Aneurism,” in Morpheus Tales: The Best Weird Fiction, Number 7. His essay on Ambrose Bierce, “Night-Doings in Victorian England: The Sojourn of Ambrose Bierce,” has appeared in Wormwood 30 (Tartarus Press, 2018).
Angel Garcia
Poetry Workshop Participant '12His new book of poetry, Teeth Never Sleep, was published in November, 2018, by University of Arkansas Press.
Attended with the help of the UC Riverside Scholarship.
Ruben Quesada
Poetry Workshop Participant '07His new book of poetry, Revelations, will be published in November, 2018, by Sibling Rivalry Press.
Attended with the help of he UC Riverside Scholarship.
Gordon Jack
Writers Workshops Participant '03, '08His second novel, Your Own Worst Enemy, will be published by HarperTeen on November 13, 2018.
Alexander Payne Morgan
Writers Workshop participant '10, '13His new book of poems, Loneliness Among Primates, was published by Kelsay Books/ Aldrich Press in September, 2018.
Kenji Liu
Poetry Workshop Participant '14His new collection of poetry, Monsters I Have Been, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in April 2019.
Attended with the help of the Oakley Hall Memorial Scholarship.
Vickie Vértiz
Poetry Participant, '14Her book, Palm Frond with Its Throat Cut, won the 2018 PEN America prize for poetry. The prize is for an outstanding book of poetry published in 2017 west of the Mississippi River. Read more in the LA Times feature here.
Attended with the help of the Ancinas Scholarship (Writers Workshops) and Lucille Clifton Scholarship (Poetry Workshop).
Christine Granados
Writers Workshop Participant '09Her second book of fiction, Fight Like a Man and Other Stories We Tell Our Children, which was published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2017, won the 2017 Writer’s League of Texas Fiction Discovery Prize in April 2018. The book received Honorable Mention for Best Latino Focused Fiction Book in English from the 2018 International Latino Book Award. Fight Like a Man was also the winner of the 2018 NACCS Tejas Foco Fiction Book Award.
Attended with the help of the Ancinas Family Scholarship.
Sheila Thorne
Writers Workshops Participant, '04Her story, “The Horses,” appeared in the 2018 fall issue of Raleigh Review.
Yiskah Rosenfeld
Poetry Participant, '01, '03She currently serves as final judge of the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Award for poems on the Jewish experience (through Poetica Magazine).
Charles Halsted
Poetry Participant '18His first chapbook, Breaking Eighty, was accepted by Finishing Line Press and will be published in November.
Alex Espinoza
Writers Workshop Participant '04, '05, Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '13, '15, '17His newest book, Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime, will be published in June, 2019, by Unnamed Press.
Attended with the help of the UC Irvine Scholarship for MFAs.
Lynne Goldsmith
Poetry Workshop Participant '00Her newest book of poems, Secondary Cicatrices, won the Halcyon Poetry Book Contest. It will be published in early 2019 by Middle Creek Publishing.
Jon Riccio
Poetry Participant, '15His recent work appears in A-Minor Magazine, The Cincinnati Review, COAST | noCOAST, The Ekphrastic Review, and E·ratio. He was a 2018 Lambda Poetry Fellow.
Alicia Upano
Writers Workshop participant '12She won the 2018 James Jones First Novel Fellowship Competition for her novel, Big Music.
Attended with the help of the Mohr Scholarship.
Michelle Bitting
Poetry Participant '05Her fourth collection, Broken Kingdom, was recently published. It received the 2018 Catamaran Poetry Prize.
Vishwas Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant, '14His short story “Faith” will appear in the Fall 2018 issue of Santa Monica Review. This is the journal’s 30th anniversary of publication, and the issue will be launched on October 14 at The Edye in Santa Monica. Gaitonde has been invited to read at the event. The attached poster has more details.
Adela Najarro
Poetry Participant, '16She placed as a semi-finalist for The Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and her poem “Chantico Swings” will appear in the Nimrod International Journal upcoming award issue, October 2018. Adela entered the contest with the volcano poems she started at the Community of Writers.
Jenn Stroud Rossmann
Writers Workshop Participant, '99Her debut novel, The Place You’re Supposed to Laugh, will be published by 7.13 Books in November, 2018.
Kirsten Whatley
Writers Workshops Participant, '06Kirsten Whatley’s short nonfiction piece, “Only Moths,” appeared in PANK‘s Spring/Summer 2018 online issue, and was subsequently translated into Italian. Two of her Hawaii-based food stories recently appeared in AFAR (May 2018) and Saveur (Fall 2018).
Attended with the help of the Carlisle Family Scholarship.
Scott Edward Anderson
Art of the Wild Participant, '92His new book, Dwelling: an ecopoem, which received an honorable mention for The Hopper Poetry Prize last year, has just been published by Shanti Arts of Brunswick, Maine. A sequence of poems and prose questions about the nature of our dwelling, place, home and our relationship with the other species with which we share this planet, Dwelling: an ecopoem has been called “a phenomenology of how we live on the Earth,” by Alison Hawthorne Deming.
DeWitt Henry
Writers Workshops Teaching Staff, '94, '95, '96, '97, '98.His new collection, Sweet Marjoram: Notes and Essays, will be published this October by Plume Editions/Mad Hat Press.
Kate Hope Day
Writers Workshop participant '15Her debut novel If, Then is forthcoming from Random House March 12, 2019. It has been optioned by Heyday Television.
Elaine Barnard
Writers Workshop Partcipant (11)Elaine Barnard will be reading from the collection of stories from her travels in Asia, Emperor of Nuts at 7pm on Oct.11 at the famous KGB bar in NYC. The event is sponsored by her publisher New Meridian Arts.
Jeffrey Kingman
Poetry Participant, '12He was a finalist in Inlandia Institute’s 2018 Hillary Gravendyk Prize poetry book competition.
Margaret C. Murray
Screenwriters Workshop, '87In late September, she launched her 4th novel, Pillow Prayers—Love Ruined, Love Reborn after the Summer of Love, at Fourth Street Fine Art Cooperative in Berkeley, CA where much of her story takes place.
Attended with the help of National Endowment for the Arts
Tim Wendel
Writers Workshop participant '86, '87, '88, '89. Screenwriters Workshop participant '05A writer-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University, Tim Wendel’s latest book is a memoir, Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors and the Quest to Cure Childhood Leukemia. He read the audiobook and is now doing voice skills for the company working with the Amazon Echo. In addition, work continues on the documentary of his book Summer of ’68, which was named a notable book by the State of Michigan.
Jen Beagin
Writers Workshop participant '11She recently made the short list for the 2018 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.
Attended with the help of the UC Irvine Scholarship for MFAs.
Wayétu Moore
Writers Workshop Participant '09Her new novel, She Would Be King, was released from Graywolf Press on September 11, 2018. She will be joining us next summer for our Published Alumni Reading Series.
Attended with the help of the Carlisle Family Scholarship.
David Paul
Writers Workshops Participant, '17,'18His short story ‘Barbed Wire’ appears in the Fall 2018 issue of ZYZZYVA.
Emily Jungmin Yoon
Poetry Workshop, 2015Her first full-length collection of poetry, A Cruelty Special to Our Species, will be published by Ecco Books in September, 2018.
Attended with the help of the W C & F Scholarship.
Cai Emmons
Writers Workshop Participant '93, '94, '98Her new novel, Weather Woman, will be published on October 9, 2018, by Red Hen Press.
Grant Hier
Writers Workshop Participant ’93, Art of the Wild ’95, Poetry Participant ’98His new poetry collection, The Difference Between, was published by Pelekinesis in April 2018. A book of Flash Fiction, co-written with the Poet Laureate of Sequoia and Kings Canyon Parks, John Brantingham, is forthcoming in February, 2019.
Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor
Poetry Participant, '00, '03Her new co-edited book, Arts-based Research in Education: Foundations for Practice, was recently published by Routledge in 2018.
Joanna Solfrian
Poetry Participant, '06Her second collection, The Mud Room, will be published by MadHat Press in 2019.
Attended with the help of a scholarship and and a work-waiver.
Ama Codjoe
Poetry Participant, '15Her poem “Etymology of a Mood” was selected by Natasha Trethewey for the Georgia Review‘s Loraine Williams Poetry Prize.
Attended with the help of Lucille Clifton Scholarship
Anne Ray
Writers Workshop Participant, '06Her story “Weekend Trip”, originally published in Gettysburg Review, won a 2018 Pushcart Prize. Her story “Black Feather” is forthcoming in Indiana Review.
Leslie Hsu Oh
Writers Workshop Participant ,'14Her essay “K’E YIL YAL TX’I: SAYING SOMETHING,” first published in Alpinist Magazine and a Bronze medalist in the Family Travel category of the 2018 Solas Awards, was selected for Waymaking, an anthology of prose, poetry and artwork by women who are inspired by wild places, adventure and landscape, available now from Vertebrate Publishing. Her story “On the Line” was selected for Grace in Darkness, an anthology of metro D.C. women, available now from American University.
Attended with the help of The O'Dwyer Scholarship
Sean Marciniak
Writers Workshop Participant, '09, '14His short story, Sanctuary, was published in the Spring 2018 edition of J Journal.
Randy White
Poetry Participant, '16His company, Blue Oak Press, is publishing Lisa Dominguez Abraham’s first book of poems Coyote Logic in Fall 2018. Randy is also publishing Karst Mountains Will Bloom: The Collected Poems of Pos Moua during Winter 2018. Moua is considered by many to be the father of Hmong poetry. Blue Oak Press has also begun compiling poems for the anthology They Will Rise Like A Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets which will be released in Spring 2020.
Lynn Gordon
Writers Workshops Participant, '11Her stories are appearing this year in J Journal and The Examined Life.
Charles Halsted
Poetry Participant '18His first 30-poem chapbook, Breaking Eighty, will be published by Finishing Line Press on November 16, 2018. Orders can be placed at:
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/breaking-eighty-by-charles-halsted/
Julia Park Tracey
Writers Workshops Participant '16, '18Her in-depth feature on San Francisco Bay Area author and activist Kate Schatz was the cover story for Alameda Magazine in August 2018, and a major feature in Oakland Magazine August 2018.
Janyce Stefan-Cole
Writers Workshop '04Her short tale, “Clowns,” is included in the The Open Space, issue 21, “Things That Matter”.
Justin McFarr
Writers Workshops Participant, '13His collection of 4 short stories – which feature the main characters from his first novel, The Bear Who Broke the World – was published as a Kindle exclusive by Wheeler Street Press in August, 2018.
David Stallings
Poetry Participant, '11He recently published his second book of poetry, Risking Delight (Aldrich Press, Kelsay Books, 2018).
Louis B. Jones
Writers Workshops Participant '89, Writers Workshops StaffHis short story, Everybody’s Long-Term Welfare, appears in the Fall, 2018 issue of ZYZZYVA.
giovanni singleton
Her new book of poetry, American Letters: Works on Paper, was recently published by Canarium Books.
Vanessa Hua
Writers Workshop Participant '08Her new novel, A River of Stars, was recently published by Ballantine Books.
David Corbett
Writers Workshop Participant '88, '89, '91, '99, Screenwriting Workshop Participant '01His newest book, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday, is now available from Black Opal Press.
Penelope Moffet
Poetry Workshop Participant '87, '17Her new book of poems, It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You, is now available from Arroyo Seco Press.
Norma Liliana Valdez
Poetry Participant '16Her chapbook manuscript, Preparing the Body, is forthcoming by YesYes Books. Her essay, “Inheritance”, was recently published in The Rumpus as part of the “Mothering Outside the Margins” series.
Robert Schladale
Writer's Workshop '16, '17His story, “Life in the Littoral Waters,” appears in the most recent issue of Redivider (February 2018).
Robert Rorke
Writers Workshop Participant, '11Harper Collins published his first novel, Car Trouble, on September 11, 2018.
Marilyn Kallet
Poetry participant, '96, '98, '00In June, she was inducted as Poet Laureate of Knoxville, Tennessee. Mayor Madeline Rogero made the proclamation.
Marcia Butler
Writer's Workshop Participant '15Her debut novel, Pickle’s Progress, will be published on April 9, 2019. Recent praise from Richard Russo: “The four main characters in Pickle’s Progress seem more alive than most of the people we know in real life because their fears and desires are so nakedly exposed. That’s because their creator, Marcia Butler, possesses truly scary X-ray vision and intelligence to match.”
Dedria Humphries Barker
Writing Workshop Participant '08, '15She won a Tier 1 writing residency award to Can Serrat, El Bruc, Barcelona, Spain, and was in residence March – May, 2018.
Gina DeMillo Wagner
Writers Workshops Participant '14Her essay, Mourning the Loss of a Sibling Rival, was featured in the Ties column of the New York Times.
Regina Louise
Writers Workshop Participant ‘02, '15, Writers Workshop Alum Reading ‘03, Screen Writing Workshop ‘09Her new book, Someone Has Led This Child to Believe: A Case History of Love, was published on July 10 by Agate Publishing. The film adaptation of her memoir, Someone’s Somebody, wrapped principal photography June 27th.
Kristi Maxwell
Poetry Participant '02Her sixth book of poems, Bright and Hurtless, was recently published by Ahsahta Press.
Amber Flora Thomas
Poetry Participant '92, '99, '01, '03, '05, '13Her book Red Channel in the Rupture: Poems will be published in August, 2018, by Red Hen Press.
Forrest Gander
Poetry Workshop Teaching StaffHis new collection, Be With, will be published by New Directions in August 2018.
Brenda Rickman Vantrease
Writers Workshop Participant '02Her new historical fiction series entitled Broken Kingdom from Severn House. Vol. I: The Queen’s Promise was released August 1, 2018, with Vol. 2: A Far Horizon to follow in February of 2019.
Meg Waite Clayton
Writers Workshop Participant '00Her new novel, Beautiful Exiles, was published August 1, 2018, by Lake Union Publishing.
R.O. Kwon
Writers Workshops Participant, '10Her first novel, The Incendiaries, was published on July 31, 2018 by Riverhead in the U.S. and by Virago/Little Brown in the U.K. It’s about Phoebe Lin, a Korean American woman who gets involved with a fundamentalist cult with ties to North Korea. Kwon was recently profiled in the New York Times as a writer to watch.
Samantha Thornhill
Poetry Workshop, 2009Her third children’s book, A Card for My Father, was published in May, 2018, by Penny Candy Books.
Attended with the help of Cave Canem Scholarship
Blas Falconer
Poetry Workshop Participant '12, '16His new book of poetry, Forgive the Body This Failure, will be released late this summer by Four Way Books.
Regina Louise
Writers Workshop participant '01, '14Her memoir, Someone Has Led This Child to Believe, will be released by Agate Bolden in July, 2018.
Ama Codjoe
Poetry Participant '15Her poem “My Nothings” was recently featured as the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day.
Lise Goett
Poetry Participant, '86, '87, '88, '92, '94, '06Her second book of poetry, Leprosarium, was recently published by Tupelo Press.
Laurie Ann Doyle
Her new book of stories, World Gone Missing, was released by Regal House press in Fall 2017. She teaches writing at The San Francisco Writers Grotto and UC Berkeley.
Anne Ray
Writers Workshop Participant, '06In collaboration with actors Sean McIntyre and Emily Shain, Anne Ray is teaching a workshop on performance for writers of prose, at NYC’s Playwright’s Horizon Theater School, May 19-20.
Sommer Schafer
Writers Workshops Participant '13Her short story, “Mary and the Machine,” appears in the Spring 2018 issue of North American Review.
Josh Weil
Writers Workshop Staff '17His 2017 short story collection The Age of Perpetual Light was awarded the California Book Award in Fiction.
Lauren Barbato
Writers Workshop Participant '17Her short story “Old Girls, or, The Ordinary Adventure” was published in the spring 2018 issue of The Hopkins Review. Her short story “Former Marys” was also published in the spring 2018 issue of Blackbird.
Attended with the help of The Lojo Foundation Scholarship
Michelle Ruiz Keil
Writers Workshop 2014She sold her debut novel All of Us With Wings to Amara Hoshijo at Soho Teen for publication in June, 2019.
David Kerns
Writers Workshop participant '07His novel Fortnight on Maxwell Street won the Eric Hoffer Award for the Best General Fiction Book of 2018. Published by Bay Tree Publishing, the novel is a reluctant hero’s journey of fear and courage set in Chicago in the spring of 1968. The manuscript, a memoir in its earliest incarnation, was workshopped at the Community of Writers in 2007.
Holiday Reinhorn
Writers Workshops Participant, '17The title story of Holiday Reinhorn’s second collection, “Our Lady of Perpetual Sadness,” was accepted for publication by American Short Fiction magazine.
Chris Wilson Simpkins
Poetry Participant '11, '14Chris Wilson Simpkins won a Summer Literary Seminars fellowship through their 2018 poetry contest, and plans to attend the Kenyan seminar in December.
Christine Gosnay
Poetry Participant '13, '16Her first book of poetry, Even Years, was selected by Angie Estes for the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize and published by Kent State University Press in 2017.
John Harvey
Poetry Participant '95, Writers Workshop Staff '97His new Frank Elder novel, Body and Soul, was published by William Heinemann in the UK in April, and will be published by Pegasus in the US in September, 2018.
Andrea Alban
Writer's Workshop Participant, '04Her Writer’s Tribe has been named the official manuscript critique forum at the annual Book Passage Children’s Writer and Illustrator Conference (June 15-17, 2018). Andrea has served on the faculty of this popular conference for 10 years, presenting talks about creating quintessential characters, the art and craft of RE-Vision, and achieving self-editing mastery.
Peggy Townsend
Writers Workshop Participant '07Her first thriller, See Her Run: An Aloa Snow Mystery, was released by Thomas & Mercer on June 1 as part of a two-book deal. Her short story, “First Peak,” also will appear June 19 in Santa Cruz Noir, an anthology series published by Akashic Press and edited by Susie Bright.
Cynthia Robinson
Writers' Workshops Participant, '13 and '14She was recently spotlighted in an interview with BBC Ulster presenter Marie-Louise Muir discussing her new novel Birds of Wonder (Standing Stone Books, 2018). The interview is available via podcast here until May 25.
Aneesha Capur
Writers Workshop Participant '05She was recently invited to join the San Francisco Committee of Human Rights Watch. She is looking forward to supporting HRW’s broader efforts to raise awareness of local and global human rights issues, generate support, and mobilize policymakers to recognize basic freedoms for all.
Shira Dentz
Poetry Workshop Participant '05Her third full-length book of poems, how do i net thee, was published in April, 2018, from Salmon Poetry. It’s available for purchase now at Salmon Poetry, Amazon, and selected bookstores.
Sommer Schafer
Writers Workshops Participant '13Her story, “My Little Pet,” appears in the Spring 2018 issue of Boulevard.
Aida Salazar
Her debut picture book, Jovita Wore Pants, will be published by Arthur A. Levine Books/ Scholastic in 2020.
Michael Barsa
Writers Workshop Participant '04His first novel, The Garden of Blue Roses, was published on April 17 from Underland Press, with praise from Alice Sebold, Paul Tremblay, Ramona Ausubel, Ron Carlson, Michelle Latiolais, and others.
Lise Haines
Writers Workshop participant '99Her new novel, When We Disappear, was released from Unbridled Books in June, 2018.
Akil Kumarasamy
Writers Workshops Participant, '15Akil Kumarasamy’s debut novel, Half Gods, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in June 2018.
Attended with the help of The Eshleman Scholarship
Gwen Goodkin
Writers Workshops Participant, '07, '11Her first book, an essay collection titled Mass for the Shut Ins will be published by Eyewear Publishing in early 2019.
Evie Shockley
Her new collection of poetry, semiautomatic, was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Evie will be back on staff this summer at the 2018 Community of Writers Poetry Workshop.
Patricia Spears Jones
Poetry Teaching Staff, 2016She received the 2017 Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers and a 5-week Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva, Fl. Poems: “After Hell” The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, “Good Bourbon Helps” and “The Room Behind the Room” Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts: Truth to Power, Writers Respond to the Rhetoric of Hate and Fear; “Morning Song” w/art work by Yuko Otomo, WORD: An Anthology A Gathering of the Tribes. Poems in journals including translated poems in http://www.recoursaupoeme.fr/ Numéro spécial – juillet-août : n. 176 “L’Esprit de New York et ses poètes”; Green Mountain Review; Paterson Literary Review, and Brooklyn Rail.
Joanell Serra
Writers Workshop participant '15Her literary novel, The Vines We Planted, was published by Wido Publishing in May 2018. The novel is set in Sonoma, California, and follows the complex interactions of three families during a year in the wine country. The novel was in progress when she attended the workshop.
Melissa Stein
Poetry Participant, '99Her second poetry collection, Terrible Blooms, was published in April 2018 by Copper Canyon Press.
Tessa Fontaine
Poetry Participant '00, '07Her memoir, The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, on May 1, 2018. Publisher’s Weekly, in a starred review, says: “Fascinating . . . This remarkable, beautifully written memoir explores the depth of mother-daughter love and the courageous acts of overcoming fear and accepting change.” Book Page, the monthly book review publication distributed to over 400,000 readers through bookstores and libraries, just listed her as one of “Eleven Women to Watch in 2018.”
Gregory Pardlo
Poetry Workshop Teaching Staff '17His memoir, Air Traffice: A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America, was published this month by Knopf. Pardlo was on staff at the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop in 2017.
Adrienne Sharp
Writers Workshop Participant '88, '98Her novel, The Magnificent Esme Wells, was released by HarperCollins in April, 2018.
Jeff Walt
Poetry Participant, '17He recently completed a one month writing residency at the Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts in Fairhope, AL. He also has poems recently published in Red Wheelbarrow and Southword.
Teresa (T) Stores
Writers Workshop Participant '04Her collection of short fiction, Frost Heaves, will be published by Green Writers Press in April 2018. This is her fourth book and her first collection of stories.
Attended with the help of Sallie Bell Scholarship
Nettie Reynolds
Writers Workshop Participant '99She was the first playwright picked for the Associated Writing Program Mentee Fall Program 2017. She is currently working on her memoir on resiliency titled Magical Thinking Got Me Here. She recently had her ten minute play “The Groovy Ride” produced in Austin, where she lives.
Kevin Conder
Screenwritng Workshop participant '10; Poetry Workshop Participant '05He was selected by the Erbacce Contest as the Featured Poet for May 2018. His poetry collection Beautiful Enough to Burn was recently published by Erbacce Press UK, 2018.
Ariel Lewis
Writers Workshop, '17She has a personal essay up at Electric Literature.
Johnny Kovatch
Writers Workshop participant '00His debut novel, 59 Hours, a Simon True book, was released by Simon Pulse in March, 2018.
Jennifer Haupt
Writers Workshop Participant '09, '13Her debut novel, In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, was published on April 2, 2018, by Central Avenue Publishing.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Tessa Fontaine
Poetry Participant, '99, '08Her first book, The Electric Woman, is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus & Giroux in May, 2018. The Electric Woman follows the author on a life-affirming journey of loss and self-discovery– through her time on the road with the last traveling American sideshow and her relationship with an adventurous, spirited mother.
Susie Hammond
Poetry Participant '17She was among 17 participants from eight countries to convene as guests of the Faber Residency in Olot, Catalonia, Spain during October and November, 2017 for an interdisciplinary residency focused on Feminisms.
On June 14, 2018, she will be one of the evening’s featured readers at the Ballard Branch of the Seattle Public Library. Among the poems she will share will be several written at The Community of Writers. The reading is sponsored by Seattle’s longest running poetry series, It’s About Time, whose fundamental mission is social justice and inclusion.
Consuelo Marshall
Poetry Participant '12Her poem, “Myself As A Playboy Bunny” won the Verve International Poetry Festival Competition, in Birmingham, UK, and was judged by Luke Kennard. It appears in It All Radiates Outwards, the Verve Anthology of City Poems, Verve Poetry Press.
Varley O’Connor
Writers Workshops Teaching Staff '04, '12; Participant '88, '89Her fifth novel, The Welsh Fasting Girl, will be published by Bellevue Literary Press in May 2019.
Nancy Huxtable Mohr
Poetry Participant '04, '06Her book of poetry, The Well: Poems From Twin Pines Farm, is now available.
Kenji Liu
Poetry Workshop Participant '14His new collection of poetry, Monsters I Have Been, will be published by Alice James Books in April, 2019.
Valerie Wallace
Poetry Participant '10Her debut novel, House of McQueen, was published by Four Way Books in March, 2018.
Tim Wendel
Writers Workshop Participant '86, '87, '88, '89, '05His new book, Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors and the Quest for a Cure to Childhood Leukemia, will be released in spring 2018. He is a writer-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University.
R.T. Jamison
Writers Workshops Participant, '15His short story, “Forty Days in the Desert,” first published in the Kenyon Review, was selected for the anthology Buffalo Cactus and Other New Stories from the Southwest, available now from the University of New Mexico Press.
http://www.rtjamison.com/buffalo.html
Aida Salazar
Writer Workshops Participant '07Her debut novel, The Moon Within, was acquired by Nick Thomas at AALB/Scholastic. This free verse middle grade novel tells the story of 11-year-old Celi, whose life swirls with questions about her changing body, her first attraction to a boy, her best friend’s exploration of what it means to be genderfluid, and her mother’s insistence she have a Chicana moon ceremony for her first menses. Publication is slated for spring 2019; Marietta B. Zacker of the Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency negotiated the deal for North American English and Spanish rights.
Kazim Ali
Poetry Participant '98; Poetry Teaching Staff '10, '12, '16, '18He is featured in the March/ April issue of The American Poetry Review. Kazim will be joining us again this summer on staff at the Poetry Workshop.
Crystal Reiss
Writers Workshop Participant '97Crystal Jo Reiss’s first novel, Jane Is Everywhere has been published. This “more than #metoo” novel is about one woman’s absurd journey through America during the last two decades. It is now available for order at bookstores around the world (including the usual online outlets).
Shobha Rao
Writers Workshop Participant '02Her debut novel, Girls Burn Brighter, was published this month. She is also the author of the short story collection, An Unrestored Woman. She is the winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction, and her story “Kavitha and Mustafa” was chosen by T.C. Boyle for inclusion in Best American Short Stories 2015.
Scot Siegel
Poetry Participant, ‘07His chapbook, Daughters, Here | Daughters, Gone, will be published by Uttered Chaos Press in March 2018. The publisher writes, “Daughters, Here | Daughters, Gone is not about loss but self-determination. It is a father’s prayer for his daughters, and daughters everywhere, as they remake the world in their vision.”
Ksenia Lakovic
Writers Workshop Participant, '12Her short story “The Addition” was a semi-finalist for the 2017 Tillie Olsen Short Story Award and appeared in The Tishman Review in January 2018.
Gretchen Van Lente
Writers Workshop Participant '96She has two new books out this month. First is a collection of short stories of literary horror published by Hammer and Anvil Press, She-Thing and Other Righteous Tales. The second is Hydriphilica, also literary horror, published by Alternative Book Press. Both are available on Amazon. She-Thing is a book in print, and Hydrophilica is an Amazon Digital (at http://amzn.to/2FUJvjl ).
Emily Jungmin Yoon
Poetry Participant, '15Her poem “Autopsy” was published by The New York Times Magazine in March 2018.
Attended with the help of WC&C Scholarship
Blas Falconer
Poetry Participant '12, '16His upcoming book, Forgive the Body this Failure, will be published in September, 2018. His poem “Apology For My Son Who Stops to Ask About His Mother Once More,” was recently published in the Harvard Review Online. You can read that here.
Dylan Brie Ducey
Writers Workshop Participant, '15Her two flashes, “Disorder” and “The Mother Knocks Again, Louder This Time” appeared in The Occulum in August, 2017. Also, a short story, “Jaconita,” appeared in Four Way Review in November, 2017.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Sanam Mahloudji
Writers Workshops Participant, '12Her fiction will appear in the next issue (#52) of McSweeney’s Quarterly. Her fiction is also in Passages North‘s 2018 issue and Crab Creek Review‘s Spring 2017 issue. She was also nominated for the 2018 PEN/Robert J. Dau Prize for Emerging Writers.
Priscilla Elliott
Writer's Workshop Participant, '05Her book The Sociopath’s Guide to Getting Ahead is a practical satire coming out March 13, 2018 from Skyhorse Publishing.
Ben Hinshaw
Writers Workshops Participant, '17His story ‘Brazil and Back’ appeared in the Fall/Winter 2017 issue of The Carolina Quarterly. Elsewhere, his story ‘Queen of the Forest’ placed third in the 2017 Bridport Short Story Prize, and his collection Exactly What You Mean won the 2017 Maurice Prize in Fiction. In January 2018, Ben received a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Diane Wolff
Writers Workshop Participant '84In early February, she did a reading from her work of narrative history An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse: The Man of Iron Recruits the Man of Letters. The reading took place at a conference at the Embassy of Mongolia in Washington, D. C., hosted by the Ambassador.
Ashley Roach-Freiman
Poetry Workshop Participant, '14Her first chapbook, Bright Along the Body, was released by Dancing Girl Press in December 2017. Ashley reckons with and troubles the idea of identity in marriage and the overwhelming project of desire.
David Dixon
Poetry Participant '17His poem “Noel Reeks of Bleach,” was recently published in the winter 2018 issue of Blue Streak, a poetry journal from Military Experience & the Arts. He wrote this poem during his time in Squaw Valley for his session with staff poet Forrest Gander.
Attended with the help of Veteran's scholarship
Maw Shein Win
Poetry Participant '94Her full-length poetry collection, Invisible Gifts, will be published by Manic D Press in April, 2018. She is currently featured on Poetry International Web. Read the full article is here.
Susan Henderson
Writers Workshops Participant, '09Her second novel, The Flicker of Old Dreams, was published by HarperCollins in March of 2018. Susan lives in New York and blogs at the writer support group, LitPark.com.
Jasmin Darznik
Writers Workshop Participant '06, '10Her novel Song of a Captive Bird was published by Random House/Ballantine in February 2018. It tells the story of Iran’s iconic woman poet, Forugh Farrokhzad.
Elizabeth Rosner
She will be giving a talk entitled “How Do We Deal With the Wounds of History? Understanding and Addressing Intergenerational Trauma,” at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on April 10th at 6 PM.
Michael Andreasen
Writers Workshop Participant '07, Published Alumni '18His debut collection The Sea Beast Takes a Lover was published February 28, 2018, by Dutton. Michael will be returning to Squaw Valley this summer as a part of the Published Alumni Reading Series.
Attended with the help of UCI Scholarship
Ramona Ausubel
Writers Workshop Participant '07, '12Her new novel Awayland will be released from Riverhead Books this month.
Attended with the help of UC Irvine Scholarship
Hilary Zaid
Writers Workshop Participant, '12Her debut novel, Paper is White, was published in March 2018 from Bywater Books.
Attended with the help of The James D. Houston Memorial Scholarship
Sands Hall
Writers Workshops Participant and StaffHer memoir, Flunk. Start.was published by Counterpoint Press in March, 2018.
Analicia Sotelo
Poetry Participant, '16Her first full-length of collection of poetry, Virgin, the inaugural winner of the Jake Adam York Prize, selected by Ross Gay, was recently published by Milkweed Editions in February 2018.
Attended with the help of The Rebecca Osheroff Honorary Memorial Scholarship
Kazim Ali
Poetry Participant '98 / Poetry Teaching StaffHis new collection of poems, Inquisition, will be published by Wesleyan University Press, March 6, 2018.
Devi S. Laskar
Poetry Participant, '04, '08, '14, Writers Workshop Participant '04, '15Her novel The Atlas of Reds and Blue will be published by Counterpoint Press in February, 2019.
Cynthia Robinson
Writers' Workshops Participant, '13 and '14Her debut novel, Birds of Wonder, was published by Standing Stone Books on 20 February, 2018.
Cynthia Lim
Writers Workshops Participant, '15Her memoir, Wherever You Are: A Memoir of Love, Marriage, and Brain Injury, will be published by Coffeetown Press September 1, 2018.
Kenji C. Liu
Poetry Participant, '14His second full-length poetry collection, Monsters I Have Been, which frankensteins news articles, legal documents, and other texts to explore a range of masculinities, will be published by Alice Jones Books in Spring 2019. Selections from the new book have recently been published in two literary journals: Apogee and Anomaly.
Attended with the help of Oakley Hall Memorial Scholarship
Sands Hall
Writers Workshop Teaching Staff and Past ParticipantHer memoir, Flunk. Start., published March, 2018, was recently named one of the top 10 best books in spirituality and religion for Spring 2018 by Publisher’s Weekly.
Michael David Lukas
Writers Workshop Participant '09His second novel, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, will be published March 13, 2018, by Spiegel and Grau.
Attended with the help of The James D. Houston Memorial Scholarship
Wayétu Moore
Writers Workshop Participant '09Her debut novel, She Would Be King, will be released in September 2018 from Graywolf Press.
Attended with the help of the Carlisle Family Scholarship
Hilary Zaid
Writers Workshop Participant, '12Her debut novel, Paper is White, will be be released on March 13, 2018 from Bywater Books.
Attended with the help of The James D. Houston Memorial Scholarship
Javier Zamora
Poetry Participant '10Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies (ILS), in partnership with Duende District Bookstore, is pleased to welcome award-winning poet, Javier Zamora, who will be in Washington, D.C. from February 26 through March 1. While in Washington, Zamora will give a public reading, take part in a colloquium with university students, spend time with students at a bilingual elementary school, and dialogue with students in a college-level writing workshop.
Scott Edward Anderson
Art of the Wild Participant, '92He has two recent essays published, “Hallelujah: I’m No Genius” in Schuylkill Valley Journal Online and a craft essay, “POETRY AS PRACTICE: How Paying Attention Helps Us Improve Our Writing in the Age of Distraction” in Cleaver Magazine. His new book, Dwelling: an ecopoem, will be published in Fall 2018 by Shanti Arts.
Edan Lepucki
Writers Workshop Participant '07, Writers Workshop Teaching Staff '14, '18Her most recent novel, Woman No. 17, published by Hogarth in 2017, is now out in paperback. Woman No. 17 was named a notable book of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, POPSUGAR, and the Washington Post. People Magazine picked it as the May selection for the Book of the Month Club.
Shobha Rao
Writers Workshop Participant '02Her debut novel, Girls Burn Brighter, will be published by Flatiron Books in March 2018. She is also the author of the short story collection, An Unrestored Woman.
Valerie Wallace
Poetry Participant '10Her debut novel, House of McQueen, will be published by Four Way Books in March, 2018.
Sara Borjas
Writers Workshop Participant '13Her debut collection of poetry, We Are Too Big for This House, will be published in 2019 by Noemi Press as part of the Akrilica Series.
Attended with the help of UC Riverside Scholarship
Marlene Shigekawa
Screenwriters Workshop Participant '06, '12Her documentary film, For the Sake of the Children, will be screened in San Francisco on February 24 at the New People Cinema as well as in Los Angeles. Prior screenings have taken place at venues throughout LA , at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York and at the University of Montana.
Bill Pieper
Writers Workshops Participant, '10His story “Wildflower Season” was published in the winter 2017 issue of Chiron Review, joining a lineage of past contributors that runs from Kerouac and Bukowski to Marge Piercy and Lorri Jackson. It is the first of his recent acceptances to see print, soon to be followed by “Barcelona Days” in Lipstick Party Mag and “Hi, Grandma” in Corvus Review. ChironReview.com
Rachel Howard
Writers Workshop Participant, '13, Writers Workshop Staff, '17Her novel The Risk of Us sold to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for publication in Spring 2019. It’s about a woman who longs to be a mother; the troubled child she and her husband take in from the foster care system; the inevitable tests children bring to a marriage; and the limits of human empathy coupled with the joys of new parenthood, and was pitched as appealing to fans of Jenny Offill, Rachel Cusk, and Sheila Heti.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Scholarship
Brenda Hillman
Poetry Teaching Staff, Poetry Guest DirectorBrenda Hillman’s new collection, Extra Hidden Life, among the Days was published by Wesleyan Poetry (Wesleyan University Press) in February 2019.
Michael Andreasen
Writers Workshops Participant, '07His debut collection The Sea Beast Takes a Lover will be available February 28, 2018, from Dutton. The collection features stories that have appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, McSweeney’s, Zoetrope: All-Story, and Quarterly West. “Andreasen has the soul of a poet and the heart of a yarn spinner; he breathes new life into familiar tropes via the ingenuity of his storytelling and his tendency to color outside the lines. The 11 refreshing stories in this debut collection are full of delicious detours, and ultimately they’re the point.” –Publisher’s Weekly
Attended with the help of UCI Irvine Scholarship
Glen David Gold
Writers Workshops Participant, '96, '97 / Writers Workshops Teaching StaffHis memoir I Will Be Complete will be published by Knopf in June 2018.
Attended with the help of The UC Irvine Scholarship
Vishwas R Gaitonde
Writers Workshop Participant, '14Gaitonde’s multimedia essay, “The Birth, Death & Reincarnation of the Harmonium,” published by The Mantle, New York, in 2016 & republished by Scroll.in (Delhi, India) in 2016, has been republished by the music magazine Serenade in Jan 2018. A Dutch translation of Gaitonde’s essay, titled “De tijreis van het harmonium over de continenten,” along with additional material on the harmonium, was published in Vox Humana, Holland, in 2017.
Elaine Barnard
Writers workshops Participant 11Elaine Barnard’s work collection of stories from her travels in Asia: Emperor of Nuts: Intersections Across Cultures will be published by New Meridian Arts in 2018.Elaine Barnard’s work has appeared in a number of publications: Her short story, “Shadows” was recently published in Red Fez; “Pomegranate” was recently published in Crux; “The Road” was recently published in Fixional; and “An Ordeal” is forthcoming in Sunlight.
Ann Fisher-Wirth
Poetry Participant, '92, '00, '09, '13Ann Fisher-Wirth’s fifth book of poems, Mississippi, has just been released by Wings Press; it is a poetry/photography collaboration with the acclaimed Delta photographer Maude Schuyler Clay. She will be traveling throughout Mississippi to promote the book during the spring of 2018. In May she will be a Research Fellow at Bielefeld University, Germany, giving readings and teaching ecopoetry for their Project Entangled Americas; and will be giving readings for the Environmental Humanities Laboratory at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. She has recently completed Because Here We Are (poems); one chapbook-length section is forthcoming in At Length.
Robert Lipton
Poetry Participant 2003, 1995Robert Lipton won the the 2018 Gregory O’Donoghue Poetry Competition at the Munster Literature Center in Cork, Ireland. Author of A Complex Bravery published by Marick Press, the prize is for his poem “Official Story.” He will participate in the Cork International Poetry Festival, Feb. 2018, and will have his work published in the Munster Literary journal Southword.
David Kerns
Writers Workshop Participant '05His novel, Fortnight on Maxwell Street was published in February, 2018.
Jasmin Darznik
Writers Workshops Participant in Fiction and Nonfiction, '06,'10Her novel Song of a Captive Bird was published by Random House/Ballantine in February 2018. It tells the story of Iran’s iconic woman poet, Forugh Farrokhzad.
Cynthia Robinson
Writers' Workshops Participant '13, '14Her forthcoming novel, Birds of Wonder, out on February 20, 2018, with Standing Stone Books, received 5 stars and a featured review in the January/February 2018 issue of Foreword.
Marilyn Kallet
Her new book of poems, How Our Bodies Learned, was published by Black Widow Press in January, 2018.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Poetry WorkshopMarcelo Hernandez Castillo’s collection, Dulce, will be published by Northwestern University Press in April, 2018.
Emily Jungmin Yoon
Poetry Participant, '15Emily Jungmin Yoon’s first full-length collection of poetry, A Cruelty Special to Our Species, will be published by Ecco Books this September.
Attended with the help of WC&C Scholarship.
Michelle Ruiz Keil
Writers Workshop Participant '14Her short story “Random Magick” was recently published on Cosmonauts Avenue. You can read it here.
Sawnie Morris
Poetry Participant '90, '92, '07, '10, '13She was recently named the inaugural poet laureate of Taos, New Mexico.
Dave Essinger
Writers Workshops Participant, '09His new novel Running Out was published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in June 2017.
Attended with the help of Lojo Foundation Scholarship.
Linda González
Writer Workshops Participant '15Her memoir The Cost of Our Lives, a story of two families on either side of the Rio Grande, was published by Wido Press and is available at widopublishing.com.
Lara Gularte
Poetry Participant '05, Writers Workshop Participant '04, '06Her new book of poetry, Kissing the Bee, was published by The Bitter Oleander Press in January, 2018.
Michele Montgomery
Writers Workshop Participant '07Her essay, “We Were Snubbed by Our Dead Dog. Twice.” was published this month in the New York Times. The link to the essay can be found here.
Tara Dorabji
Writers Workshop Participant '13She has new work published in All the Women in My Family Sing, edited by Deborah Santana, a collection of prose and poetry. The collection includes writing by Michelle “Mush” Lee, Natalie Baszile, Phiroozeh Petigara, Samina Ali, Soniah Kamal, Nayomi Munaweera, Kira Lynne Allen and more!
Amber Flora Thomas
Poetry Participant, '92, '99, '01, '03, '05, '13Her book Red Channel in the Rupture: Poems is forthcoming from Red Hen Press, August 2018.
Ramona Ausubel
Writers Workshop Participant '07, '12Her new novel Awayland will be published by Riverhead Books in March, 2018.
Mary Freericks
Poetry Workshop participant '89, '91, 09Her collection of poems, Blue Watermelon, which represents vivid memories from her childhood in Iran, was published in January and is now available on Amazon.
Caitlin McCarthy
Screenwriting Program Participant, '13Her pilot teleplay “Virtual Vida” is a Quarterfinalist for the 2018 CineStory TV/Digital Fellowship (Original Comedy Division). Her script boasts an inclusive cast with a Puerto Rican female lead. Learn more about Caitlin’s writing at www.caitlinmccarthy.com.
Devi S. Laskar
Poetry Participant '04, '08, '14, Writers Workshop Participant '04, '15Her second chapbook Anastasia Maps was published by Finishing Line Press in December 2017. Her first chapbook, Gas & Food, No Lodging was also published by Finishing Line last March.
Gene Berson
poetry participant, '17His book, raveling travel, was published by Open Book Press. The book contains several poems recently published in Sisyphuslitmag.org, the winter issue of Canarylitmag.org, and Red Fez.
Attended with the help of the Alexander Cushing Memorial Scholarship for Locals.
Terry Shames
Writers Workshop Participant '99A Reckoning in the Back Country, Terry Shames’s seventh novel in the award-winning Samuel Craddock series,was published in January 2018, by Seventh Street Book.
Jamie Cat Callan
Writers Workshop Participant, '91Her latest book Parisian Charm School was published by Penguin Random House in January, 2018.
David Hagerty
Writers Workshop Participant, 2006He has published the third book in his series of political mysteries. They Tell Me You Are Brutal (Evolved Publishing, 2017) continues the story of Gov. Duncan Cochrane, who has a murderous family secret to conceal and a saboteur to capture.
Terence Clarke
Writers Workshops Participant, 1972, 1973. Special Guest, 2013, 2014.His new book, New York: Stories, was published by Astor and Lenox on November 1, 2017. Publishers Weekly says “This gem of a collection by Terence Clarke celebrates the art, passions, and people of New York City.” Kirkus Reviews says “Tales like these feel like new takes on classic stories of New York by Salinger or Capote—fine company, all in all.”
Marilyn Kallet
Poetry participant, 1995, 1996, 2005Her new book of poems, How Our Bodies Learned, will be out from Black Widow Press in early January, 2018.
Kimball Pier
Writer's workshop 2005, 2011, 2015Her memoir, Killing Penelope – A daughter’s Memoir of Failed Rescues, was published in August of 2017 by Lucky Bat Books. Killing Penelope is a true story about a girl’s devotion to her mother Penelope, a wild and eccentric woman who held a shotgun with more comfort than she held her baby girl. When Penelope became seriously ill, Kimball’s life became frightening and unpredictable. The author gives a beautiful portrayal of her experience of retrieving humor, grace, and gratitude from the rubble of despair and loss.
Sandra Scofield
Writers Workshops Teaching StaffHer craft book, The Last Draft: A Novelist’s Guide to Revision, has been published by Penguin.
Dedria A. Humphries
Writers Workshop Participant '08, '15Her essay, “The Girl with the Good Hair” appeared in the anthology, The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century, edited by Cathy J. Shlund-Vials, Sean Frederick Forbes and Tara Betts with an afterword by Heidi W. Durrow, published by 2Leaf Press. 2Leaf Press also published Dedria’s essay, “Was My Father Just Another Pig” in their Black Lives Have Always Mattered anthology edited by Abiodun Oyewole. Dedria also published an essay entitled “When the Riot Came Home” on salon.com about the 1967 Detroit riot. www.2leafpress.org
Vishwas R. Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant, 2014His article, “The Grand Piano Chase,” tracing the progress of Lydian Nadhaswaram, a music prodigy in India through the pianos he played, was published on Nov 9, 2017 in The Hindu, a leading newspaper in southern India. You can read it online here. Though a stand-alone piece, it is also a follow-up to his earlier comprehensive multi-media essay on Nadhaswaram, published in May 2017 in The Mantle, New York, which you can read here.
Sands Hall
Writers Workshops Participant, Teaching StaffHer memoir, Flunk. Start., will be released by Counterpoint Press in March, 2018.
www.sandshall.com
Cynthia Robinson
Writers' Workshop Participant, '13, '14Her op-ed, “Girls Are Fine, Just Don’t Get Caught,” has been published in the opinion section of The Hill. The topic–which never seems to go away, not even in the #metoo moment we’re living right now–is closely related to her forthcoming debut novel, Birds of Wonder (February 2018).
Judy Bebelaar
Poetry Participant '08, '10Her non-fiction book, And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown, co-written with fellow teacher Ron Cabral about the students they knew who were sent to San Francisco’s Opportunity High by Jim Jones in 1976, will be published by Sugartown Publishing in December, 2017.
Jennifer Egan
Writers Workshop Participant, '89Her newest novel, Manhattan Beach, was released from Charles Scribner’s Sons in October, 2017.
Stephanie Taylor
Writers Workshop Participant '13As a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the publication of Shelley’s Frankenstein in 1818, she is working with the director of the Sacramento library, Rivkah Sass, on a special graphic narrative. She will be editing the text, without changing any words, and adding around 50 of her interpreted illustrations. This will take on a “how to make a monster” approach, and describe what happened when Frankenstein (only a student, never a doctor) succeeded. The Sacramento Library events start in January.
Erin Adair Hodges
Poetry Participant '14Erin Adair-Hodges’ first book, Let’s All Die Happy, is the winner of the 2016 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and was published as part of the Pitt Poetry Series in October 2017.
Victoria Patterson
Writers Workshop Participant, '06, '12Her new book of stories, The Secret Habit of Sorrow, is forthcoming from Counterpoint in July, 2018.
Maria Hummel
Writers Workshop Participant, '09Her newest novel, Still Lives, is forthcoming from Counterpoint in June, 2018.
Julia Scheeres
Writers Workshop Participant, '03She confronts ghosts during a tour of her childhood home for an essay in Narrative Magazine.
Jacqueline Doyle
Writers Workshop Participant, '14She has recent creative nonfiction in The Gettysburg Review (Summer 2017) and Superstition Review (Spring 2017), and a Notable Essay listing in Best American Essays 2017 for her essay “A Eulogy, Despite” in Full Grown People. Her flash chapbook The Missing Girl (winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition) was published by Black Lawrence Press in fall 2017. Her flash “Zig Zag” won the 2017 flash contest at Midway Journal, judged by Michael Martone, and she has recent microflash in matchbook and Wigleaf, among others.
Jeanne Foster
Poetry Participant, '88, Writers Workshop Participant '89, '92The Living Theatre: Selected Poems by Bianca Tarozzi, translated from the Italian by Jeanne Foster and Alan Williamson, was released by BOA Editions, Ltd., October 2017, in The Lannan Translations Selection Series.
Katherine Vaz
Writers Workshops Staff and Participant, '88Katherine Vaz’s new fifth book, The Love Life of an Assistant Animator & Other Stories Paperback, was published in April 2017 by Tailwinds Press. “What rich, eccentric, at times even farcical joys these stories evoke–and, at the same time, what poignant, aching sorrows. Vaz’s characters, from the gravity of their family ties to the folly and grace of their soaring aspirations, take us deep inside ourselves and our never-ending struggle to find our way in a world that changes far too fast around us.”– Julie Glass, author of Three Junes.
Attended with the help of the UC Irvine Scholarship
Jimin Han
Jimin Han’s novel, A Small Revolution, was published in May 2017 (Little A Books). It was featured as: A BuzzFeed Binge-Worthy Literary Book, one of Electric Literature’s 34 Books by Women of Color to Read This Year, one of Redbook’s 20 Books By Women You Must Read this Spring
Susan Henderson
Writers Workshops Participant, '09She was featured in Publishers Weekly‘s September 11th Author Profile. The profile discussed the Montana town of 180 people that Henderson lived in for a month to research her novel, The Flicker of Old Dreams, which will be published by HarperCollins in March of 2018.
Jasmin Darznik
Writers Workshops Participant in Fiction and Nonfiction, '06,'10Her novel Song of a Captive Bird will be published by Random House/Ballantine in February 2018. It tells the story of Iran’s iconic woman poet, Forugh Farrokhzad. Darznik also recently joined the MFA faculty at California College of the Arts.
Janet Fitch
Writers Workshops Teaching Staff & Participant, ’89/ Poetry Participant '17Janet Fitch’s novel, The Revolution of Marina M., set during the turbulent years of the Russian Revolution was published in November, 2017 by Little Brown and Co.
Martin J. Smith
Writers Workshop '92; Faculty member since 2002Globe Pequot published Mr. Las Vegas Has a Bad Knee in November 2017, Martin J. Smith’s collection of journalistic essays spanning his 31-year career in the American Southwest, with a foreword by David L. Ulin. “[…] Smith’s true gift resides in his empathy—in the gentle way he forces us to see grace and redemption in the lives of people whom most of us would be inclined to mock.”—Steve Hawk, former editor of Surfer and Sierra magazines.
Sommer Schafer
Writers Workshops Participant '13Her short story, “Leaving Hope,” appears in the Fall/Winter 2017 Issue of The Carolina Quarterly.
David Kerns
Writers Workshop Participant '05His novel, Fortnight on Maxwell Street, is forthcoming from Bay Tree Publishing in February, 2018. It is a reluctant hero’s journey of fear and courage set in Chicago in the spring of 1968. The young medical student protagonist spends two weeks delivering babies in the kitchens and bedrooms of the inner-city’s slum tenements. Over his head medically, and unprotected in one of America’s most dangerous neighborhoods, his character and resourcefulness are tested in the extreme when a national tragedy intervenes.
David Corbett
Writers Workshop Participant '88, '89, '91, '99, '01His latest novel, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday, will be published in 2018 by Black Opal Books. His writing guide, The Art of Character, recently has been purchased for publication in Spain and China. His short story, “Rusty Cage,” appeared in the anthology Just to Watch Them Die, premised on the songs of Johnny Cash. He is a contributing editor at Writer’s Digest, a regular contributor to the blog Writer Unboxed, and continues to provide his fiction workshops at the San Miguel de Allende Writers’ Conference in Mexico (and other conferences), as well as at Book Passage in the Bay Area (where he is co-chair of the annual Mystery Writers’ Conference), and online at Litreactor.
Jimin Han
Writers Workshop Participant '95Her novel, A Small Revolution, was published in May 2017 (Little A Books). Los Angeles Review of Books called it “a novel of remarkably rendered extremes.…It is an ambitious and accomplished debut that pulls us out of our comfortable window seats and places us in a room, in a young woman’s heart, and in a nascent democracy’s earliest days.” It was featured as: A BuzzFeed Binge-Worthy Literary Book, one of Electric Literature’s 34 Books by Women of Color to Read This Year, one of Redbook’s 20 Books By Women You Must Read this Spring
Attended with the help of Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation Scholarship
Julia Flynn Siler
Writers Workshop Participant '04, '05, Writers Workshop Teaching Staff, '14, '17Julia Flynn Siler is a Logan Nonfiction Fellow this the fall. Along with 18 other celebrated journalists, she will be using the time to complete her work of narrative investigative history, Daughters of Joy: America’s Other Slaves and Their Fight for Freedom (forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf). For more information, please visit http://careyinstitute.org/
Evie Shockley
Poetry Teaching Staff & Participant, '99Evie Shockley’s new collection, semiautomatic, was published by Wesleyan University Press in September and was featured on Publisher’s Weekly’s best 10 list for Poetry this Fall. “Insisting on the power of art, Shockley traces the various forms of violence that cross racial, ethnic, gender, class, sexual, national, and linguistic boundaries.” www.publishersweekly.com
Lucinda Watson
Poetry Participant '91, '92, '96, '98, '02, '04Her essays “In Rome with My Dad on Business” and “Letter Yet Unsent” were nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2017. They will appear in Issue 30 of Umbrella Factory magazine, coming out December 15, 2017.
Christopher Sindt
Poetry Participant, '13Christopher Sindt’s new book, System and Population, is published in Parlor Press’s Free Verse Editions series (2017). System and Population is a lyric account of the proposed damming of the American River in Northern California. It explores the intersections of personal and cultural experience, scientific study, and the politics of dams and rivers; meditates on human experiences, such as parenthood and loss; and studies the effects of environmental damage and disaster. www.parlorpress.com
Jami Macarty
Poetry Participant, '10, '14, '17Mind of Spring, the winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award and Jami Macarty’s second chapbook of poetry, was released into Poetry Land October 16, 2017. www.vallummag.com
Marjorie Robertson
Writers Workshop Participant '08Her debut novel, Bitters in the Honey, is now available in paperback. This novel began as Robertson’s MFA these at George Mason University under the tutelage of Alan Cheuse.
Laura Swearingen-Steadwell
Poetry Participant '15Her new poetry collection, All Blue So Late, winner of the 2016 Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize, was released in December, 2017, from Northwestern University Press.
Grace Talusan
Writers Workshop Participant, '98She is the winner of the 2017 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing for Nonfiction for The Body Papers, a memoir about trauma, illness, and immigration as told through personal and official documentation, scheduled for publication in the Fall of 2018. She teaches writing at Tufts University and Grub Street. As a Fulbright Scholar, she returned to the Philippines for several months, the longest time she spent there since leaving at age three. She lives outside of Boston with her husband Alonso Nichols, a photographer. She attended The Community of Writers in 1998.
JJ Strong
Writers Workshops Participant, 2013.His debut novel, Us Kids Know, was published on October 24 by Razorbill, an imprint at Penguin Random House.
Michele Karas
Poetry Participant, '17Several of her poems begun at the 2017 Community of Writers Poetry Workshop appear in 2 Horatio, an annual Village-based literary journal. She read several poems at the book launch in October at Jefferson Market Library in NYC.
Judy Juanita
Writers Workshop Participant ‘92The paperback edition of her book Virgin Soul was recently released (Equidistance Press, 2017). Virgin Soul was “discovered” at Squaw by the late greats Fred Hill and James Houston., and is a required text in many college classes. Her collection of essays, a Distinguished Finalist in OSU’s NonFiction 2016 Prize, DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland (Equidistance, 2016), garnered a starred Kirkus Review and Kirkus Book of the Month, March, 2017.
Marjorie Saiser
Poetry Participant '00Her most recent book, I Have Nothing to Say About Fire (The Backwaters Press, 2016) won the Nebraska Book Award for poetry. For a video of a reading from the book launch, go to poetmarge.com.
Elaine Barnard
Writers Workshop Participant, '72, '80, '11Her short stories appeared or are forthcoming in the 2017 issues of Fixional, Zimbell House, Lost River Review, Beach Reads, Sunlight Press, Argot, and The Crux.
Jonathan (J.G.) McClure
Poetry Participant '14His first poetry collection, The Fire Lit & Nearing, is coming soon from Indolent Books. It includes poems he workshopped at the Community of Writers. The book will be generally available at bookstores and online in April 2018.
Attended with the help of The UC Irvine MFA scholarship
Ama Codjoe
Poetry Participant '15She recently received the 2017 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, which is given annually to six women writers who demonstrate excellence and promise in the early stages of their careers.
John Harvey
Poetry Participant '95, Writers Workshop Staff '97His new book, Going Down Slow and Other Stories, will be released by Five Leaves Publications in November, 2017.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo’s new collection of poetry, Cenzontle, will be published by BOA Editions, Ltd., in April of 2018.
Jennifer Haupt
Writers Workshop Participant '09, '13Her new novel, In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, a story about finding grace when there can be no forgiveness, set against the backdrop of post-genocide Rwanda, will be published by Central Avenue Publishing on April 1, 2018. She workshopped this novel both times she attended the Community of Writers workshops.
Stephen Massimilla
Poetry Workshop Participant '04, '06His multi-genre co-authored volume, Cooking with the Muse (Tupelo), won the Eric Hoffer Award, the National Indie Excellence Award, the New England Book Award, the USA News Best Book Award, and others, and was named a top pick by Bella Magazine, Foreword, and Epicurus’s Laurie’s Library, and “best of the summer” by The Chicago Tribune. Over 70 recent interviews appeared or are forthcoming in such newspapers as Epoch Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Huffington Post; the sites of Edible, Food52, Mass Poetry, Poetry Flash, Poetry International, the PSA, and many others; and many radio shows. Other work appeared in recent months in over 30 publications, including The Collagist, Mudlark, Notre Dame, Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, Pleiades, Posit, StorySouth, Washington Square, Whole Life, The New English Verse anthology, and The Traveler’s Vade Mecum.
Michael Andreasen
Writers Workshop Participant '07His debut collection The Sea Beast Takes a Lover will be available February 28, 2018, from Dutton. The collection features stories that have appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, McSweeney’s, Zoetrope: All-Story, and Quarterly West.
Attended with the help of UCI Scholarship
Amy Tan
Writers Workshop Participant '87, '90, Special GuestHer new book, a memoir entitled Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir, was released by HarperCollins in October, 2017
Paco Márquez
Poetry Participant, '12His first chapbook, Portraits in G Minor, is out through Folded Word Press. He also has poems soon forthcoming in Huizache and Perigee.
Berwyn Moore
Poetry Participant '90, '92Her third collection of poems, Sweet Herbaceous Miracle, won the 2017 John Ciardi Prize from BkMk Press, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Enid Shomer was the judge.
Sally Van Doren
Poetry Participant "01, "03, "06Garrison Keillor featured a poem, “Defiance,” from her upcoming book Promise on his show The Writer’s Almanac. Promise was published by LSU Press this fall.
Cynthia Robinson
Writers Workshop Participant '13, '14Her story, “Maison des Oiseaux,” finalist for the Jeffery E. Smith Editors’ Prize, is featured this week on the Missouri Review‘s website. You can read it for free at missourireview.com. Her novel, Birds of Wonder, will be published by Standing Stone Books in February 2018.
Aleta George
Writers Workshops Participant, '05, '10She received an inaugural Alan Jutzi Residential Fellowship for Non-Traditional Scholars at The Huntington Library.
KB Ballentine
Poetry Participant ‘15Her fifth collection of poetry, Almost Everything, Almost Nothing, was released in September by Middle Creek Publishing. Several of the poems in this collection were crafted in the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley Poetry Program, including the title poem. www.kbballentine.com.
Attended with the help of The Galway Kinnell Memorial Scholarship
Jill Kolongowski
Writers Workshops Participant '14Her first book, an essay collection called Life Lessons Harry Potter Taught Me, will be released by Ulysses Press in October 2017. Using a combination of personal stories and literary criticism, these essays grapple with the themes at the core of Harry and the trio’s journey and considers how the series shaped the worldview of a generation–from the need to hold tight to a sense of humor and wonder to the feminism of Hermione and the courage needed for the fight against oppression.
Attended with the help of St. Mary's MFA Scholarship
Melissa Fondakowski
Poetry Participant, 02Her first novel, Out, was published on August 29, 2017. Out is a coming-of-age, coming out novel that mirrors the plot of Dante’s Purgatorio. Melissa’s novel, as well as her podcast, can be found at sermonarian.com.
Dan Bellm
Poetry Participant, '90, '92, '95, '97, '03His translation of Mexican poet Pura López Colomé, Speaking in Song, came out from Shearsman Books (UK) in September 2017. His fourth book of poems, Deep Well, was published by Lavender Ink (New Orleans) in April 2017. His translation of The Song of the Dead by Pierre Reverdy was published by Black Square Editions (New York) in September 2016.
Ian Randall Wilson
Poetry Participant '08, '93; Writers Workshop '04His first poetry collection, Ruthless Heaven, was published by Finishing Line Press in October, 2017.
Bruce Rettig
Writers Workshops Participant, '12, and '15He won first place for his memoir, Refraction, in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association’s 2017 Literary Contest. Over six hundred pieces were submitted to twelve contest categories, and final winners were announced at the conference and awards dinner in Seattle. PNWA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to authors and the development of writing talent from pen to publication through education, accessibility to the publishing industry, and participation in an interactive, vital writer community. Rettig’s memoir was workshopped at the 2015 Community of Writers Workshop. His website is BruceRettig.com.
Attended with the help of The Carlisle Family Scholarship
Vickie Vértiz
Writers Workshop and Poetry Participant, '15She recently published Palm Frond with Its Throat Cut, her second collection of poetry with the University of Arizona Press, Camino del Sol Series. In 2016, she was selected by Natalie Diaz as the Poetry Center resident at the University of Arizona, Tucson. She continues to write essays on Los Angeles arts and community development for KCET. www.vickievertiz.wordpress.com
Attended with the help of The Lucille Clifton Scholarship, Ancinas Scholarship
Emily Jungmin Yoon
Poetry Participant 2015She was recently awarded the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Rosenberg Sargent Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Her chapbook, Ordinary Misfortunes, winner of the Sunken Garden Chapbook Poetry Prize, was published by Tupelo Press this July, and her first full-length poetry collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species, will be published by Ecco Books in September 2018.
Attended with the help of WC&C Scholarship
Mary Kuryla
Writers’ Workshop Participant, '10.Her collection Freak Weather: Stories was selected by Amy Hempel for the 2016 AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction and was published by University of Massachusetts Press in November, 2017. This Fall, 2017, her short stories appeared in Shenandoah and The Denver Quarterly.
Attended with the help of The Thomas P. Jones Scholarship
Alia Volz
Writers Workshop Participant, '11, '14Her essay “Snakebit,” originally published in The Threepenny Review, has been selected for The Best American Essays 2017, guest-edited by Leslie Jamison. Available at a local independent bookstore near you in October.
Attended with the help of Oakley Hall Memorial Scholarship, Oakley Hall III Fiction Scholarship
Christopher DeWan
ScreenwritingHis short story “The Atheist of Dekalb Street” was selected for this year’s Best Small Fictions anthology, edited by Amy Hempel and now available from Braddock Avenue Books.
Elana K Arnold
Writers Workshop Participant '95,'98Her novel What Girls Are Made of has been longlisted for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature.
Diana Fuller
Diana Fuller is producing the film, Once Was Water, directed by Christopher Beaver. Once Was Water is a lively solutions-oriented documentary that tells the story of how the driest city in America, in the middle of the Mojave desert, leads the way in sustainable water conservation.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/229357749
Laurie Ann Doyle
Writers Workshops Participant, '09, '14Laurie Ann Doyle’s new book of stories, World Gone Missing, was published by Regal House press in September 2017.
Tiphanie Yanique
Her essay “Americans in a Battered Paradise,” on Hurricane Irma and the U.S. Virgin Islands, appeared in the New York Times on September 12th. Tiphanie was subsequently interviewed on “Democracy Now” and NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday.”
Charmaine Craig
Writers Workshops Participant, '97, '98.Her novel Miss Burma (Grove Press/ Grove Atlantic) made the National Book Award long list for fiction. www.nationalbook.org
Janine Kovac
Writers Workshops Participant, '11, '12, '14, '16Her debut memoir Spinning: Choreography for Coming Home was published by Moxie Road Productions on September 19, 2017. Originally conceived as a cognitive science primer, Spinning is a memoir that weaves the story of micro preemie twins with chronicle of the untimely end to Janine’s career as an international ballet dancer.
Attended with the help of George Pascoe Miller (2011 ), Carlisle Family Foundation (2012), Dirk Eshleman (2014)
Erich Stonestreet
Screenwriters Workshop Participant, '06Erich Stonestreet colonized Mars in the comedy sci-fi short The Americano, produced for the 2017 NASA film festival.
Judy Bebelaar
Poetry Workshop '08, '10Her non-fiction book, And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown, co-written with fellow teacher Ron Cabral about the students they knew who were sent to San Francisco’s Opportunity High by Jim Jones in 1976, will be published by Sugartown Publishing in the fall of 2017.
Thomas Allbaugh
Writers Workshops Participant, '13His first novel, Apocalypse TV, will be published by eLectio Publishers in early October, 2017.
Matthew Zapruder
Poetry Teaching Staff '14Matthew Zapruder’s new book Why Poetry was published by Ecco Press in August, 2017.
Josh Weil
Teaching Staff '13, '14, '17His new novel The Age of Perpetual Light was published by Grove/Atlantic in September, 2017.
Alice Anderson
Poetry Workshop Participant '92, '93, '08Her new memoir, Some Bright Morning, I’ll Fly Away, was published by St. Martin’s Press in August, 2017.
Jeff Solomon
Poetry Participant '00, Writers Workshop Participant '92His book So Famous and So Gay: The Fabulous Potency of Truman Capote and Gertrude Stein was published in May 2017 by the University of Minnesota Press.
Attended with the help of UC Irvine Scholarship
Lucy Biederman
Poetry Participant, '11Her book The Walmart Book of the Dead won the 2017 Vine Leaves Press Vignette Collection Award and will be published later this year.
Nettie Reynolds (previously Hartsock)
Writers Workshop Participant 1999Her two one-minute plays are part of this year’s National One Minute Play Festival.
John Daniel
His poem “After the Wedding” was read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac. The podcast can be found here: http://writersalmanac.org/episodes/20170810/
Elizabeth Rosner
Writers Workshop Participant '82, '83, '87, Poetry Participant '99, Teaching Staff '06, '15Her new book, Survivor Cafe: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, was released from Counterpoint Press this month.
Ariel Lewis
Writers Workshop Participant, '17Her short story, “Gifts,” was recently published in Wildness issue 9. She was also shortlisted for The Plaza Literary Prize for her novella, Four Small Love Stories.
Sally Van Doren
Poetry Participant, '01, '03, '06Her third collection of poems, Promise, was released in August, 2017 by LSU Press. The cover of Promise features one of Van Doren’s asemic drawings, which appear regularly on her Instagram @sallyvandoren where she posts daily excerpts from her ongoing poem, The Sense Series.
Jeffrey Kingman
Poetry Participant, '12His poem “Clarice Lispector” was published in Ursa Minor, Volume 2: Dark Matter, a publication of U.C. Berkeley Extension.
Jamie Ford
Writers Workshops Participant, '06His third novel, Love and Other Consolation Prizes, was published in September, 2017, by Ballantine Books. He also has a new short story that will be published on the same date in Montana Noir by Akashic.
Nick Mann
Writers Workshop Participant '09His latest, Wounded, is a combination prequel/sequel to the 2013 novel, Forgetful, which won a Beverly Hills Book Award in the category of African American Fiction. In this new novel, three lifelong friends – Ben, Levi, and Tracy – take very different paths after high school, but all have brushes with danger and war.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Poetry Workshop, '11Marcelo Hernandez Castillo recently sold his memoir, Children Of The Land, at auction to Harper Collins Publishers via Mary Evans Agency Inc. and he also won the annual A. Poulin Jr., first book prize from BOA Editions for his poetry manuscript Cenzontle, judged by Brenda Shaughnessy. Furthermore, his first poetry chapbook, Dulce, was chosen by Chris Abani as the winner of the Drinking Gourd prize and will be forthcoming from Northwestern University Press.
Attended with the help of The Lucille Clifton Scholarship
Sommer Schafer
Writers Workshops Participant '13Sommer Schafer has three very short stories published in FRiGG Issue 49.
Scot Siegel
Poetry Participant, '07Scot Siegel has poems in Coachella Valley Review, Crab Creek Review, Cordite Poetry Review, and Haibun Today. A review of Siegel’s recent collection, The Constellation of Extinct Stars and Other Poems, appears in the 2017 issue of Hiram Poetry Review.
Brian Rogers
Writers Workshops Participant, '95, '02Brian Rogers’ novel The Whole of the Moon was published by the University of Nevada Press in September, 2017.
Jeff Walt
Poetry Participant, '17Jeff Walt had a single poem selected as 2nd Place in The Frank O’Hara Prize competition sponsored by the Worcester County Poetry Association with publication in The Worcester Review, 2017. Also, He was hired on as a Regional Editor with the San Diego Poetry Annual earlier this year. Jeff will be in residence this fall at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City, NE. Then, in February of 2018, he will be in residence for the entire month at Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts in Fairhope, AL.
Laurie Ann Doyle
Writers Workshops Participant, '09, '14Laurie Ann Doyle’s story “Just Ask for Hateman” appears in The Los Angeles Review, chronicling the journey of a daughter reuniting with her long-lost father in People’s Park. The story is featured in Laurie’s new book, World Gone Missing, to be released this October. Two other stories in the collection were treated in workshop at the Writers Workshops.
Dylan Brie Ducey
Writers Workshops Participant, '15Dylan’s short story, “The Perfect Mother,” appeared in The Tishman Review in January, 2017. A micro fiction entitled “Three a.m.” appeared in Minola Review in March, 2017. Another short story, “God Bless the Child,” appeared in Sou’wester’s spring 2017 issue. “The Dare” appeared in Split Lip in May, 2017. And Gargoyle published a short story, “Effacée Like Me,” in its 66th issue this summer. Her story, “The Talisman,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and long-listed for Wigleaf’s Top 50.
Attended with the help of the Carlisle Family Scholarship
Sheila Thorne
Writers Workshops Participant, '04Sheila Thorne’s short story “The Museum of Rooms” appears in Gargoyle Magazine #66.
Vishwas R Gaitonde
Writers Workshop Participant, '14He spent the month of June working on new writing at The International Retreat for Writers in Scotland on a Hawthornden Fellowship.
Justin McFarr
Writers Workshops Participant, '13His debut novel The Bear Who Broke the World, which takes place in Berkeley during the summer of 1976, will be released on August 1, 2017, by Wheeler Street Press.
Barbara McDonald
Poetry participant, '80; Art of the Wild, Poetry,'93, Art of the Wild, Fiction '94Slipsliding by the Bay: A Novel, a spoof of San Francisco in the seventies, was treated in workshop at Squaw Valley. It was published July, 2017.
Mary Volmer
Writers Workshops Participant, 03, 05; Writers Workshops Teaching Staff ’16Her second novel, Reliance, Illinois, came out in paperback in spring 2017.
Lex Williford
1997, 2004 Squaw Valley Screenwriters' ConferenceHis novella in flash, Superman on the Roof, won the 10th Annual Rose Metal Press Flash Fiction Chapbook Award.
Merridawn Duckler
Writer workshop, '07She was named one of the WigLeaf Top 50 for micro-fiction that appeared in The Offing.
Lori Tobias
94, 95Her novel Wander was named a finalist in new fiction by the International Book Awards.
Jami Macarty
Poetry Participant, '10, '14, '17Her first chapbook of poetry, Landscape of The Wait, was released from Finishing Line Press on June 23, 2017.
Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
Writers Workshops Participant, '13Her debut novel, The Nest, spent more than four months on the New York Times bestseller list and was recently released in paperback.
Ann Tweedy
Poetry Participant '97, '00, '04, '07, '12, '15She won a Bisexual Book Award in Poetry in June for her book The Body’s Alphabet. Several of the poems in the book were written over the years at Squaw Valley.
Robert Rorke
Writers Workshop Participant '11He has placed a second chapter, Ten Dollar Bill, from his just completed novel Car Trouble in the current issue of The Amsterdam Quarterly.
Christine Granados
Writers Workshop Participant '09Her second book of fiction, Fight Like a Man and Other Stories We Tell Our Children, was published by the University of New Mexico Press, 2017.
Attended with the help of the Ancinas Family Scholarship
Christie Nelson
1998 (unsure of date; better check)She will publish her third novel, Beautiful Illusion, San Francisco’s Golden Gate International Exposition, Treasure Island 1939 with She Writes Press in May of 2018. Beautiful Illusion is a story of love and deception, intrigue and betrayal, between a female newspaper reporter, a Japanese diplomat, and a Mayan art scholar. It is also the story of the men and women who built San Francisco’s last world’s fair dedicated to peace and brotherhood in the Pacific, of a city within a city, of grandeur and pageantry, glamour and glitz, on the eve of World War II.
Chuck Joy
Medical Writing '03He has a new collection of poetry from Cleveland’s Red Giant Books. Theme of Line consists of poems selected to elucidate the use of line.
Kathleen O’Toole
Poetry Participant 2001,2003,2005, 2009, 2011Her poem “At the Mariner’s Church Auvillar” won 3rd place in the Image/NY Encounter Poetry contest, 2017. She collaborated on a new collection, “In the Margins: A Conversation in Poetry” with 3 other Maryland poets with whom she’s been writing for twenty-five years, which was released in March 2017 by Cherry Grove Collections.
Anthony J Mohr
Writers Workshops Participant '08His essay “Rainy Day Schedule” won honorable mention in Sequestrum‘s 2016 Editors Reprint Award. His essay “Super Summer Spectacular” appeared in the spring 2016 issue of Compose Journal and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Superstition Review published his essay “Risk” in its issue 19 (Spring 2017), and Prick of the Spindle published his essay “Midnight Auto” in its issue 10 (spring 2016).
Joe Bardin
Writers Workshop Participant, '01He published his literary nonfiction essay “Trenton into Time”, in the Spring 2017 issue of the Superstition Review.
Julia Flynn Siler
Writers Workshop teaching Staff & Participant '04, '05She was awarded the 2017 Mayborn Fellowship in Biography for her third book. She’ll be recognized at next month’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference in Grapevine, Texas, where such masters as Sebastian Junger (A Perfect Storm), Katherine Boo (Behind the Beautiful Forevers) and Charles Johnson (Middle Passage) will be keynote speakers. More information please visit http://bit.ly/2qKoH4V
Jon Riccio
Poetry Participant, '15His current and forthcoming work appears in Muse/ A Journal, Permafrost, Steel Toe Review, Visitant, and The Volta. He recently completed his first year as a PhD candidate and composition instructor at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers.
Conor Bracken
Poetry Participant '13His chapbook Henry Kissinger, Mon Amour was selected by Diane Seuss as the winner of the 2017 Frost Place Chapbook Competition, and will be published by Bull City Press in September 2017.
Attended with the help of Tuition waiver
Vishwas R Gaitonde
Writers Workshop Participant, '14His multimedia essay, “King of Melody, Lord of Rhythm: Lydian Nadhaswaram’s Musical Journey,” on India’s amazing 10-year-old music prodigy was published in The Mantle on May 18, 2017. You can find the essay here.
Ann Tweedy
Poetry Participant '97, '00, '04, '07, '12, '15Her first full-length book, The Body’s Alphabet, has been named as a finalist for a Bisexual Book Award in poetry. Ann is also a finalist for the Bi Writer of the Year Award. She will be reading at the awards ceremony on June 10 in New York City.
Justin McFarr
Writers Workshops Participant, '13Under his pen name, Reeve Armstrong, he has seen the publication of two books for young readers – the chapter book Dashiell Stone: Best Friends … Forever? and Will Peck SAVES THE WORLD! for middle school-aged children. They were both released in January 2017 from Wheeler Street Press.
Kristen Tracy
Poetry Participant '07Her manuscript, Half-Hazard, was selected by the Poetry Foundation for the Emily Dickinson First Book Award and will be published by Graywolf Press in October, 2018. She also has poems forthcoming in The Southern Review.
Christina Hutchins
Poetry participant '03, '06, '10, '13, '16She is the 2017 Dartmouth Poet in Residence at The Frost Place. Reviews of her most recent book of poems, Tender the Maker, appear in Kirkus Reviews, Fjords Magazine, and Beloit Poetry Review.
Kimball Taylor
Writers Workshop Participant '11His book The Coyote’s Bicycle is nominated for the California Book Award.
Jordan Fisher Smith
Writers Workshop Participant '01/ Teaching Staff '14 '16His book, Engineering Eden, won the 2017 California Book Award Silver Medal for nonfiction.
Anne Rice
Writers Workshop Participant, '79Her new novel, Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, is the twelfth installation of the Vampire Chronicles series. The paperback edition was released by Anchor in May 2017.
Sommer Schafer
Writers Workshops Participant '13Her short story, “The Youngest Son,” is out now in the literary journal Monday Night.
Rich Ferguson
Writers Workshop Participant, '04, '07His debut novel, New Jersey Me, was released in the fall of 2016 by Rare Bird Books/Barnacle Books.
Sands Hall
Writers Workshops participant '89/ Teaching StaffHer memoir, Flunk. Start., has been purchased by Counterpoint Press for publication in January 2018. Sands is represented by Michael Carlisle at Inkwell Management.
Melenie Freedom Flynn
Writers Workshops Participant; '09, '10Her nonfiction piece, “Message From Your Inmate,” won Vela Magazine‘s 2017 Nonfiction Contest. Melenie attended with the assistance of the Carlisle Family Scholarship.
Attended with the help of The Carlisle Family Scholarship
Sandra Scofield
Writers Workshops, Teaching StaffHer eighth book of fiction, Swim: Stories of the Sixties, will be published May 15.
Ann Fisher-Wirth
Poetry Workshop Participant, '92,'00,'09,'13She is currently the Anne Spencer Poet in Residence at Randolph College, Lynchburg, VA. She is a fellow of the Black Earth Institute, and edited the edition “South” of the BEI online journal About Place (online on May 1). In May she will be at CAMAC/Centre d’Art, Marnay, France, on a month-long residency. Her new book, Mississippi, a poetry/photography collaboration with Maude Schuyler Clay, will be published by Wings Press in 2018. Selections from this collaboration exist also as a photography/letterpress broadside museum exhibit and as a theatre performance piece.
Jeanine Stevens
Poetry Participant, '07, '10, '14Her chapbook, Brief Immensity, won the Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition and was published in August, 2017. Two of the poems, “In Situ” and “Full of Sighs,” were started at Squaw Valley.
Gwen Goodkin
Writers Workshop, '07, '11Her story, “Last Chance” will be published in Vol. II of USC’s literary magazine, Exposition Review.
Danusha Laméris
Poetry Participant,'00She has four poems from her new manuscript, Bonfire Opera, in the May/June issue of the American Poetry Review.
Ann Tweedy
Poetry Parcipant '97, '00, '04, '07, '12, '15Her poetry book, The Body’s Alphabet, was named as a finalist for a Golden Crown Literary Award. Several of the poems were written during different summers at Squaw Valley.
Angie Chatman
Writers Workshops Participant, '12, '16Her short story “Blue Bird, Blue Skies” recently appeared in Blood Orange Review.
Attended with the help of Jamie Ford Scholarship, Carlisle Family Fellowship, Jessica O'Dwyer Scholarship
Cynthia Robinson
Writers Workshops Participant, '13, '14Her story “Community,” selected by judge Kirstin Valdez-Quade as winner of the 2016 Driftless Prize in Fiction sponsored by Devil’s Lake, is out in the Spring 2017 issue. You can read it here.
Edan Lepucki
Writers Workshops Participant 2007, Teaching StaffEdan Lepucki’s second novel, Woman No. 17, was published by Hogarth/Crown in May, 2017.
Janet Fitch
Writers Workshops Teaching Staff & Participant, ’95Janet Fitch’s novel The Revolution of Marina M. set during the turbulent years of the Russian Revolution, will be released on November 7, 2017 by Little Brown and Co. Fitch’s punk-rock novel, Paint It Black, has been adapted into ta feature film which will be released in May.
Andrew Roe
Writers Workshops Participant, '97, '04His short story collection, Where You Live, was published by Engine Books in May 2017. The book received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews.
Andrea Avery
Writers Workshop participant; '10, '16Andrea Avery’s first book, Sonata: A Memoir of Pain and the Piano, was published in May, 2017, by Pegasus Books.
Leonard Chang
Writers Workshops Participant, '94Leonard Chang’s new novel, The Lockpicker, was published in May 2017, and a new TV show, Snowfall, that he helped write and produce will premiere on FX in the summer.
Charmaine Craig
Writers Workshops Participant; '97,'98Charmaine Craig’s latest novel, Miss Burma, was published in May, 2017 by Grove Press. Miss Burma is an Indie Next Selection and has received a starred review from Kirkus.
Kathleen O’Toole
Poetry Participant '01, '03, '05, '09, '11Kathleen O’Toole’s poem “At the mariner’s chapel, Auvillar” won 3rd place in the Image/NY Encounter poetry contest. She collaborated on the collection In the Margins: A Conversation in Poetry, released in March 2017 by Cherry Grove collections.
Marjorie Saiser
Poetry Participant, '00She is the winner of the Fourth River (Chatham University) Folio Contest. Her entry, “Confluence Itself,” consists of a dozen poems to be published online in the fall of 2017. Natalie Diaz judged the competition. Also, Poems2go has published two additional poems.
Denise Emanuel Clemen
Writers Workshop Participant; '06,'10Denise Emanuel Clemen had essays published in the Fall 2016 (issue#18) Superstition Review; the November 2016 issue of the Beacon, a publication of the American Adoption Congress; the Spring 2016 (issue#14) Serving House Journal; and Chicago Now‘s “Portrait of an Adoption” in November 2016. Short fiction appeared in the 2016 Sand Hill Review, the 2016 (issue #36) Berkeley Fiction Review, and in the Pen Center USA post-election anthology, Only Light Can Do That.
Jeff Kingman
Poetry Participant, '12Three of Jeffrey Kingman’s poems appear in the Volume 17, Spring 2017 issue of The Offbeat, a journal affiliated with Michigan State University.
Sandy Yang
Writers Workshops Participant, '12Sandy Yang’s short story, “Inside Joke,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Eleven Eleven, and appears in the Fall 2016 issue.
KB Ballentine
Poetry Participant, 2015KB Ballentine’s fourth collection, The Perfume of Leaving, won the 2016 Blue Light Press Poetry Award and was published in late 2016. A few of the poems were written at the Community of Writers. Ballentine’s fifth collection, Almost Everything, Almost Nothing, was accepted for publication by Middle Creek Publishing and will be available May 2017. Several of the poems in this latest collection were conceived and workshopped at Squaw Valley, including the title poem of the book.
Attended with the help of The Galway Kinnell Memorial Scholarship.
Elaine Barnard
Writers Workshop Participant, '72, '2011Elaine Barnard’s short stories appear in the current issues of Lost River Review, Kyso Flash anthology, Beach Reads-Here Comes the Sun.
Laurie Posner
Poetry Participant, '12, '16Her poem “Dear Jason Robards” appears in The Museum of Americana Issue Twelve.
Anne Ray
Writers Workshop Participant, '06Anne Ray won the 2016 Danahy Prize for fiction for “Please Repeat My Name,” which appeared in the Tampa Review. Her work has appeared in StoryQuarterly, Gettysburg Review, LIT, and Opium. Her story “Reluctantly” is forthcoming in Conduit, and “Guidance & Control” is currently up at The Adirondack Review.
Lindsey Lee Johnson
Writers Workshop Participant, '13Lindsey Lee Johnson’s debut novel, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth, was published by Random House in January 2017. The novel was named a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, an American Booksellers Association Indie Next Pick, a LibraryReads Pick, a Book of the Month Club Pick, and People Magazine‘s Book of the Week. It was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, and the Chronicle called it “extraordinary, impossibly funny and achingly sad.” The New York Times called it “an alarming, compelling and coolly funny debut novel” and praised its “compassion, its ability to see the humanity inside even the apparently hopeless person and the shimmering intelligence of its prose.” Lindsey attended the Community of Writers with the assistance of the Stearns Scholarship.
Patricia Spears Jones
Poetry Participant ’91,’92,’94 / Poetry Teaching StaffPoet and playwright Patricia Spears Jones is the the 2017 recipient of the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers. The judges praised Jones for her “sophisticated and moving” work. Her books of poems are Painkiller, Femme du Monde and, most recently, A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems. “Patricia Spears Jones’ poems are made of fever, bones, and breath. The fever of eros, the bones of family and friends, and the breath of everyday existence. She is an accessible poet, but never boring,” the citation reads. “More of us should know who she is, and even more should read her.”
Cynthia Robinson
Fiction Writers Workshop Participant, '13, '14Cynthia Robinson’s novel Birds of Wonder will be published by Standing Stone Books in February 2018.
Alison Morse
Writers Workshop Participant '10Alison Morse’s collection of very short stories, If You Wave a Chicken Over Your Head, was published by Red Bird Chapbooks in February, 2017.
Molly Fisk
Poetry Participant, '92, '95, '98, '04 & Art of the Wild Participant '94Molly Fisk was named the inaugural Poet Laureate of Nevada County, CA in April. Her latest book is Houston, We Have a Possum, Further Observations from a Working Poet.
Attended with the help of Poetry Elf/Community of Writers Scholarship
Monika Rose
Poetry Participant, '97 & Writers Workshops Participant '00 & Art of the Wild Participant '94,'95.Monika Rose is co-editor of the Butte Fire anthology, Out of the Fire, (June 17, 2017) by nonprofit literary publisher Manzanita Writers Press in Calaveras County. Over 150 full-color pages of photography and poignant reflections in prose and poetry of a horrific fire, the seventh most destructive in California history, and one that destroyed a community and charred the landscape and environment of an already bark beetle-infested forest and woodland region. A website will chronicle the history of the event and the aftermath, reflecting the sensibilities of living in the foothill and Sierra region of California, and an eBook and eZine.
Charles Harper Webb
Poetry Participant, '91A collection of my essays on poetry, A Million MFAs Are Not Enough, was published in 2016 by Red Hen Press.
Joe Bardin
Writers Workshop Participant, '01Joe Bardin’s personal history essay, “Showbiz” appeared in Vol. 1 Brooklyn.
Jacqueline Doyle
Writers Workshop Participant in Nonfiction, ‘14Jacqueline Doyle’s flash fiction chapbook The Missing Girl is now available for pre-order from Black Lawrence Press: http://www.blacklawrence.com/the-missing-girl/. Her essay “Saving Trees,” published last summer in Catamaran Literary Reader, has been included in Rooted: The Best New Arboreal Nonfiction, edited by Josh MacIvor-Anderson (San Francisco: Outpost 19, 2017). She has creative nonfiction forthcoming soon in The Gettysburg Review, Under the Gum Tree, and Superstition Review, fiction forthcoming in Prime Number, and flash forthcoming in Post Road and Hotel Amerika.
Eric Howard
Poetry Participant, ’09Eric Howard’s debut book of poetry, Taliban Beach Party, is now available from Turtle Point Press. The collection binds Los Angeles to Ovid, versifies the last days of a failed pimp, gives a tarot reading to warplanes, and deciphers the hieroglyphics of lost empire.
Robert Hass
Director of the Poetry Program, and Staff PoetHis new book, A Little Book on Form: An Exploration Into The Formal Imagination of Poetry, was published by Harper Collins in 2017. From the former U.S. Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winner, an illuminating dissection of poetic form, traditional and modern.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Poetry Participant, 2011Marcelo Castillo is the winner of the sixth annual Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. His manuscript, Dulce, will be published by Northwestern University Press in Fall 2017 with a planned launch party at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, IL in January 2018.
Max Winter
Writers Workshops Participant, '06Max Winter’s debut novel, Exes, was published by Catapult in April. Max attended the workshops with the assistance of a UC Irvine scholarship.
Joshua Ferris
Writers Workshop Participant, '03Joshua Ferris’s latest book is The Dinner Party and Other Stories. It was published by Little, Brown & Company in May, 2017.
Kazim Ali
Poetry Participant, '98; Poetry Staff, '10, '12, '16Kazim’s new novel written in the form of a string quartet, The Secret Room: A String Quartet, has been published by Kaya Press. He also edited a collection of essays, Mad Heart Be Brave: On the Poetry of Agha Shahid Ali, published in April 2017 from the University of Michigan Press.
Dawn McGuire
Poetry Participant, '95,'97,'99,'01,'04,'07,'10,'12Dawn McGuire’s fourth book of poetry, American Dream With Exit Wound, is out from IFSF Publishing (San Francisco) April 15, and can be ordered from Amazon and Small Press Distribution.
She reads on the Poetry Stage of the LA Times Festival of books on Saturday, April 22 (12:30 PM), with former California Poet Laureate, Carole Muske-Dukes.
Kim Wyatt
Writers Workshop Participant, '06Kim Wyatt’s essay, “The Currency of Moons,” was selected to appear in Best American Travel Writing 2017 by guest editor Lauren Collins of the New Yorker. The anthology will publish in October; the essay first appeared in Creative Nonfiction’s spring 2016 issue.
Heather Altfeld
Poetry Participant,'08,'10,'12,'15Heather Altfeld won the 2017 Poetry Society of America Robert H. Winner Award. Two days later, she also won the Iron Horse Literary Review Trifecta Award for a poem, forthcoming in June 2017. Her book, The Disappearing Theatre, was released in Summer of 2016.
Elizabeth Rosner
Writers Workshop Participant,'82,'83,'87; Poetry Participant,'99; Teaching StaffElizabeth Rosner’s first book of non-fiction, entitled Survivor Café: the Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, will be published in September 2017 by Counterpoint Press.
John Daniel
Writers Workshops, Teaching StaffJohn Daniel’s novel, Gifted, his first full length piece of fiction, will be released April 11th by Counterpoint. Fellow Oregon author David James Duncan calls it “one of the best Oregon books of all time.”
Kazim Ali
Poetry Participant, '98; Teaching StaffKazim Ali’s poem, “Refuge Temple,” is in the April edition of Poetry Magazine. The poem reflects on the houses of poets–specifically Lucille Clifton’s home in Buffalo and C.D. Wright and Forrest Gander’s home in Barrington.
Ann Tweedy
'97, '00, '04, '07, '12, '15Ann Tweedy’s poetry book, The Body’s Alphabet (Headmistress Press 2016), was selected as a Lambda Literary Award finalist in Bisexual Nonfiction. A full list of Lambda Award Finalists can be found here.
Gerald Haslam
Writers Workshops, Teaching StaffGerald Haslam’s 2016 novel, Grace Period (Univ. of Nevada Press), won the 2016 Eric Hoffer Award for Legacy Fiction.
Joe Bardin
Writers Workshop Participant, '01Joe Bardin’s creative nonfiction essay, “Soccer as a Second Language,” was published by Coldnoon: International Journal of Travel Writing & Travel Cultures.
Robert Rorke
Writers Workshop Participant, '11Robert Rorke has a story, “The Christmas Pyramid,” in the Winter 2017 edition of the online journal Shadowgraph.
Shelley Wong
Poetry Participant, '16Shelley Wong’s chapbook, Rare Birds, was released in February 2017 and is available from Diode Editions.
Robin Romm
Writers Workshops Participant, '03; Teaching StaffRobin Romm has edited Double Bind: Women on Ambition, an anthology of personal essays by brilliant women on the subject of striving. It will be published in April by Liveright/Norton.
Also, Robin and her partner, Don Waters, had a baby girl in August. Sylvie Jacquelyn was born August 27, 2016 and is a total joy.
George Omi
Writers Workshop Participant; '95,'98,'01George Omi’s e-book, American Yellow, was awarded First Place for Writer’s Digest’s Self-Published e-Book Awards in the Life Stories category. He’s won prize money, recognition in the May/June 2017 issue of Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Digest Books, and a subscription to Writer’s Digest magazine.
Stella Beratlis
Poetry Participant,'07,'12Stella’s 2015 collection, Alkali Sink, was nominated for a Northern California Book Award in May 2016. Stella was appointed poet laureate of the City of Modesto for 2016-2018.
Jami Macarty
Poetry Participant, '10, '14Jami Macarty’s poetry chapbook, Landscape of The Wait, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in May, and is available for pre-order now. The first-drafts of some of these poems were written during the Poetry Workshop of the Community of Writers in 2010, as Jami and her family dwelt in the profound uncertainty that followed her 19-year-old nephew Will’s car crash and resulting traumatic head injury.
Jenn Givhan
Poetry Participant, 2015Jenn Givhan’s collection, Protection Spell, is now available from University of Arkansas Press. Publisher’s Weekly writes “In a second collection that beats with multiple hearts, Givhan (Landscape with Headless Mama) addresses complicated familial identity … specifically her own child’s identity and how she can protect him … expos[ing] the enduring animosity and aggression towards biracial families, doing so with candor and sparkling language. Every line is tightly composed, and the sensory details pull the reader towards the poet as she recounts her splintered world—her past as well as the present world she creates and navigates as a woman and a mother of color.”
Danusha Laméris
Poetry Participant, '00Danusha Laméris’s poem, “The Watch,” which was published in the Nov/Dec issue of The American Poetry Review, has been selected to appear in the 2017 Best American Poetry anthology, edited by David Lehman and Natasha Trethewey.
David Watts
Poetry Participant, '90,'91,'92,'93,'97,'99,'02,'04,'13David Watts’ collection of poems, Having and Keeping, was selected by Brick Road Poetry Press for publication and was released in April, 2017.
Kim O’Neil
Writers Workshop Participant, '09Her first collection of stories, Fever Dogs, is forthcoming from Triquarterly Books/Northwestern University Press in summer 2017.
Attended with the help of the UC Irvine scholarship.
David Koehn
Poetry Participant, '04,'06,'14Now out from Omnidawn Publishing, Compendium: A Collection of Thoughts on Prosody, by Donald Justice, former Squaw Valley Community of Writers faculty, edited by David Koehn, a former Community of Writers Poetry workshop participant. Cover photo credit to Barbara Hall, co-founder Community of Writers at Squaw Valley.
Kenji Liu
Poetry Participant, '14Kenji C. Liu’s newest chapbook, Craters: A Field Guide, is out from Goodmorning Menagerie in a limited edition of 100. Features Godzilla, digital divination, and how to destroy racism and patriarchy, all wrapped in a risographed cover by Tiny Splendor. Soon to be paired with a new, forthcoming chapbook from Bhanu Kapil.
Melissa Stein
Poetry Participant, '99Melissa Stein was awarded a 2017 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry. Her work has recently been published in Ploughshares, Tin House, Yale Review, The Literary Review, and Four Way Review. Her second book will be published in 2018 by Copper Canyon Press.
Gary Rogowski
Writers Workshop Participant, '15Gary Rogowski’s fiction piece, Boyborygmi, Unexpurgated or Gas as Mass; was published in February by Praxis Magazine. http://praxismagazine.com/?p=1161
Kendra Tanacea
Poetry Participant, '16Kendra Tanacea’s debut poetry collection, A Filament Burns in Blue Degrees, is available from Lost Horse Press or Amazon.
Marcia Butler
writers workshop '15Marcia Butler’s memoir, The Skin Above My Knee (Little Brown), is coming out Feb 21, 2017. It has been favorably reviewed by Meghan Daum in the New York Times and also reviewed in New York Magazine.
Alysia Nichole Harris
Poetry Participant, '14Alysia Harris’s chapbook, How Much We Must Have Looked Like Stars to the Stars, was the winner of Finishing Line Press’s 2016 chapbook contest, and was released in August. It is already in its second printing.
Jasmin Darznik
Writers Workshops Participant in Fiction and Nonfiction, '06,'10Jasmin Darznik’s novel Song Of A Captive Bird was be published by Random House/Ballantine February 13, 2018. It tells the story of Iran’s iconic woman poet, Forugh Farrokhzad.
R.T. Jamison
Writers Workshops Participant, '15R.T Jamison’s short story, “Statistics and Causal Inference Studies,” appears in the Winter 2016 issue of Four Chambers.
Jeanne Foster
Poetry Participant, '88,'89Jeanne Foster’s translation of the selected poems of Bianca Tarozzi, poet and Professor Emerita at the University of Verona, The Living Theater (Alan Williamson co-translator), will be out from BOA Editions in Fall 2017. She is teaching “Writing Poetry,” a workshop from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Saturday, February 25, 2017 at Book Passage in Corte Madera CA. To sign up for workshop: Call (415) 927-0906, ext 1, or online at bookpassage.com/classes-workshops.
Bill Pieper
Writers Workshop Participant, '10Bill Pieper had six stories, all new since the publication of his collection “Forgive Me, Father” by Cold River Press in 2014, appear in various literary journals in 2016. Four of them were in the US, with the other two representing his first published work in Canada and in the UK. In addition, one of those stories , titled “Artifacts,” was chosen to appear in a hard-copy anthology due out in Spring 2017.
Kevin Allardice
Writers Workshop Participant, '06, '12Kevin Allardice’s second novel; Family, Genus, Species; will be published in May, 2017, with the press Outpost19. It is set in Berkeley during the Black Lives Matter protests of late 2014. His first novel, Any Resemblance to Actual Persons, came out in 2013 with Counterpoint Press, and he read from it at the Community of Writers’ alumni reading in 2014. Kevin attended the Writers Workshop with the support of the James Houston Memorial Scholarship.
Heather Young
Writers Workshops Participant, '13Heather Young’s debut novel, The Lost Girls, which she workshopped at Squaw, has been nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.
Elaine Barnard
Writers Workshop Participant, '11Elaine Barnard’s non-fiction story was published in the December issue of Lost River Review.
Caitlin McCarthy
Screenwriting Program Participant, '13Caitlin McCarthy’s scientific drama, Wonder Drug, made the 2017 Bitch List. This annual list spotlights the best unproduced screenplays that pass the Bechdel Test and feature strong female characters. Wonder Drug, a Sloan script at the prestigious Hamptons Screenwriters Lab, is in development with producers Pascal Borno and Anton L. Nel.
Sommer Schafer
Writers Workshop Participant, '13Sommer Schafer’s short story, “The Great Unraveling,” is out now in Ninth Letter 13.2.
Tracy DeBrincat
Writers Workshops Participant, '96Tracy DeBrincat participated as a mentor in the Fall 2016 AWP Writer to Writer Program. Her story “Help Me Find My Killer” was published in the Rough Magick Anthology edited by Francesca Lia Block & Jessa Marie Mendez (Dangerous Angel Press, 2015). Her most recent short story collection, Troglodyte, received the Elixir Prize (Elixir Press, 2014). She is currently working on a novel called How to Kill Your Coyote.
Colette Anderson Gill
Poetry Participant, '02Colette Gill’s poetry chapbook, Peregrine Questions, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in March 2017.
Lisa Alvarez
Writers Workshop Participant, '92, '93; StaffLisa Alvarez’ s flash fiction story “Intro to Women’s Studies or Too Much Margaret Atwood” appeared in Only Light Can Do That: 100 Post-Election Poems, Stories & Essays, published in December by The Rattling Wall and PEN Center USA. She is pleased to note that Community of Writers staff Janet Fitch and Andrew Tonkovich have poems in the anthology along with the contributions of many Community of Writers alums. Lisa attended the Community of Writers with the support of a UCI scholarship and the Ancinas Scholarship.
Holaday Mason
Poetry Participant, '00, '06Holaday Mason had her first solo Photography Exhibit in 2016 & has published several books over the last few years. Her recent novels include The Red Bowl: A Fable in Poems, and The “She” Series: A Venice Correspondence, with Sarah Maclay.
Erin Adair-Hodges
Poetry Participant, '14Erin Adair-Hodges’ first book, Let’s All Die Happy, was named as the winner of the 2016 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press and will be published in the fall of 2017 as part of the Pitt Poetry Series. The title is taken from a poem written while at the Community of Writers, workshopped by Robert Hass.
Terry Shames
Writers Workshop Participant , '98An Unsettling Crime for Samuel Craddock, Terry Shames’s sixth novel in the series, launches January 3, 2017. The book received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and was also featured in an article in PW about police corruption and brutality in crime fiction.
Matthew Fogarty
Writers Workshop Participant, '11,'14Matt Fogarty’s book of short fiction, Maybe Mermaids & Robots Are Lonely, released in September 2016 by Stillhouse Press, was named by Kirkus Reviews as one of the Best Indie Books of 2016.
Ross Belot
Poetry Participant, '15Ross’s suite of poems, The Edge of Everything, was recently named one of five finalists for the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize. The prize attracts over a thousand entries each year from across Canada and is c0-sponsored by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Canada Council for the Arts. The judges for this year’s prize were George Elliot Clarke, Erin Moure and Roo Borson.
Michael Golding
Writers Workshops Participant, '90, '92Michael Golding’s latest novel, A Poet of the Invisible World, is the winner of the 2016 Ferro-Grumley Award.
Gary Rogowski
Writers Workshop Participant, '15Gary Rogowski had an excerpt of his short story, “Paris Recital,” published on-line in Sigh Press’ Journal, Winter Issue 2016. He is in unfamiliar territory being beside himself. He attended the Writers Workshop with the assistance of the Carlisle Family Scholarship.
Joan Baranow
Poetry Participant, '11,'08,'06,'03,'01,'99,'97,'93,'92,'91,'90; Screenwriting Participant, '98Joan Baranow’s poems have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Poetry East, Forklift, OH, and Spillway. Her poem, “Believing,” received an Honorable Mention in the Tor House poetry contest. As editor with Wolf Ridge Press (founded by her husband and poetry alum David Watts) she issued their seventh poetry title, Breath Enough, by Vivian Teter. This summer she will launch a new low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at Dominican University. In addition to the genres of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, the program offers an optional track in Narrative/Poetic Medicine.
Cynthia Robinson
Writers Workshop Participant, '13, '14Cynthia Robinson’s story, “Community,” has been selected by judge Kirstin Valdez Quade as winner of the 2016 Driftless Prize in Fiction, awarded by U. of Wisconsin lit journal Devils Lake. The story will appear in the spring 2017 issue. A short-short, “Breakfast,” which got its start in one of Sands’ afternoon “workshop slams” in 2014, is just out in The Pinch (Fall, 2016; 36/2).
Gwen Goodkin
Writers Workshops Participant, '07,'11Gwen Goodkin’s story, “Waiver,” won the Black Fox Literary Magazine contest in August 2016. Her story, “Just Les is Fine,” was published by Fiction in November. Gwen workshopped an early draft of “Just Les is Fine” at Squaw in 2007.
Justin McFarr
Writers Workshops Participant, '13Justin McFarr’s short story, “Pickwick Bowl (Burbank, California),” appears in Issue No. 9 of the East Bay Review.
Leland Cheuk
Writers Workshops, '01, '04Leland Cheuk’s story collection, Letters From Dinosaurs, was published in September 2016 by Thought Catalog Books.
Louis B. Jones
Writers Workshop Participant, '89, StaffLouis B. Jones has an essay on Jane Austen in the Winter 2016 Three Penny Review, and a piece on Plato for the upcoming Spring, 2017 Three Penny Review issue. Louis originally attended the Community of Writers with the support of a UC Irvine Scholarship.
Attended with the help of UC irvine Scholarship
Lisa Alvarez
Writers Workshop Participant '92, '93; StaffLisa Alvarez’s poem, “At The Free Clinic, 1977,” appears in the Fall 2016 issue of Huizache: The Magazine of Latino Literature. She is also happy to note a number of other alums are in the same issue. Lisa attended the Community of Writers with the support of a UCI scholarship and the Ancinas scholarship.
Attended with the help of UCI scholarship, Ancinas scholarship
Janine Kovac
Writers Workshops Participant, '11, '12, '14, '16Janine Kovac’s book, Brain Changer: A Mother’s Guide to Cognitive Science, links parenting advice with cognitive science. This 78-page primer follows Kovac as she uses cognitive science to cope with the stresses of the newborn intensive care unit after her twins are born three months premature. Lauded as “inspiring and hard to put down” by renowned cognitive scientist and New York Times bestselling author George Lakoff, Brain Changer is available for sale on Amazon and through bookstores by special request. Janine attended the Writers Workshops with the support of a George Pascoe Miller Scholarship (’11), a Carlisle Family Scholarship (’12), and a Dirk Eshleman Scholarship (’14).
Sommer Schafer
Writers Workshop Participant, '13Sommer Schafer’s story, “The Gorge,” is out now in Fiction Number 62.
Olga Zilberbourg
Writers Workshops Participant, '10Olga Zilberbourg’s third book of fiction in Russian, Khlop-strana, has appeared in Moscow-based Vremya Press in October 2016. In English, her short story, “Opera at the Ballpark,” was published in the latest issue of the Santa Monica Review. Olga attended the Community of Writers with the support of the Carlisle Family Scholarship.
Judy Juanita
Writers Workshops Participant, '92Judy Juanita’s essay collection, DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland, was published by Equidistance Press in October, 2016. It was a distinguished finalist in OSU’s 2016 Non/Fiction Collection contest. Many of the essays appeared at The Weekling.com where the author is a contributing editor. The essays explore race, sexuality, politics and spirituality through the eyes of a feminist foot soldier. “The Gun as Ultimate Performance Poem” recalls the author’s youthful foray in the Black Panther Party; this essay was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Susan Henderson
Writers Workshop Participant, '09Susan Henderson’s second novel, currently titled Petroleum, has sold to HarperCollins. Susan’s first novel, Up From the Blue, was workshopped at the Community of Writers. She also received two Pushcart nominations this year–one from New World Writing for “Fish with Bent Fins” and the other from SUNY Buffalo’s Elm Leaves Journal for “Dead Eddie”. Susan attended the workshops with the aid of a Lojo Scholarship.
Sam Silvas
Writers Workshop Participant, 1998Sam Silvas’ short story collection, Stanton, California, was published in November (Silver Birch Press).
Marilyn Guinnane
Writers Workshops Participant, '07,'13Marilyn Guinnane’s short story, “Ginny Reaper,” was published in October, 2016, by the Scarlet Leaf Literary Magazine, & can be viewed online.
KB Ballentine
Writers Workshop Participant, '15KB Ballentine’s fourth collection of poetry, The Perfume of Leaving, won the 2016 Blue Light Press Book Award and was published in August (2016).
Kelly Luce
Writers Workshop Participant, '11Kelly Luce’s debut novel, Pull Me Under, was released on November 1, 2016 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Richard Ford
Writers Workshop Participant, '70; StaffRichard Ford’s newest book is a memoir, Between Them: Remembering My Parents. It was released in May of 2017 by Harper Collins.
Michael Chabon
Writers Workshop Participant, '86, '87; StaffMichael Chabon’s latest novel, Moonglow, was released November 22, 2017 by Harper Collins, and reviewed here in the New York Times.
Devi S. Laskar
Poetry Workshops Participant, '04, '08,'14; Writers Workshop Participant, '04,'15Devi S. Laskar’s chapbook; Gas & Food, No Lodging; will be published by Finishing Line Press in February 2017. She recently won first prize in poetry at the 27th annual Mendocino Coast Writers Conference.
Sara Baker
Writers Workshop Participant, '91; Screenwriters Workshop, '95Sara Baker’s debut novel, The Timekeeper’s Son, has been published by Deeds Publishing. Set in the New South, The Timekeeper’s Son explores middle-aged grief and youthful yearnings, the price of hidden disabilities and wounds, and the claims and limits of community. Sara Baker’s short fiction has been published most recently in Confrontation, Cleaver, H.O.W. Journal, and the China Grove Journal.
Jeanine Stevens
Poetry Participant, '07, '10, '14Jeanine Stevens’ second poetry collection, Inheritor, was released by Future Cycle Press in June of 2016. This year, Jeanine’s poems have appeared in Tipton Poetry Review, Colere, Ekphrasis, Glassworks, Tiger’s Eye Journal and Forge.
Dan Bellm
Poetry Participant, '90, '92, '95, '97, '03Dan Bellm’s fourth book of poems, Deep Well, was released by Lavender Ink (New Orleans) in April 2017. His translation of The Song of the Dead by Pierre Reverdy was published by Black Square Editions (New York) in September 2016.
Patricia Spears Jones
Poetry Workshop Participant, '91,'92,'94, StaffPatricia Spears Jones’s poem, “Etta James at the Audubon Ballroom,” is included in the Pushcart Prize Anthology XLI.
Lisa Alvarez & Andrew Tonkovich
Writers Workshops Teaching StaffLisa Alvarez and Andrew Tonkovich look forward to the early spring arrival of their co-edited book from Heyday, the first-ever literary anthology of Orange County, California. Featuring nearly 200 years of writing from and about the County, this collection includes work by Community of Writers staff and alums, as well as co-founder Oakley Hall. Publication date of Orange County: A Literary Field Guide is February 1, 2017. Thanks to all our fellow Communitarians for suggestions and direction, especially Heyday founder and frequent workshop guest Malcolm Margolin.
JJ Strong
Writers Workshop Participant, '13JJ Strong’s debut novel, Us Kids Know, was purchased by Razorbill Books, an imprint at Penguin Random House. It is due to be published in the fall of 2017.
Elaine Barnard
Writers Workshop Participant, '72,'73,'80,'11,Elaine Barnard’s short stories appeared in the 2016 issues of Lowestoft Chronicle, Anak Sastra, Kyso-Flash and Green River Review.
Donna Miscolta
Writers Workshop Participant, '98Donna Miscolta’s short story collection, Hola and Goodbye: Una familia in stories, was selected by Randall Kenan for the Doris Bakwin Award for Writing by a Woman and is being published November 1, 2016 by Carolina Wren Press.
Vickie Vertiz
Poetry Participant, '15; Writers Workshop Participant, '15Vickie Vertiz was chosen to be a Poetry Center summer resident in 2016 by Natalie Diaz. Her collection of poetry, Palm Frond with Its Throat Cut, will be published by
The University of Arizona Press, Camino del Sol series. Vickie attended the Poetry Workshop with the assistance of the Lucile Clifton Memorial Scholarship.
Don Mee Choi
Poetry Workshop StaffDon Mee Choi’s latest collection of poetry, Hardly War, was published in April of 2016 by Wave Books.
KB Ballentine
Poetry Participant, '15KB Ballentine’s poetry collection, The Perfume of Leaving, won the Blue Light Press Book Award and was published in August (2016). Several of the works in this collection are a direct result of working at Squaw Valley with the expertise, wisdom, and direction of both the staff and the other participants.
Vishwas R. Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant 2014Vishwas R. Gaitonde’s short story “Pigs is Pigs and Eggs is Eggs” (published in The Iowa Review) has been cited in ‘Best American Short Stories 2016’ [guest editor: Junot Diaz; series editor: Heidi Pitlor] as one of the “Other Distinguished Stories” in the notables list. His story “On Earth As It Is In Heaven” has been published in the Fall 2016 issue of Santa Monica Review.
Cynthia W. Gentry
Screenwriting Workshop, '98Cynthia W. Gentry’s first novel, Three Days, was published in France by Bragelonne/Milady as Trois Jours in April 2016, and the first chapter was excerpted in the Unbound online magazine (unboundbox.com/blogs/magazine/tagged/erotica) in June 2016.
Ann Graham
Writers Workshops Participant, '08Ann Graham recently had two stories published in Panther City Review.
Laurie Ann Doyle
Writers Workshop Participant, '09, '14Laurie Ann Doyle’s new book of stories, World Gone Missing, will be released by Regal House press in Fall 2017. She teaches writing at The San Francisco Writers Grotto and UC Berkeley.
Tyler Dilts
Writers Workshop StaffTyler Dilts’ latest novel, Come Twilight, was published in August by Thomas & Mercer. Come Twilight is the fourth book in the Long Beach Homicide series.
Paco Marquez
Poetry Participant, '12Paco’s two poems, “I Know No Country” and “Birds Is”, appear in the print version of Huizache, issue six.
Dylan Brie Ducey
Writers Workshops Participant,'15Dylan Brie Ducey’s flash piece, “The Talisman”, was published in Pithead Chapel in September 2016. Also in September, her short story, “Even When You Think I’m Not There,” appeared in Halfway Down the Stairs. Another flash, “I Hate Everyone In This Family,” appeared in Cheap Pop in October, 2016. Dylan attended the workshop with the assistance of the Carlisle Family Scholarship.
https://pitheadchapel.com/the-talisman/
http://www.halfwaydownthestairs.net/index.php?action=view&id=626
http://www.cheappoplit.com/home/2016/7/26/i-hate-everyone-in-this-family-dylan-brie-ducey
Sommer Schafer
Writers Workshops Participant, '13Sommer Schafer’s novella, Julie Goes North, recently received publication in the anthology, Brewed Awakenings 2.
Greg Hrbek
Writers Workshops Participant, '92Greg Hrbek’s Not on Fire, but Burning, published in 2015 by Melville House, is now out in paperback. It was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and an NPR Best Book of 2015.
Jacqueline Doyle
Writers Workshop Participant, Nonfiction, ‘14Jacqueline Doyle’s flash fiction chapbook The Missing Girl (winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition) is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press. Two of her stories were nominated for Best of the Net this year: “Nola” by Monkeybicycle, and “Winter Afternoon” by Phoebe Journal. She also has recent creative nonfiction in Catamaran Literary Reader, The Pinch, Electric Literature, Full Grown People, and Nothing to Declare: A Guide to the Flash Sequence (White Pine Press, 2016).
Anara Guard
Writers Workshops Participants, '16Anara Guard’s short creative nonfiction piece “Ripening” appears in the 5th anniversary October 2016 issue of Under the Gum Tree
Diana Wagman
Writers Workshops StaffDiana Wagman‘s new novel, Extraordinary October, was released in October by Ig Publishing. It was recently reviewed by Kirkus: “In an auspicious debut for teens, adult author Wagman (Life #6, 2015, etc.) proves particularly adept at mixing genres and maintains a terrific balance between fantastical (and occasional macabre) happenings and genuine teen perceptions. Offbeat while also incorporating themes of tolerance, October’s tale will have readers rooting for her every step of the way.”
Dedria Humphries Barker
Writers Workshops Participant, '08, '15Dedria Humphries Barker’s essay, “The Girl with The Good Hair” has been accepted for publication in the anthology, The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives About Being Mixed Race in the Twenty-first Century. The anthology is being edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials and Tara Betts. The publisher is 2Leaf Press, an imprint of The Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars Inc. New York, NY. Dedria’s essay is about how her Detroit neighbors discovered how good her hair was when it was wet.
Jeff Kingman
Poetry Participant '12Jeffrey Kingman’s poem “Sadie” appears in Picaroon Poetry’s issue #4, September 2016.
Arisa White
Writers Workshop Participant, 2010Arisa White’s newest collection, You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, was published in October 2016 by Augury Books. Taking its titles from words used internationally as hate speech against gays and lesbians, White reworks, re-envisions, and re-embodies language as a conduit for art, love, and understanding. Cultural critic Roxane Gay calls You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened “an assured and memorable book of poetry that provokes thought as much as it provokes a depth of feeling.” Arisa attended the Community of Writers with the assistance of a Cave Canem Scholarship.
CB Follett
Poetry Participant '91, '93, '95, '00 '04Former Poet Laureate of Marin County (2010-2013), CB Follett’s tenth book, Noah’s Boat, a poetry compendium of beasties large, small and smaller was published by Many Voices Press in 2016, (175 pages, $18, with illustrations). The book is available from Amazon, Many Voices Press and Arctos Press.
Andrew Roe
Writers Workshops Participant, '97, '04Andrew Roe’s short story collection, Where You Live, will be published by Engine Books in May 2017.
Josephine Ensign
Writers Workshop (Nonfiction) Participant '13Josephine Ensign’s medical memoir, Catching Homelessness: A Nurse’s Story of Falling Through the Safety Net, was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review section, October 16, 2016.
Stella Beratlis
Poetry Participant, '07 , '12Stella Beratlis’ first collection, Alkali Sink (2015, Sixteen Rivers Press), was a nominee in the Northern California Book Award in poetry this year.
Dani Burlison
Writers Workshop Participant, '12Dani Burlison’s new zine, Lady Parts, was published in September 2016 and is now available through Pioneers Press. Copies can be ordered here.
Elison Alcovendaz
Writers Workshops Participant in Nonfiction, '16Elison Alcovendaz’s essay “A Man’s ABCs of Miscarriage” has been published by The Rumpus. Parts of this essay were treated in workshop at the Community of Writers and read by Jason Roberts. The essay can be read here.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Krys Lee
Writers Workshop Participant, '09Krys Lee’s novel, How I Became a North Korean, was released by Viking in August of 2016. The novel was inspired by her accidental activism and friendships with North Korean defectors.
Jordan Fisher Smith
Writers Workshop Participant, '01, StaffJordan Fisher Smith’s latest nonfiction work, Engineering Eden: The True Story of a Violent Death, A Trial, and the Fight Over Controlling Nature, was released in June by Crown.
Sharon McElhone
Writers Workshops Participant, '06Sharon McElhone’s new bilingual column now appears monthly in La Oferta and her fiction is forthcoming in the anthology Basta!
Martin J. Smith
Writers Workshops Participant '91, Teaching StaffMartin J. Smith’s newest book, Combustion, was released in September by Diversion Publishing.
Vanessa Hua
Writers Workshops Participant '08Vanessa Hua’s debut short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, has been getting great advance praise: O, The Oprah Magazine: a “searing debut”; Booklist: “an intriguing collection”; Bustle: “exactly what we need to be reading in this country right now, and probably always”; Nylon: “profoundly moving and impossible to forget.” She’ll be reading throughout the Bay Area, Nevada City, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and New York this fall. For more information, go to www.vanessahua.com
Attended with the help of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston Scholarship
Joe Bardin
Writers Workshop Participant, '01Joe Bardin’s literary nonfiction, “Body Archeology,” will appear in the Louisville Review in the Fall issue 2016.
Vishwas Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant, '14Vishwas Gaitonde’s essay “An Ecological Movement Sprouts From Literature” was published in The Mantle on September 6, 2016.
David Hagerty
Writers Workshop Participant, '03The second book in David Hagerty’s series of murder mysteries, They Tell Me You Are Crooked, will be released on Sept. 26 by Evolved Publishing. It follows Gov. Duncan Cochrane as he attempts to catch a sniper in Chicago’s most notorious housing project while maintaining the secret of his daughter’s killing.
David owes much of his success and persistence as a writer to Louis B. Jones, who taught him what it takes to make it in this trade.
Jami Macarty
Poetry Participant, '10, '14Jami Macarty’s 16-line poem, “The Minuses,” was selected by Kiki Petrosino as the First Prize winner of Rabbit Catastrophe Press’ Real Good Poetry Prize, which comes with the award of $2,000.00, 25 broadsides of the winning poem, and publication in Rabbit Catastrophe Review.
Valerie Wallace
Poetry Participant, '10Valerie Wallace’s first book-length manuscript has been selected by the poet Vievee Francis for the 2016 Four Way Books Intro Prize. House of McQueen is scheduled to be published in March 2018.
Jennifer Givhan
Poetry Participant, '15Jennifer Givhan’s debut poetry collection, Landscape with Headless Mama, is now available from Pleiades Press, and is included in a list of Must-Read Poetry Collections by Poets of Color.
Natalie Baszile
Writers Workshop Participant, '01Natalie Baszile’s 2014 novel, Queen Sugar, has been made into a television drama on the Oprah Winfrey Channel. The series is created, directed and executive produced by Ava DuVernay, who also directed Selma. Oprah Winfrey also serves as an executive producer. Queen Sugar premiered on September 6th, 2016, and has already been renewed for a second season.
David Corbett
Writers Workshops, '88,'89,'91,'99; Screenwriting,'01David Corbett’s newest work is a selection of short stories, Thirteen Confessions, published in May, 2016 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road. In addition, David will be teaching several workshops and seminars in the Bay Area this fall. More information here.
Sharon Olds
Poetry Workshop, StaffSharon Olds, a longtime Poetry Workshop staff member, has been awarded the Wallace Steven’s Award for “proven mastery in the art of poetry.” The award comes with a $100,000 cash prize.
Regina Louise
Writers Workshops Participant,'01,'14, Screenwriters Workshop, '02, StaffRegina Louise’s essay, “I was Adopted at–41,” was recently published by Narratively, and was then picked up by the BBC World News and the interview aired on Outlook “30 Years Looking For Mum.” Her essay, “Milk Vat,” was recently published in Black Clock Journal. Regina is currently working on the first release of the nonprofit publishing company she’s founded: Someone Has Led This Child to Believe: A Case History of Love, Luck & Self-Determination. It is the followup to her ’03 memoir, Somebody’s Someone.
Janyce Stefan-Cole
Writers Workshop Participant, '04Janyce Stefan-Cole’s second novel, The Detective’s Garden: A Love Story and Meditation on Murder, will be published September 13; Unbridled Books. www.janycestefan-cole.com
Christopher DeWan
Screenwriting Participant, '14Christopher DeWan’s short story collection, Hoopty Time Machines, was announced as one of the “most anticipated books of 2016” by John Madera of Big Other. The book will launch on September 21 at Skylight Books in Los Angeles, with other events to follow later in the fall. It is currently available for preorder from Atticus Books.
M. Nzadi Keita
Writers Workshop Participant, '95; Poetry Participant, '97.M. Nzadi Keita’s Brief Evidence of Heaven: Poems From The Life of Anna Murray Douglass (Whirlwind Press), was published in 2015. Keita’s persona poems imagine how free-born, illiterate Anna Murray Douglass saw the world as an independent woman, mother, abolitionist in her own right, and first wife to Frederick Douglass. It was a finalist for the 2015 Phillis Wheatley Poetry Prize from Quarterly Black Books Review. See spdbooks.org for purchase.
Vishwas Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant, '14Vishwas Gaitonde’s multi-media essay “The Birth, Death, and Reincarnation of the Harmonium” was published in The Mantle on July 14, 2016. The essay contains representative video-clips of harmonium music to accompany the text.
Sholeh Wolpé
Poetry Participant, '04Poet and translator Sholeh Wolpé has translated and published The Conference of the Birds, by Attar. Considered by Rumi to be “the master” of Sufi mystic poetry, Attar is best known for his epic poem “The Conference of the Birds,” an allegorical tale about the soul’s search for meaning.
Frederick R. Andresen
Writer's Workshop Participant, '00, '01, '02, '03Fred Andresen’s historical fiction novel, The Lady with an Ostrich-Feather Fan, The Story of the Yusupov Rembrandts, was a Finalist for The Montaigne Medal of The Eric Hoffer Book Award. This is a historical novel about the power of love wielded by a descendent line of courageous women to protect the famous Yusupov Rembrandts from the threat of European and Russian revolutions, obsessive men, and American law — until the portraits find security in an American museum. “Home, we know, is not a place; it is where we belong to each other.”
Aleta George
Writers Workshop Participant, '05,'10Aleta George’s book, Ina Coolbrith: The Bittersweet Song of California’s First Poet Laureate (Shifting Plates Press), was awarded the Bronze medal in the Biography category in the 20th Annual, 2016 Independent Publisher Book Award contest.
Meg Waite Clayton
Writers Workshops Participant, '00Meg Waite Clayton’s fifth novel, the Langum Prize-honored national bestseller The Race for Paris, is just out in paperback. It’s the Sacramento Cap Radio Reads for September, as well as an IndieNext Great Read bookseller choice, a Historical Novel Reviews Editors’ Choice, a Bookreporter.com Bets On Selection, and recommended reading by Glamour and the BBC.
Celeste Leon
Writers Workshop Participant, '13Celeste León’s novel, Luck is Just the Beginning, earned a Mariposa Award for Best First Book in the 2016 National Latino Book Awards and Finalist in Multicultural Fiction in the 2016 International Book Awards. The novel, inspired by a true story, was also selected as Book of the Month in August 2016 for the Las Comadres and Friends National Latino Book Club. Celeste was interviewed in Las Comadres’ monthly teleconference series; the interview is now a podcast. To download, visit their website: http://lascomadres.com/latinolit/latino-book-club/portfolio/2016-teleconference/
Kazim Ali
Teaching Staff, Poetry Participant '98Kazim Ali’s book of stories, Uncle Sharif’s Life in Music, will be published in November 2016 by Sibling Rivalry Press. It is available for pre-order now.
Luke Tennis
Writers Workshops Participant, '95,'97,'05Luke Tennis’s short story won the Phoebe Short Story Contest judged by novelist Joshua Ferris. This past spring he was awarded a fiction writing grant from the Maryland Arts Council. He has new stories currently up on Phoebe, the Forge, and Pedestal.
Herta Feely
Writers Workshops Participant '03Writer and editor Herta B. Feely’s first novel is being released on September 2 in the U.S. and the U.K. Saving Phoebe Murrow encompasses a timeless story addressing the struggles between mothers and their teen daughters with a razor-sharp 21st century twist.
Ramona Ausubel
Writer's Workshop Participant, '08Ramona Ausubel’s new novel, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, was published by Riverhead in June, 2016. It was on must read lists from People, TIME, Travel and Leisure, USA Today, Good Housekeeping, O, The Oprah Magazine, New York Magazine and many others.
Ramona’s story “Fresh Water from the Sea” won the Alice Hoffman Award for the best piece of fiction published in Ploughshares in 2015.
Julia Flynn Siler
Writers Workshop StaffNonfiction staff member Julia Flynn Siler received a 2016-2017 “Public Scholar” award from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her third book, Daughters of Joy: America’s Other Slaves and Their Fight for Freedom. Forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf, her book is a narrative history that explores the fight against sex trafficking in San Francisco’s Chinatown and spans the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. http://www.neh.gov/news/press-release/2016-08-09
Dedria A. Humphries Barker
Writers Workshops Participant, '08, '15Dedria Humphries Barker published two pieces on Savingplaces.org, the website of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. One, “Preservation, Business, and Sustainability Mark Detroit’s Green Garage,” and Historic Bars feature series, “Stober’s in Lansing, Michigan.”
Wendy Gordon
Screenwriting Workshop, '99Wendy Gordon’s debut novel, Wrong Highway, was published in June, 2016. Wrong Highway was the #2 best seller at Powell’s for the week of June 22.
Cynthia Robinson
Writers Workshop Participant, '13, '14Cynthia Robinson’s story “Maison des Oiseaux”, a finalist for the Jeffrey L. Smith Editors’ Prize, is out in the Summer issue — “Family Practice” — of The Missouri Review, 39/2 (2016). She also authored a post for TMR’s “Summer Reading” blog series, dispatched from Valladolid between forays into medieval archives, on the latest offerings of Spanish authors Javier Marías and Lola López Mondéjar. http://www.missourireview.com/tmr-blog/ (scroll down to 11 July, or Google).
Ann Tweedy
Poetry Participant, '97, '00, '04, '07, '12, '15Ann Tweedy’s first full-length poetry collection, The Body’s Alphabet, was published by Headmistress Press in August ’16. Her poem, “A Pocket of Words,” was awarded Honorable Mention in Lindenwood Review‘s Prose Poetry Contest and was published in Issue 6 in June ’16.
Lori Tobias
Writers Workshop Participant, '94, '95Wander, a novel by Lori Tobias, was launched by Red Hen imprint Boreal Books on August 29. Set in the 1980’s, Wander is a tale about love, loss and betrayal set in the frigid wild of Alaska, where a young news reporter faces the winter alone, discovering too late that the biggest threat lies not in the harsh landscape around her, but in her own fickle heart.
Vishwas Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant, '14Vishwas Gaitonde’s multimedia essay “The Birth, Death and Reincarnation of the Harmonium” was published in The Mantle on July 14, 2016. The essay contains representative video clips of harmonium music to accompany the text.
Michelle Bitting
Poetry Participant, '05Michelle Bitting’s third collection of poetry, The Couple Who Fell to Earth, is now out from C & R Press. Recently three poems were named as finalists for the Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize. Michelle has work published in The American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative, diode, the Paris-American, Nimrod, L.A. Weekly, Linebreak and others. Poems have appeared on Poetry Daily and as the Weekly Feature on Verse Daily.
Jacqueline Doyle
Writers Workshop Participant, ‘15Jacqueline Doyle’s short story, “Winter Afternoon,” was chosen as a Finalist in Phoebe’s Annual Fiction Contest, judged by Joshua Ferris. The story appears in their Spring 2016 issue. Other recent fiction has been published in Quarter After Eight, The Boiler, The MacGuffin, PANK, and Monkeybicycle (“Nola” in Monkeybicycle was featured on the Ploughshares blog as “The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week”).
Jami Macarty
Poetry Participant, '10, '14Jami Macarty’s poem, “Subway,” was published in the “Figuring It Out” issue of Grain, the journal of eclectic writing, and “Nor’easter” was poem-of-the-week the blog at Vallium: Contemporary Poetry. “Peerings & Hearings–Occasional Musings on Arts in the City of Glass,” a blog feature she’s writing for Drunken Boat, went live in June.
Stephanie Taylor
Writers Workshop Participant, '13Stephanie Taylor has recently published an anthology about water in California with Rita Sudman, formerly with the Water Education Foundation. Featured on 11 NPR stations in Oregon and Northern California, and on Insight in Sacramento, Taylor and Sudman have been giving presentations to water industry and participating in events. Available on Amazon, Water Ed. Foundation, and Sac Bee News in Edu. Foundation.
Danielle Renfrew Behrens
Screenwriting, StaffDanielle Renfrew Behrens was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the Documentary branch.
Amanda Micheli
Screenwriting Participant, '09Amanda Micheli was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the Documentary branch.
Richard Peterson
Writer's Workshop Participant, '10, '11Richard Peterson, the author of Looking at Painting in Florence, has recently been giving a series of lectures on Renaissance art to varied groups, including Piedmont Center for the Arts, two sold-out performances at Marin County’s Larkspur Theater’s film, Florence and the Uffizi, and the Italian Athletic Club in San Francisco.
Paco Marquez
Poetry Participant, '12Paco Marquez’s poem “The Incandescence of Struggle” appears on Ostrich 8.
Gerald Haslam
Writers Workshops Teaching StaffGerald Haslam’s 2006 novel Grace Period (University of Nevada Press) won the 2016 Eric Hoffer Award for Legacy Fiction from the US Review of Books.
Patricia Dove Miller
Writers Workshop Participant, '03; Art of the Wild, '99Patricia Dove Miller will be reading from her debut memoir, Bamboo Secrets: One Woman’s Quest through the Shadows of Japan (Illuminated Owl Press, May 2016), at two separate book release events in Grass Valley and the Bay Area. Hosted by the Nevada County Arts Council, the Grass Valley book release will take place on Thursday June 16th at 5:00 PM at the Grass Valley Chamber of Commerce at 128 E. Main Street. The Bay Area book release is at Book Passage in Corte Madera on June 11th at 7:00 PM. Bamboo Secrets will be available to purchase at these events, or from your local bookseller, online retailers, or directly from the author at illuminatedowlpress@oro.net.
Vanessa Hua
Writers Workshop Participant, '08Vanessa Hua’s debut short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, won the Willow Books Grand Prize in Literature and will be published in September 2016. Ballantine acquired her two novels, and she became a weekly columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. She attended the Writers Workshop with the assistance of the Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston Scholarship
Sawnie Morris
Poetry Workshop Participant, '90, '07, '10, '13Sawnie Morris’ collection of poems, Her, Infinite, won the 2015 New Issues Poetry Award (judge: Major Jackson), and was published in March of 2016 by New Issues Press. Her poem, “elegy to a baby albatross at midway atoll,” is forthcoming in Best American Experimental Writing, 2016 (Wesleyan Press), online edition.
Carole Firstman
Writers Workshop Participant, '07,'13Carole Firstman’s Origins of the Universe and What It All Means: A Memoir will be released by Dzanc Books in August. An excerpt workshopped at Squaw Valley went on to be a Notable in Best American Essays and then became part of her book. Carole attended the workshop with the assistance of the Carlisle Family Scholarship.
Mauro Javier Cardenas
Writers Workshops Participant, '02Mauro Javier Cardenas’ debut novel, The Revolutionaries Try Again, will be published by Coffee House Press on September 6th, 2016.
Paulette Boudreaux
Writers Workshops Participant, '06Paulette Boudreaux’s novel, Mulberry, won the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards’ Silver medal for Best Regional Fiction–South. Mulberry’s cover design won a Bronze medal for Best Cover Design–National.
Elaine Barnard
Writers Workshops Participant, '11Elaine Barnard’s short story, “Emperor of Nuts,” appears in the 2016 issue #25 of Lowestoft Chronicle. “Great Satan Meets the Axis of Evil” will appear in issue #26 of Lowestoft Chronicle.
Joe Bardin
Writers Workshop Participant, '01Joe Bardin’s essay, “Buying Time: Art, Entrepreneurship and Owning Your Value as a Writer,” was published in Eclectica.
Alix Christie
Writers Workshops Participant, '00Alix Christie’s short story “The Dacha” is one of six finalists for the Sunday Times Short Story Award (UK). She’s in pretty good company, too: http://shortstoryaward.co.uk/shortlists/2016. Her novella, Motherland, was the runner-up in the 2015 Novella Award (UK). The publication streak started with the 2014 launch of her debut novel, Gutenberg’s Apprentice, published by Harper Books, which was long-listed for the Dublin International Literary Award, short-listed for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and has been translated into eight languages so far.
Chuck Joy
Chuck Joy’s collection of selected and new poems, Said the Growling Dog, was released by Nirala Publications (New Delhi, India). Chuck has presented poems from the book at Poets’ Hall (Erie PA), Mahall’s 20 Lanes and Mac’s Backs (Cleveland OH), Dog Ears Books (Buffalo NY), Left Bank Books (New York, NY), and other locations. Chuck continues as host of Open Mic Night at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. chuckjoy.com
Jami Macarty
Poetry Participant, '10, '14Four of Jami Macarty’s poems were recently published in Prism International (Winter, 54:2) and Vallum: Contemporary Poetry (Spring, 13:1). Her manuscript was a semi-finalist with Two Sylvias Press.
Dylan Brie Ducey
Writers Workshop Participant, '15Dylan Brie Ducey had a story in the February issue of Foliate Oak, another in The 3288 Review in March (Vol. 1.3), and another forthcoming this summer in Gargoyle (#65). She received the Carlisle Family Scholarship.
Mark Rauzon
Writers Workshop Participant, '05Mark Rauzon’s new book, Isles of Amnesia: History, Geography and Restoration of America’s Forgotten Pacific Islands, was published by University of Hawaii Press in 2016.
Scot Siegel
Poetry Participant, '07Salmon Poetry of Ireland has published Scot Siegel’s third full-length book of poems, The Constellation of Extinct Stars, and Other Poems. While writing the book, Siegel twice served as an Artist-in-Residence with Playa at Summer Lake in the high desert of south-central Oregon. The poems in the collection reflect on that experience, traversing a century of high desert history, human geography, and mythology, among other themes.
Heather Donnell
Writers Workshops Participant, '05Heather Donnell wrote, directed, and produced a narrative feature film called Mom, Murder & Me. This murder mystery comedy is about a mother and daughter who must team up to become amateur sleuths.
Michael Golding
Writers Workshop Participant, '90, '92Michael Golding’s novel, A Poet of the Invisible World, has just been nominated for the 2016 Lambda Literary Award.
Vishwas R Gaitonde
Writers Workshops Participant, '14Vishwas Gaitonde’s essay, “With No Inkling of the Contents: Viewing Narnia Through A Hindu Lens,” was published in March 2016 in The Mantle. C.S. Lewis’ much beloved The Chronicles of Narnia have their roots in Christianity; here, Gaitonde examines these classic literary works via Hinduism.
Eliot Schrefer
Writers Workshop Participant, '07Eliot Schrefer’s latest book, Rescued, will be released in April by Scholastic. It is the third book in his series for children about apes. The first two books in the series, Endangered and Threatened, were both finalists for the National Book Award.
Mary Volmer
Writers Workshop Participant, '03, '05Mary Volmer’s second novel, Reliance, Illinois (Soho Press) is out on May 10, 2016.
Mark Maynard
Writers Workshops Participant, '08Mark Maynard’s short story collection, Grind, was selected as the 2016-17 Nevada Reads book by the Nevada State Library and the Nevada Center for the Book. He will be touring the state for readings and other events beginning in October, 2016. Grind was also the recipient of the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame 2015 Silver Pen Award. His recent work of flash fiction, “Negative Space,” was published in March, 2016 by The Nottingham Review (UK).
Elana K. Arnold
Writers Workshop Participant, '95,'98, and StaffElana K. Arnold’s latest novel, What Girls are Made Of, will be published in spring 2017 by Carolrhoda Books.
Christine Sunderland
Writers Workshops Participant, '05Christine Sunderland’s sixth book, The Fire Trail, will be released by eLectio Publishing May 10, 2016.
Stephen Massimilla
Poetry Participant, '04, '06Stephen Massimilla’s Cooking With the Muse: A Sumptuous Gathering of Seasonal Recipes, Culinary Poetry, and Literary Fare (co-authored with Myra Kornfeld) is forthcoming from Tupelo Press on April 1. This 500-page “coffee table book” comprises a wide-ranging anthology of culinary poems; 150 international recipes; a complete book of new food poems and prose pieces by Massimilla; a guide to healthy, sustainable eating; and 200 color photographs, including many ingredient and market shots by Massimilla. In addition, new poems have appeared in 30 journals, including Barrow Street, Diode, Ducts, Interim, Notre Dame, Poet Lore, RHINO, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Oxford Magazine.
Andrew Roe
Writers Workshops Participant, '97, '04Andrew Roe’s debut novel, The Miracle Girl, now out in paperback, was named a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize (the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction).
Sharon L. Charde
Poetry Participant, '01, '03, '07Sharon Charde’s chapbook, After Blue, won an honorable mention in Finishing Line Press’s 2014 contest, and her chapbook, Incendiary, won first prize in Arcadia’s 2014 contest. Her poem “Fiftieth Anniversary” won first prize in the 2014 Rash Awards sponsored by Broad River Review, and she has been awarded fellowships to The MacDowell Colony (2015) and The Corporation Of Yaddo (2016).
Lucy Sanna
Writers Workshop Participant, '08Lucy Sanna’s debut novel, The Cherry Harvest (WilliamMorrow, 2015), has been published in Dutch. It was also chosen for the 2016 Reader’s Digest Select Editions. The paperback edition of the novel will launch in April 2016.
Aneesha Capur
Writers Workshops Participant, '05Aneesha Capur’s second novel (in progress) has been selected as a Finalist for the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, founded by Barbara Kingsolver.
Sally Charette
Art of the Wild Participant, '97Sally Charette’s poem, “Birthday” will be published in the March 2016 issue of The Sun magazine. http://thesunmagazine.org/
Danielle Farrell
Writing Workshop Participant, '11Danielle Farrell’s nonfiction piece, “The Gems of Pala,” was published in the Columbia Journal Online. This is her first published nonfiction piece. She attended the Community of Writers with the help of the Carlisle Family Scholarship.
Frances Stroh
Writers' Workshop participant '12Frances Stroh’s Beer Money: A Memoir of Privilege and Loss will be published by HarperCollins in May 2016.
Risa Nye
Writers Workshop Participant '10Risa Nye’s memoir about the Oakland Hills firestorm of 1991, There Was A Fire Here, will be published in spring 2016 by She Writes Press. She is currently writing for Berkeleyside.com and EatDrinkFilms.com.
Leslie Lytle
Writers Workshop Participant, '00Leslie Lytle’s new novel Chicken Stock (Hedgehog & Fox, 2015) speaks to rural America’s struggle against corporate agriculture through the eyes of a young woman catapulted to the front lines by her husband’s dying words: “Promise me, Berta, promise me you’ll keep the farm going.”
Elizabeth Enslin
Writers Workshops Participant, '13Elizabeth Enslin’s memoir, While the Gods Were Sleeping: A Journey Through Love and Rebellion in Nepal (Seal Press, 2014), is a finalist for an Oregon Book Award in creative nonfiction. Winners will be announced on April 11, 2016. She attended the Community of Writers with the James D. Houston Memorial Scholarship.
Ann Graham
Writers Workshops Participant, '08Ann Graham’s short story, “Going Postal,” was published online at Digging Through the Fat this past April and has another, “Vera, Vera,” forthcoming in The Oddville Press.
John Harvey
Poetry Participant, '95The dramatisation of John Harvey’s 2014 novel Darkness, Darkness will be staged by Nottingham Playhouse in September. In October, together with the band Blue Territory John shall be performing “Poetry with Jazz” in Nottinghamshire Libraries. John is continuing (with Joy Wilkinson) to dramatise the novels of Qui Xialong for BBC Radio 4 Drama.
Christina Hutchins
Poetry Participant '03,'06,'10,'13Christina Hutchins’ second book of poetry, Tender the Maker, winner of the 2015 May Swenson Award, was published by Utah State University Press / University Press of Colorado in autumn 2015. The book is an elegy both personal and historical, and some of the poems originated among the poets of the Community of Writers.
Attended with the help of General Scholarship
Barbara Falconer Newhall
Writers Workshops Participant, 03,'04,'06Barbara Falconer Newhall’s book, Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith, published 2015 by Patheos Press, earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Nonfiction work-shoppers might recall Barbara’s struggle to transform 16 sprawling oral histories into engaging first-person narratives (a Buddhist, an atheist, a Witch, a progressive Muslim). They may also remember the challenge she faced in figuring out how to present her own — rocky — spiritual journey with detachment and humor.
Jade Chang
Writers Workshops Participant, '10Jade Chang’s debut novel, The Wangs vs. the World, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in October 2016. She workshopped the first chapter the Writers Workshop in Squaw Valley in 2010, which she attended with the assistance of the James D. Houston Scholarship.
Sheila Thorne
Writers Workshop Participant, '04Sheila Thorne’s short story, “We’re Standing on a Shallow Sea,” was a finalist for the Lascaux Prize and appears in The Lascaux Prize 2015. Stories were also published in the 2015 issue of Emrys Journal and the summer issue of Chiron Review.
Veronica Golos
Poetry Participant, '09Veronica Golos’s new poetry book, Rootwork, was published by A Taos Press in spring of 2015.
Molly Giles
Writers Workshop, StaffMolly Giles new book of short fiction, All The Wrong Places, was published by Lost Horse Press in July of 2015.
David Corbett
Writers Workshop Participant, '88,'89,'91,'99, Screenwriting Participant, '01David Corbett’s latest novel, The Mercy of the Night, was published in April, 2015 by Thomas & Mercer.
Michelle Latiolais
Writers Workshops, Teaching StaffMichelle Latiolais’s new novel, She, will be published by W.W. Norton & Company in May, 2016.
Joel Wapnick
Writers Workshops Participant, '12Joel’s novel, The View North from Liberal Cemetery, was shortlisted for the 2015 Quebec Writers Federation’s Concordia University First Book Prize.
Martin J. Smith
Writers Workshops Teaching Staff“The Million Dollar Duck,” the documentary film based on Martin J. Smith’s 2012 book The Wild Duck Chase, about the strange and wonderful world of competitive duck painting, will have its world premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in January 2016. In addition, Diversion Books will release his fifth crime novel, Combustion, in 2016 as well.
Meg Waite Clayton
Her novel The Race for Paris (HarperCollins, 2015) has received Honorary Mention for the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize for American Historical Fiction.
Steve Hermanos
Writers Workshop Participant, '05“SHOW ME THE ALIENS!” a comedy feature film produced by Steve Hermanos, was just released on Vimeo.com. It is the tale of Jared Pilvis, an appealing-yet-wacky British man, who vaguely recalls being abducted by extraterrestrials when he was ten years old. Determined to get to the bottom of the entire phenomenon of extraterrestrials, Jared hires a ragtag film crew and goes on a quest through the USA, interviewing people who claim to have been abducted, and getting entangled in their personal lives.
Aleta George
Writers Workshops Participant, '05, '10Aleta George was interviewed about her book Ina Coolbrith: The Bittersweet Song of California’s First Poet Laureate for C-SPAN’s Cities Tour focus on Oakland, CA.
Julie Chibbaro
Writers Workshops Participant '99, '01Julie Chibbaro’s young adult novel, Into the Dangerous World, was published in August, 2015 by Viking. It received a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, and was a Junior Library Guild selection. She attended the Community of Writers with the Byrd Scholarship.
Phillip Barron
Poetry Participant, '12Phillip Barron’s new book of poetry, What Comes from a Thing, (Fourteen Hills Press, 2015) is now available through Small Press Distribution.
Laurel Leigh
Writers Workshops Participant, '07, '09, '11Laurel Leigh’s essay, “Nursey,” appears in the Winter 2015 issue of Clover, A Literary Rag and received a Pushcart Prize nomination. Her story “Two Houses Down” was published in the Summer 2015 issue of the same journal.
Richard Peterson
Writers Workshop Participant, '10, '11On a recent trip to Florence, Richard Peterson found that his book, Looking at Painting in Florence (Polistampa, 2014), has become a best seller throughout the city’s bookstores, including the Uffizi Galleries. It is also in the libraries of most of the prominent universities and museums in the U. S. and Europe.
Lisa Braver Moss
Writers Workshops Participant, '03Lisa Braver Moss’s latest book, Celebrating Brit Shalom (Notim Press, 2015), is the first-ever resource for Jewish families who have chosen not to circumcise, but who would like to hold welcoming ceremonies for their newborns. Co-authored with Rebecca Wald, the book offers services (in English, with some Hebrew and transliteration), background information about the growing trend known as brit shalom, a checklist for holding a ceremony, a glossary—and original music created to accompany the ceremonies. (Produced recordings of these songs are available on iTunes.)
Deborah Dashow Ruth
Poetry Participant, '91, '92, '95, '98, '00, '01, '08, '13, '15 & Writers Workshops Participant, '91Deborah Dashow Ruth’s first poetry book, Joyriding on an Updraft, was published by Sugartown Publishing in July. Two of her short plays were given staged readings in San Francisco, co-sponsored by the Dramatists Guild.
Gordon Jack
Writers Workshop Participant, '03, '08Gordon Jack’s young adult novel, The Boomerang Effect, will be published by HarperCollins in the fall of 2016.
Joe Bardin
Writers Workshop Participant, '01Joe Bardin’s personal history essay, “Blacksheep”, was published in the Winter issue of Rock & Sling.