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.
His 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).
He published his literary nonfiction essay “Trenton into Time”, in the Spring 2017 issue of the Superstition Review.
She 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
His 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.
His 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.
His 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.
Her 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.
Under 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.
Her 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.
She 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.
His book The Coyote’s Bicycle is nominated for the California Book Award.
His book, Engineering Eden, won the 2017 California Book Award Silver Medal for nonfiction.
Her new novel, Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, is the twelfth installation of the Vampire Chronicles series. The paperback edition will be released by Anchor in May 2017.
Her short story, “The Youngest Son,” is out now in the literary journal Monday Night.
His debut novel, New Jersey Me, was released in the fall of 2016 by Rare Bird Books/Barnacle Books.
Her memoir, Flunk. Start., has been purchased by Counterpoint Press for publication in January 2018. Sands is represented by Michael Carlisle at Inkwell Management.
Her nonfiction piece, “Message From Your Inmate,” won Vela Magazine‘s 2017 Nonfiction Contest. Melenie attended with the assistance of the Carlisle Family Scholarship.
Her eighth book of fiction, Swim: Stories of the Sixties, will be published May 15.
She 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.
Her chapbook, “Brief Immensity,” won the Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition and will be published in late summer. Two of the poems, “In Situ” and “Full of Sighs,” were started at Squaw Valley.
Her story, “Last Chance” will be published in Vol. II of USC’s literary magazine, Exposition Review.
She has four poems from her new manuscript, Bonfire Opera, in the May/June issue of the American Poetry Review.
Her 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.
Her short story “Blue Bird, Blue Skies” recently appeared in Blood Orange Review.
Her 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’s second novel, Woman No. 17, was published by Hogarth/Crown in May, 2017.
Janet 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’s 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’s first book, Sonata: A Memoir of Pain and the Piano, was published in May, 2017, by Pegasus Books.
Leonard 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’s latest novel, Miss Burma, will be 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’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.
She 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 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.
Three 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’s short story, “Inside Joke,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Eleven Eleven, and appears in the Fall 2016 issue.
KB 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.
Elaine Barnard’s short stories appear in the current issues of Lost River Review, Kyso Flash anthology, Beach Reads-Here Comes the Sun.
Her poem “Dear Jason Robards” appears in The Museum of Americana Issue Twelve.
Anne 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’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.
Poet 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’s novel Birds of Wonder will be published by Standing Stone Books in February 2018.
Alison 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 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.
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.
A collection of my essays on poetry, A Million MFAs Are Not Enough, was published in 2016 by Red Hen Press.
Joe Bardin’s personal history essay, “Showbiz” appeared in Vol. 1 Brooklyn.
Jacqueline 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’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.
His new book, A Little Book on Form: An Exploration Into The Formal Imagination of Poetry, was published by Harper Collins on April 4, 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 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’s debut novel, Exes, was published by Catapult in April. Max attended the workshops with the assistance of a UC Irvine scholarship.
Joshua Ferris’s latest book is The Dinner Party and Other Stories. It will be published by Little, Brown & Company in May, 2017.
Kazim’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, due in April 2017 from the University of Michigan Press.
Dawn 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’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 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’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’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’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’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’s 2016 novel, Grace Period (Univ. of Nevada Press), won the 2016 Eric Hoffer Award for Legacy Fiction.
Joe Bardin’s creative nonfiction essay, “Soccer as a Second Language,” was published by Coldnoon: International Journal of Travel Writing & Travel Cultures.
Robert Rorke has a story, “The Christmas Pyramid,” in the Winter 2017 edition of the online journal Shadowgraph.
Shelley Wong’s chapbook, Rare Birds, was released in February 2017 and is available from Diode Editions.
Robin 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’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’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’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’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’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’ collection of poems, Having and Keeping, was selected by Brick Road Poetry Press for publication and will be released in April, 2017.
Kim O’Neil’s first collection of stories, Fever Dogs, is forthcoming from Triquarterly Books/Northwestern University Press in summer 2017.
Now 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 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 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’s fiction piece, Boyborygmi, Unexpurgated or Gas as Mass; was published in February by Praxis Magazine. http://praxismagazine.com/?p=1161
Kendra Tanacea’s debut poetry collection, A Filament Burns in Blue Degrees, is available from Lost Horse Press or Amazon.
Marcia 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 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.
R.T Jamison’s short story, “Statistics and Causal Inference Studies,” appears in the Winter 2016 issue of Four Chambers.
Jeanne 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 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’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’s debut novel, The Lost Girls, which she workshopped at Squaw, has been nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.
Elaine Barnard’s non-fiction story was published in the December issue of Lost River Review.
Caitlin 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’s short story, “The Great Unraveling,” is out now in Ninth Letter 13.2.
Tracy 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 Gill’s poetry chapbook, Peregrine Questions, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in March 2017.
Lisa 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 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’ 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.
An 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.
Matt 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’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’s latest novel, A Poet of the Invisible World, is the winner of the 2016 Ferro-Grumley Award.
Gary 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’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’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’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’s short story, “Pickwick Bowl (Burbank, California),” appears in Issue No. 9 of the East Bay Review.
Leland Cheuk’s story collection, Letters From Dinosaurs, was published in September 2016 by Thought Catalog Books.
Louis 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.
Lisa 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.
Janine 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’s story, “The Gorge,” is out now in Fiction Number 62.
Olga 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’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’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’ short story collection, Stanton, California, was published in November (Silver Birch Press).
Marilyn Guinnane’s short story, “Ginny Reaper,” was published in October, 2016, by the Scarlet Leaf Literary Magazine, & can be viewed online.
KB 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’s debut novel, Pull Me Under, was released on November 1, 2016 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Richard Ford’s newest book is a memoir, Between Them: Remembering My Parents. It will be released in May of 2017 by Harper Collins.
Michael Chabon’s latest novel, Moonglow, was released November 22, 2017 by Harper Collins, and reviewed here in the New York Times.
Devi 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’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’ 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’s fourth book of poems, Deep Well, comes out from 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’s poem, “Etta James at the Audubon Ballroom,” is included in the Pushcart Prize Anthology XLI.
Lisa 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’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’s short stories appeared in the 2016 issues of Lowestoft Chronicle, Anak Sastra, Kyso-Flash and Green River Review.
Donna 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 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’s latest collection of poetry, Hardly War, was published in April of 2016 by Wave Books.
KB 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’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’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 recently had two stories published in Panther City Review.
Laurie 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’ latest novel, Come Twilight, was published in August by Thomas & Mercer. Come Twilight is the fourth book in the Long Beach Homicide series.
Paco’s two poems, “I Know No Country” and “Birds Is”, appear in the print version of Huizache, issue six.
Dylan 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’s novella, Julie Goes North, recently received publication in the anthology, Brewed Awakenings 2.
Greg 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’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’s short creative nonfiction piece “Ripening” appears in the 5th anniversary October 2016 issue of Under the Gum Tree
Diana 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’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.
Jeffrey Kingman’s poem “Sadie” appears in Picaroon Poetry’s issue #4, September 2016.
Arisa 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.
Former 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’s short story collection, Where You Live, will be published by Engine Books in May 2017.
Josephine 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’ first collection, Alkali Sink (2015, Sixteen Rivers Press), was a nominee in the Northern California Book Award in poetry this year.
Dani 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’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.
Krys 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’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’s new bilingual column now appears monthly in La Oferta and her fiction is forthcoming in the anthology Basta!
Martin J. Smith’s newest book, Combustion, was released in September by Diversion Publishing.
Vanessa 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
Joe Bardin’s literary nonfiction, “Body Archeology,” will appear in the Louisville Review in the Fall issue 2016.
Vishwas Gaitonde’s essay “An Ecological Movement Sprouts From Literature” was published in The Mantle on September 6, 2016.
The 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’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’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’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’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’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, 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’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’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’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’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’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.
Poet 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.
Fred 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’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’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 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’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’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.
Writer 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’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.
Nonfiction 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 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’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’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’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.
Wander, 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’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’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’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’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 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 was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the Documentary branch.
Amanda Micheli was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the Documentary branch.
Richard 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’s poem “The Incandescence of Struggle” appears on Ostrich 8.
Gerald 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 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’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’ 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’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’ debut novel, The Revolutionaries Try Again, will be published by Coffee House Press on September 6th, 2016.
Paulette 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’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’s essay, “Buying Time: Art, Entrepreneurship and Owning Your Value as a Writer,” was published in Eclectica.
Alix 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’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
Four 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 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’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.
Salmon 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 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’s novel, A Poet of the Invisible World, has just been nominated for the 2016 Lambda Literary Award.
Vishwas 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’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’s second novel, Reliance, Illinois (Soho Press) is out on May 10, 2016.
Mark 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’s latest novel, What Girls are Made Of, will be published in spring 2017 by Carolrhoda Books.
Christine Sunderland’s sixth book, The Fire Trail, will be released by eLectio Publishing May 10, 2016.
Stephen 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’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 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’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’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’s poem, “Birthday” will be published in the March 2016 issue of The Sun magazine. http://thesunmagazine.org/
Danielle 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’s Beer Money: A Memoir of Privilege and Loss will be published by HarperCollins in May 2016.
Risa 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’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’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’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.
The 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’ 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.
Barbara 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’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’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’s new poetry book, Rootwork, was published by A Taos Press in spring of 2015.
Molly Giles new book of short fiction, All The Wrong Places, was published by Lost Horse Press in July of 2015.
David Corbett’s latest novel, The Mercy of the Night, was published in April, 2015 by Thomas & Mercer.
Michelle Latiolais’s new novel, She, will be published by W.W. Norton & Company in May, 2016.
Joel’s novel, The View North from Liberal Cemetery, was shortlisted for the 2015 Quebec Writers Federation’s Concordia University First Book Prize.
“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.
Her novel The Race for Paris (HarperCollins, 2015) has received Honorary Mention for the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize for American Historical Fiction.
“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 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’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’s new book of poetry, What Comes from a Thing, (Fourteen Hills Press, 2015) is now available through Small Press Distribution.
Laurel 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.
On 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’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’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’s young adult novel, The Boomerang Effect, will be published by HarperCollins in the fall of 2016.
Joe Bardin’s personal history essay, “Blacksheep”, was published in the Winter issue of Rock & Sling.
Her poem, “Letter to Galway From Tahoe” was published in ZYZZYVA No. 105, Winter Issue and appeared on their website on December 28.
Judy Bebelaar’s chapbook, Walking Across the Pacific, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014. Her work has been included in The Widows’ Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival (foreword by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, published by Kent State University Press in 2014) and River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the 21st Century (ed. Diane Frank, published by Blue Light Press in 2015).
Marci Vogel’s first collection of poetry, At the Border of Wilshire & Nobody, won the inaugural Howling Bird Press Poetry Prize and was published in September, 2015. New poetry, translations, and essays appear or are forthcoming in Zócalo Public Square, Jacket2, Drunken Boat, The Critical Flame, Matter Monthly, InTranslation, and Lunch Ticket. She recently organized a public reading at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook as part of a new campaign to bring poetry to California State Parks.
Carla Trujillo’s new novel Faith and Fat Chances, a PEN Finalist for Socially Engaged Fiction, was published by Curbstone Books/Northwestern U. Press. On December 19, Los Angeles Review of Books ran an extensive interview with her.
Mark Wisniewski’s third novel, Watch Me Go (Penguin Random House Putnam, January 2015), has been praised by Salman Rushdie, Ben Fountain, Daniel Woodrell, and Rebecca Makkai.
“Remembering Dr. Solomon” – Vishwas Gaitonde’s article on Dr. Suniti Solomon, India’s HIV pioneer and savant (the physician who played a pivotal role in India’s averting a major AIDS catastrophe of the kind that hit several African nations) was published in The Hindu, a leading newspaper in India, on Dec 1, 2015, to mark World AIDS Day.
Judy Batalion’s debut, White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daughterhood, and the Mess in Between, was published by NAL/Penguin in January.
Troy Jollimore’s collection Syllabus of Errors is one of the ten poetry books noted in this New York Times Best of 2015 List. David Orr writes: ” ‘Jollimore’s third collection is intelligent, soulful and amusingly self-aware. One poem begins, ‘Is there anything anywhere in this world / that is free from possession, that is not owned / by anyone?’ The next sentence, of course, is: ‘If there is, I want it.’ “
Her memoir, Mysteries of Love and Grief, was published in September, 2015 by Texas Tech University Press. An excerpt from the book was won the Narrative Magazine Spring Contest.
After 15 years as editor of Home Energy Magazine, Jim Gunshinan was inducted into the Building Performance Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement by the Building Performance Institute.
Susan Starbird launched Susan The Magazine with “The Intertidal Issue,” her addition to the rich cult literature of kayaking. She has continued to explore the postmodern art of fragments and lists. Her essay “Commuting in the Valley of Shadows” appeared in West Marin Review Vol. 6.
Olga Zilberbourg’s short story, “The Green Light of Dawn,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Epiphany Journal. Olga attended the Community of Writers thanks to the Carlisle Family Scholarship.
Jane Ciabattari’s flash fiction, “My Celebrity Goat,” appears in New Flash Fiction Review (2015). The Rumpus published an interview with her in December 2015, just in time for the first anniversary two-hour ‘Flashathon” of the [Flash Fiction Collective] reading series she co-founded with Grant Faulkner and Meg Pokrass at Alley Cat Books in San Francisco. (Twelve readers in two hours, including Molly Giles, Ethel Rohan, Kirstin Chen, Cornelia Nixon, Jane McDermott.)
The Penguin paperback edition of Natalie Baszile’s novel Queen Sugar, was published in 2015. The book will soon to be adapted for televison by writer/director Ava DuVernay of “Selma” fame, and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey for OWN, Oprah’s television network.
Frances Dinkelspiel’s nonfiction book Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California, landed on the New York Times bestseller list in November.
Matt Sumell’s novel, Making Nice was published by Henry Holt & Company in 2015. He was featured on National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition, Saturday.” The New York Times included Making Nice, in their “The Best Book Covers of 2015” list (cover designed by Gray318); and it was included in The Fiction Advocate’s The 10 Best Books of 2015 list among others.
Marian Palaia’s critically acclaimed debut novel, The Given World, published in April by Simon and Schuster has been longlisted for the PEN/Bingham first novel prize. Shorter works have appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, TriQuarterly and Joyland.
Celeste León’s debut novel, Luck is Just the Beginning, is inspired by a true story just and was released by Floricanto Press. The book is available from Amazon and Floricanto Press, as well as Tahoe’s local book store, The Bookshelf.
Gwen Goodkin’s short story, “How to Hold it All In,” has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Atticus Review.
Dasha Kelly’s novel, Almost Crimson, was published by Curbside Splendor Publishing in May, 2015. Slate Magazine Book Review named her in their “23 Best Lines from 2015” list. The line is from Almost Crimson: “She never wanted to forget this moment, this smell, these exact shades of sunshine, lemon, maize, construction hat, yolk, taxi, sunflower, bumblebee, mustard.”
Elisa Adler’s second book, Home Place, has just been released by Floating Island Publications. Parts of it were first read during an Art of the Wild workshop. A love story about a particular valley in the northern Sierra Nevada, Home Place tells the story of a place and the spirits that shape it.
Long-time Community of Writers staff naturalist, David Lukas, has just published a book called Language Making Nature, a toolkit of techniques and insights into the highly imaginative process of word making, with a particular focus on creating new words for speaking of the natural world. This book is designed for writers, artists, and thinkers of all types, and to be a tool for creative writing programs and writing workshops at all levels.
William Petersen’s short story, “Satisfaction”, will appear in the Fall/Winter 2015 edition of Solstice.
(Available online in December.)
Linda González recently published personal essays in Huizache, La Tolteca ‘Zine, and raisingmothers.com.
Dorothy Rice’s first book, The Reluctant Artist: Joe Rice 1918 – 2011, has been published by Shanti Arts Publishing. The author’s father, Joe Rice, was an art teacher in the San Francisco public schools and a little-known artist in his own right. An art book/memoir, The Reluctant Artist includes over 70 full color illustrations of his paintings, ceramics and jewelry, work created over a forty-year period. The senior Rice eschewed any recognition for his art; his reticence and abiding humility inspired his daughter to write about him and to share his work more broadly.
Duet, A Conversation of Word and Image was released in 2014 by Arctos Press. It features poems of CB Follett talking to photographs of Ginna Fleming, which reflect back.
Kathy Walters became a regular contributing columnist for the Nevada Appeal (a daily newspaper distributed from Reno to Gardnerville, NV).
Stella Beratlis’s first collection of poems, Alkali Sink, was published in April 2015 by Sixteen Rivers Press.
b: william bearhart’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Bloom (Issue 10), North American Review (Fall 2015), Plume (Issue 50), Prairie Schooner (Winter 2015), and Tinderbox Poetry Journal (December 2015). He is poetry co-editor for Mud City, an online lit journal from the Institute of American Indian Arts Lo Rez MFA program, which launched its first issue this past August. He is also working as poetry editor on the next issue of About Place Journal (May 2016) with Metta Sama, editor.
Christine Hemp was the Anthony Hecht Poetry Scholar at the 2015 Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Her poems are forthcoming from 32 Poems and Christian Century.
Herta Feely’s novel, tentatively titled Saving Phoebe Murrow, has been accepted for publication by Upper Hand Press in the US and Twenty7 Books (an imprint of Bonnier Fiction UK) in the UK. It’s due out in September 2016.
The Sound of Murder, the second book in Cindy Brown’s Ivy Meadows theater mystery series, was published by Henery Press in October 2015. Macdeath, the first in the series, was published (also by Henery Press) in January 2015.
Ray Hadley’s poems have appeared in the Suisun Valley Review, the MacGuffin, Poet Lore and Danse Macabre. He is poetry editor of Edge, a literary magazine published in Lake Tahoe, and welcomes submissions from members of the Community of Writers. He owns Keynote, a used record and bookstore on Lake Tahoe’s South Shore.
The paperback of Janis Cooke Newman’s second novel, A Master Plan for Rescue, will be released by Riverhead in May 2016.
Mark Maynard is the recipient of the 2015 Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Silver Pen Award. The award is presented “to recognize writers who are in mid-career and have already shown substantial achievement. The award is designed to honor their talent and encourage other emerging and mid-career writers.” The award will be presented at the University of Nevada, Reno on November 19th. Novelist Laura McBride will also be receiving a Silver Pen, and Ellen Hopkins will be inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.
Five of Allison DeLauer’s poems were recently published in eleven eleven ( #19), themaynard.org (Fall 2015), and Catamaran Literary Reader (Spring 2015). Middle Earth Editions selected her poem, “Habitat,” from Catamaran to produce a limited edition run of 51 broadsides.
Nayomi Munaweera’s novel, Island of a Thousand Mirrors, was published by St. Martin’s Press in September 2014. Also, her op-ed piece, “The Real Enemy Is Fundamentalism and It Doesn’t Belong Exclusively to Islam,” was published in The Huffington Post in January, 2015.
Scott Allan Morrison’s debut novel, Terms of Use, will be released on Jan. 1, 2016 by Thomas & Mercer. For more information, please visit his website and blog.
Michael Golding’s novel, A Poet of the Invisible World, was published by Picador in October. Michael will be reading from his book at the Miami Book Fair International in late November and speaking at the Search for Meaning Book Festival in Seattle in February 2016.
Margaret C. Murray, novelist and independent grassroots literary publisher, has published her third novel, Spiral, the prequel to Sundagger.net set in the Southwest of the Native American Anasazi.
Elizabeth Kadetsky’s novella, On the Island at the Center of the Center of the World, was published by Nouvella in 2015, and her short story collection, The Poison that Purifies You, by C&R Press in 2014. She has recent personal essays and short stories in New England Review, Antioch Review, and Glimmer Train. She is assistant professor of creative writing/English at Penn State, and she gave birth to her healthy and happy baby boy, Alexander, in June 2014.
Andrew Roe’s debut novel, The Miracle Girl, was published by Algonquin Books in April 2015.
Tim Wendel received an Excellence in Teaching Award from Johns Hopkins University for the 2014-2015 academic year.
Sharon McElhone’s mini short story is forthcoming in the anthology BASTA! 100 Latinas Write on Violence Against Women being published by the University of Reno, Nevada’s Latino Research Center.
Justin McFarr recently had two of his short stories published, one in Wild Quarterly, the other in The East Bay Review. Both can be read from the journals online.
Marian Palaia’s debut novel, The Given World, was published in April 2015 by Simon and Schuster. It is an Indie Next pick and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.
Dina Rabadi has published her debut short story collection titled Peter’s Moonlight Photography and Other Stories.
Curt Last has three poems based on his experiences as a Navy Corpsmen in Afghanistan in the upcoming Chiron Review (Fall 2015). Included is “The Double Amp Lieutenant’s Wife,” which was written and workshopped at Squaw Valley Poets in 2013.
The LaoGai Museum in Washington, D. C., has featured Diane Wolff on their website (laogai.org) in regards to her book, The Lamborghini and the LaoGai: The Two Faces of China’s Rise. She has also done a television interview with Radio Free Asia about a roadmap for Tibet’s future. They posted the interview on their website: www.rfa.org.
Maureen Duffy received a writing residency grant from the Vermont Studio Center for November 2015.
Stephanie Kegan’s novel, Golden State, published by Simon & Schuster in 2014, was named a “People’s Pick” by People Magazine, a “Must Read” by Entertainment Weekly, “Best in the West” by Los Angeles Magazine, and one of the 15 Best Fiction Books of 2015 (So Far) by Paste Magazine. Simon & Schuster published the paperback version of Golden State in 2015.
John Matthew Fox was a finalist for the 2015 Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award, which comes with a $1000 prize and publication in the newspaper.
Laura Otis’s new academic book, Rethinking Thought: Inside the Minds of Creative Scientists and Artists, has just been published by Oxford University Press. Rethinking Thought compares creative people’s personal insights into their thinking with recent findings by cognitive neuroscientists. Otis has also started earning a low residency MFA in Fiction from Warren Wilson College.
Liz Brown’s nonfiction book, Twilight Man: The Strange Life and Times of Harrison Post, will be published by Viking in 2016.
Jonathan Cohen received the Excellence in Volunteerism Award from the Orange County Board of Supervisors in September, 2015 for his work with the adult literacy group READ/OC.
Joe Bardin’s creative nonfiction is published in Pithead Chapel.
Sheila Webster Boneham’s poem, “Spin”, appears in 27 Views of Wilmington, released in October by Eno Publishers, Durham, NC.
Heather Young’s debut novel, The Lost Girls, which she workshopped during her week in Squaw Valley, will be published in summer 2016 by William Morrow/HarperCollins.
Monica Sok’s chapbook, “Year Zero”, is the winner of the Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship 30 and Under, selected by Marilyn Chin (forthcoming in Spring 2016). Her poem (written at Squaw Valley), “The Woman Who Was Small, Not Because The World Expanded,” is a finalist for the Narrative Magazine Seventh Annual Poetry Contest.
Patricia Spears Jones published A Lucent Fire: New & Selected Poems (White Pine Press); edited “The Future Imagined Differently” for About Place Journal for Black Earth Institute, where she is a Senior Fellow. She was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art by Elizabeth Alexander to create a poem in response to Jacob Lawrence’s famous and beloved Migrations Series–along with nine other poets including Rita Dove and Tyehimba Jess. The Poetry Suite is part of the exhibition’s catalogue and the readings are archived at MoMA. She reads December 9 at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church.
Claudia Reder has two poems published in the anthology River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the 21st Century, ed. Diane Frank, Blue Light Press, 2015.
HarperCollins/Walden Pond Press has bought two books in the BAT Chronicles, a middle grade series by Elana K. Arnold. In the spirit of Clementine and Ramona, the books follow Bixby Alexander Tam – nicknamed BAT – a third-grader on the autism spectrum, and his funny, unexpected, authentic experiences at home and at school. The first book, A Boy Called BAT, is set to publish in 2017; Rubin Pfeffer at Rubin Pfeffer Content brokered the deal for world English rights.
Jacqueline Derner Tchakalian’s first book of poetry, The Size of Our Bed, was released by Red Hen Press in September, 2015.
Michael Homolka’s manuscript, Antiquity, was selected by Mary Ruefle for the 2015 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry and is forthcoming from Sarabande Books.
Charlene Caruso’s essay, “Burying Things,” appears in Issue 32 of 34th Parallel Magazine. She originally workshopped that piece at the Writers Workshop in 2014.
Ronald Alexander’s stories appeared in Shadowgraph Quarterly (Fall 2014) and Glitterwolf Magazine (Winter 2015). He is the author of the novels The War on Dogs in Venice Beach and Below 200, published by Hollyridge Press.
A staged reading of Delphin and the Children of Amphitrite, by Kathy Gilbert, a one act play commissioned by the sfolympians festival, will be presented November 18, 2015 at the Exit Theater in San Francisco. The festival runs three weeks, from November 1-21.
Marjorie’s short story, “The Gleaners,” was published by the Santa Fe Writers Workshop in Sept. of 2014. As a result of readers wanting to know what happened to the protagonist and her brother, she decided to expand it into a novel. Since the story continues in France, she applied for and received a Research Residency from the University of Chicago to work at their Center in Paris. She researched and conducted interviews in French for expanding and is now writing it while teaching classes at UC Irvine.
CB has a book collection published called Boxing the Compass. The four books are Compass Points, Compass Rose, True North, and Wind Rose. Each booklet is 5″ x 5″ and contains four persona poems of people from history.
Renee Thompson’s short story, “Recovery,” appeared in Western Press Books’ 2015 Anthology Manifest West. Her story “Brilliance” appeared in Cactus Heart in June.
Gail Reitano’s memoir vignettes, “Growing Up (Italian) in the New Jersey Pine Barrens,” will appear in the
Fall 2015 anthology, Songs of Ourselves, America’s Interior Landscape, from Blue Heron Book Press
The Military Writers Society of America (MWSA) announced the award of the 2015 Gold Medal – Historical Fiction, to John J. Gobbell at their annual meeting September 26, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona. The award was for his latest novel, Edge of Valor, published by the United States Naval Institute Press. Edge of Valor is the fifth novel in the Todd Ingram stand-alone series.
Anthony J. Mohr’s essay, “The Angry Red Planet,” appeared in issue 8 of Mojo. His essay, “Rainy Day Schedule,” is upcoming in DIAGRAM, and his essay, “The Candied Children,” is upcoming in Common Ground Review. He is a reader for Hippocampus and for Fifth Wednesday Journal.
Stephanie Ford’s first poetry collection, All Pilgrim, has been published by Four Way Books (October 2015).
Paco Marquez has a poem in the current issue of LiVE MAG!, which is available both in print and online.
Leza Lowitz’s debut memoir, Here Comes the Sun, on finding motherhood across two oceans, two decades, and two thousand yoga poses, has been published by Stone Bridge Press of Berkeley, CA. Excerpts appeared in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, Shambhala Sun, Best Buddhist Writing 2011, Yoga Journal, Yoga Journal Japan, Wanderlust.com, Elephant Journal, and the Manifest-Station.
Erich launched Left Coast magazine. “Revealing our culture, improving our lives, advancing our secret agenda.”
Christian Kiefer’s new novel, The Animals, was released by Liveright/W.W. Norton in March. He is also the winner of a Pushcart Prize for his story, “Hollywood and Toadvine,” originally published in Santa Monica Review.
Will Allison, a contributing editor and author at One Story, will be teaching an online class for the Brooklyn-based literary magazine entitled “Become Your Own Best Editor,” which will guide students through a case study of a One Story debut, “Claire, the Whole World,” by Jonathan Durbin.
Alexander Booth’s translations of Austrian poet Friederike Mayröcker are forthcoming in A Public Space; his translation, together with You Nakai, of Berlin’s literary Wunderkammer “Museum of Unheard (of) Things” is forthcoming with Already Not Yet press. In addition, his translations of German Book Prize (2014)-winning poet Lutz Seiler’s collection of poems, in field latin, will be published in March 2016 by Seagull Books as will his translation of the young German writer Gunther Geltinger’s novel, Moor, that autumn. Some of his poems most recently appeared in the online journal H_NGM_N.
Sommer Schafer’s short story, “A Final Affair,” was published in the inaugural issue of The 3288 Review.
Alex Wilson’s short story, “Fence,” appears in the Fall 2016 issue of the Southwest Review.
A. R. Taylor’s novel, Sex, Rain, and Cold Fusion, received the IPPY Gold Medal for Best Regional Fiction 2015. One of her new short fiction stories was performed Wednesday, October 21st as part of Lit Crawl L. A.
Suzanne Berube Rorhus has short stories in the Flash and Bang anthology, out in October 2015, and in Memphis Noir, which will come out in November, 2015.
Gwen Goodkin had two short stories published in July – “One From Many” by Witness and “How to Hold it All in” published as part of Atticus Review’s Tales from the VFW series.
Berwyn Moore won the 2015 James Dickey Poetry Award from Five Points Journal. She has also had poems appearing in Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, Measure A Review of Formal Poetry, Briar Cliff Review, and Sow’s Ear Poetry Review.
Norman Minnick has just finished editing and designing Work Toward Knowing: Beginning with Blake by Jim Watt, which will be published in November by Kinchafoonee Creek Press out of Athens, GA.
Caitlin McCarthy’s spec for “The Good Wife” has reached the finals at the 2015 Austin Film Festival in the “Teleplay – One-Hour Spec” category. The winner will be announced on October 31. Also, “Women and Hollywood” nominated Caitlin for the 2016 Fox Writers Intensive. Additionally, Caitlin’s spec for “Elementary” made the quarterfinals of the Final Draft Big Break writing competition; the semifinalists will be announced in October. Lastly, producer Anton L. Nel is attached to Caitlin’s feature screenplay Wonder Drug.
Stephanie Austin is a new monthly contributor at The Nervous Breakdown.
This summer Nina won the 2015 Beacon Street Prize for her essay “I’m Trying to Tell You I’m Sorry.” It will be printed in the fall issue of Redivider. Her upcoming publications include “The Tuesday Evening Train,” which will appear in Volume 8 of The Los Angeles Review this fall, and “What I Know,” which will appear in the spring 2016 issue of Puerto del Sol.
Katie Ford’s poem, “Still-Life,” which she composed at Squaw Valley in 2012, will be printed in the forthcoming textbook The Norton Introduction to Literature, Fuller and Shorter editions.
Celeste’s León’s novel, Luck is Just the Beginning, will be released in November, 2015 by Floricanto Press. For more information and to read reviews by fellow Squaw Valley alumni and staff, please visit her website and blog.
Elise Blackwell’s fifth novel, The Lower Quarter, was published in October by Unbridled Books, and received a starred review in Kirkus.
Carol Lee Hall became a Grand Prize Winner in the New York Screenplay Contest for her television concept based on Shelley Adina’s young adult steampunk adventure novel series Magnificent Devices. She and Shelley won cash, software, and an award certificate.
Charlotte Reiter co-authored Taking Control of Your Seizures: Workbook, recently released by Oxford University Press in their Treatments That Work series.
Paulette Boudreaux’s debut novel, Mulberry, winner of the Lee Smith Novel Prize, was released by Carolina Wren Press on October 1, 2015.
Jackie Davis Martin read her short story “In the Heat” at the book launch of the anthology, Love on the Road (Liberties Press), in Dublin, Ireland in 2015. Her short story “Knife” (one-on-one consultant, Michael Jaime Beccera) won first prize in fiction from New Millennium Writings and will be published in Fall, 2015. In 2015, other stories appeared in Thrice Publishing, 100 Word Story, Bethlehem Writers Group, Bluestockings Magazine, On the Premises, Infective Ink, Halfway Down the Stairs, and a poem in The Best American Poetry Show.
Sheila Webster Boneham’s essay, “A Question of Corvids”, appears in the 2015 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology edited by Rebecca Skloot. In 2014, the essay won the Prime Number Magazine Creative Nonfiction Award judged by Ned Stuckey-French and appeared in the October 2014 issue of the magazine and in the 2014 Press53 Annual Anthology (Durham, NC: Press53, 2014).
Lorraine Comanor’s memoir segment, “In The Shadow of Parsenn,” was published in the April 2015 issue of The New England Review.
Sheila Boneham is pleased to announce the release of Shepherd’s Crook, the fourth installment of her award-winning Animals in Focus mystery series from Midnight Ink.
Jan Stites’s novel, Reading the Sweet Oak, was published September 2015 by Lake Union Publishing, a full-service, mainstream novel imprint of Amazon (not self-publishing).
Albert Garcia has published his third collection of poetry, A Meal Like That, with Brick Road Poetry Press.
Jami Macarty has completed editing the Fall 2015 issue of the online poetry journal The Maynard. The issue goes live with 32 poets and 45 poems on October 15. Look for two poems by Community of Writers sister and housemate, Allison Delauer, ’10. Submit your poems!
JJ Strong’s short story “People You’ve Been Before” will appear in the Fall 2015 issue of Fifth Wednesday. He also has two professional play productions upcoming: one in October at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego and one in January 2016 at the LaBute New Theater Festival in New York.
Maureen O’Leary Wanket’s short stories appear in Gold Man Review, Issue 5, and Shade Mountain Press’ anthology The Female Complaint: Tales of Unruly Women, both released November 2015. She is the recipient of Heyday Books’ Sacramento Valley Writing Contest best-of-category prize in poetry, and her work will appear in a forthcoming book about the environment and people of the region.
Lois Rosen’s new collection of poems, Nice and Loud, was published by Tebot Bach in October, 2015. Her chapbook Layer Cake appeared in January.
Josh Weil’s novel, The Great Glass Sea, won the 2015 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Mira Rosenthal’s translation of Polish poet Tomasz Różycki’s Colonies won the Northern California Book Award and was shortlisted for numerous other prizes, including the prestigious International Griffin Poetry Prize. She has new poems, essays, and translations in Oxford American, Massachusetts Review, Nimrod, Kenyon Review Online, and American Poetry Review. This fall, she started a new position as the Director of Creative Writing at the University of South Alabama.
Robert Thomas’ novel Bridge (BOA Editions, Ltd.) won the PEN Center USA 2015 Literary Award for Fiction. https://penusa.org/2015-award-winners-finalists
Phillip Barron’s first book of poetry, What Comes from a Thing, won the 2015 Michael Rubin Book Award and will be published in November by Fourteen Hills Press.
Sandy Yang’s short story, “The Future Is,” was published in the Fall 2015 issue of South Dakota Review, and her story “The Desert Museum” was published in Juked in April 2015.
Julie Morin’s short story, “How To Disappear”, was published in March, 2015 in Pacifica Literary Review.
R.T. Jamison won UCLA’s James Kirkwood Literary Prize in Creative Writing in 2014. His winning story appears in the current issue (Autumn 2015) of the Bellevue Literary Review.
Lauri Maerov’s short story, “River”, appears in the Fall 2015 issue of The Raleigh Review.
Jacqueline Doyle was awarded a Notable Essay citation in Best American Essays 2015, ed. Ariel Levy for her essay “Who’s Your Stepdaddy?” in Jabberwock Review. This past year she also published creative nonfiction in Ghost Town, Under the Sun, Grist: The Online Companion, Lunch Ticket, Cold Mountain Review, Waccamaw, Switchback, and Southern Humanities Review (nominated for a Pushcart).
After forty-one years at the helm, Heyday founder and publisher/executive director Malcolm Margolin is retiring. Heyday has begun the search for a successor, and information about the position is available at https://heydaybooks.com/executive-search/
Dawn Dorland was named a Visiting Artist for six weeks this fall by the Regional Cultural Center in New York Mills, MN. Earlier this summer she regrettably had to decline a full scholarship to the Writers Workshops ’15 in order to have surgery: Dawn also became a living kidney donor this year.
Sojourner Kincaid Rolle has been installed Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara, CA for a two-year term (2015-2017).
Lisa Alvarez’s poem was published in the Fall 2015 Issue of Huizache.
Benito Vergara’s short story, “Stone, Well, Girl,” including an interview with the author, appeared in Issue Forty-Nine of SmokeLong Quarterly (September 2015).
Christine Gosnay’s poem “Listening to Townes Van Zandt” appears in the October 2015 issue of Poetry Magazine.
“The Million Dollar Duck,” a documentary film based on Martin J. Smith’s 2012 nonfiction book The Wild Duck Chase, will premiere in early 2016. In addition, Diversion Books will release Smith’s latest suspense-thriller, Combustion, in early 2016.
Mark Coggins published No Hard Feelings, the sixth novel in the August Riordan crime fiction series.
Meg Waite Clayton’s fifth novel, The Race for Paris — the story of two female journalists hoping to be the first to report the liberation of Paris in the summer of 1944 — was published by HarperCollins in August, and is a national bestseller and an Indie Next pick, as well as recommended reading by Glamour and the BBC, and a Historical Novel Reviews Editors’ Choice. Meg also published seven opinion pieces in the past year, in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, and the San Jose Mercury News.
Claudia Rankine, whose book, Citizen: An American Lyric, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry in 2015, has joined the English department at USC Dornsife as Aerol Arnold Chair of English.
Lynn Freed’s story, “The Way Things Are Going”, published in Harper’s, has been awarded the O. Henry Prize.
Christopher Upham’s film, Return to Dak To, had its Bay Area premier in April, 2015, at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.
Matthew Fogarty’s debut collection of short stories, Maybe Mermaids & Robots are Lonely, and a novella will be published in Fall 2016 by George Mason University’s Stillhouse Press.
Elizabeth Rosner’s latest novel, Electric City, was released in paperback in late September, and was named as one of the best books of 2014 by National Public Radio.
CB Follet’s latest book, Quatrefoil, Poems by CB Follett, published by Many Voices Press, is due out in two weeks. Quatrefoil is a collection of four unpublished chapbooks on trees, dogs, red rocks and various ‘gathering’ words, such as a Murder of Crows, An Ostentation of Peacocks, etc.
Audrey Taylor Gonzalez published her first novel, South of Everything, this September 2015.
Kristin FitzPatrick’s short story collection, My Pulse is an Earthquake, was published by West Virginia University Press in September 2015. She will be reading from her book at Lit Crawl LA in October 2015 with other Squaw Valley alumni, and at Book Passage in Corte Madera in January 2016.
Henry Rappaport’s poem “Sotto Voce,” was just published in Diverse Voices Quarterly. “Word on the Street” will be published by The Mayard in October, and “Otis” will appear in The Cincinnati Review winter issue.
Gabrielle Myers’ memoir, Hive-Mind, was just published by Lisa Hagan Books.
Kenji’s forthcoming poetry collection, Map of an Onion, was the 2015 national winner of the Hillary Gravendyk Prize, and shortlisted as a finalist for the Hong Kong University International Poetry Prize.
Paula Priamos’s literary thriller, Inside V: A Novel, will be published by Rare Bird Books in 2016.
Troy Jollimore’s third book of poems, Syllabus of Errors, was published in September 2015 by Princeton University Press.
This year David Hagerty’s debut novel, They Tell Me You Are Wicked, a murder mystery, was published by Evolved Publishing. The first in a series of three, the next novels will appear in 2016 and 2017.
Terence Clarke’s novel, The Notorious Dream of Jesús Lázaro, was published by Astor & Lenox in 2015.
Melissa DeCarlo’s debut novel, The Art of Crash Landing, was published in 2015 by Harper Paperbacks/HarperCollins.
Vanessa Hua received a 2015 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Her short story collection, winner of the Willow Books Grand Prize in Literature in Prose, will be published in the fall of 2016. This summer, an excerpt of her novel-in-progress won the San Francisco Litquake Writing Contest. Her essay about genes, generations, and her father’s cross-cultural funeral appeared in the New York Times. She will travel to Ecuador in October on fellowship sponsored by the International Journalism Project. (Photo credit: Rossa Cole)
Leland Cheuk’s first novel The Misadventures of Sulliver Pong is will be published by CCLaP Publishing in November 2015.
Lisa Espenmiller’s haiku have been published in the following print and online haiku journals: Modern Haiku (Volume 46.1 Winter-Spring 2015), bones (Issue 6, March 15, 2015), bottle rockets (Issue 32 Winter 2015), is/let (December 21, 2014; January 3, 2015), Issa’s Untidy Hut – Wednesday Haiku feature (April 8, 2015; June 10, 2015).
Jonah C. Sirott’s debut novel, This is the Night will be published by Little A in November.
Paul Watsky’s second poetry collection, Walk-Up Music (Fisher King Press) was published in April and received a Recommended Review from Kirkus.
Sandra Giedeman’s poetry collection, In This Hour was published by Green Tara Press, Los Angeles, 2015.
Trent Pridemore: A feature article and photo essay will by published in the 2015 Holiday issue of Sierra Heritage Magazine where he has published other features. He also writes feature articles and has the “Stillwater” (fly fishing lakes) column and the “Foraging Angler” (food, wine, travel and outdoor cooking) column for California Fly Fisher. The magazine has also run chapters from his memoir project, “Chasing Rainbows…Tales of a Well-Traveled Fly Fisherman.” Related work includes lecturing on fly fishing, conservation biology and as a Special Outreach Ambassador for Bear Yuba Land Trust. He recently signed a contract to lecture for International Sportsman’s Expositions.
Judy Rowe Michaels’s chapbook, Ghost Notes, appeared from Finishing Line Press June 2015. The New Ohio Review published two of her poems, spring, 2015, and two appeared on Verse Daily in August and September, 2015. Her poem “Spring Rain” won the NJ Poetry Prize for 2014 , and “Concentration: Chiura Obata, Painter” won the Daniel Varoujan Prize from the New England Poetry Club (2014). Her collection This Morning I Wanted to Tell You was a May Swenson finalist in 2014. She will be reading at the Abroad Writers Conference in Dublin this December.
Sara Wallace’s poetry collection, The Rival, published by The University of Utah Press in 2015, was awarded The Agha Shadhid Ali Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, Edge, was published in 2014 by The Center for Book Arts.
Megan Gannon had two books published by Apprentice House in 2014. The first, White Nightgown, is a book of poems. The second, Cumberland, is a novel.
