The 56th session of the Community of Writers Summer Writing Workshops has come to end, and after a few weeks to recover, all of us here at the Community of Writers want to express our gratitude to all of you who were a part of our summer programs.

Read on to hear about the summer and the wonderful people who came together and made it happen. Thank you to all of our community members – near and far. Without you, we wouldn’t be a Community of Writers.

Poetry Program

We want to thank our brilliant and generous teaching staff. In poetry this year, in addition to returning staff Kazim Ali (this year’s Lucille Clifton Poetry Chair), Carmen Gimenez and Matthew Zapruder, we were joined by two new staff poets: Brian Teare, and Ama Codjoe.

Essential to it all is our Poetry Director, Brenda Hillman. Brenda worked all year in collaboration with Lisa and Brett to develop this year’s program, through staffing choices and programming decisions; her work is manifest in all of the incredible experiences had by our participants and staff this year. 

From the inception of our planning for the 2026 Poetry week, from the creative to the administrative and logistical, we need to express our gratitude to the folks who worked so hard to make it happen: Lisa Alvarez, Leah Skoyles, Catie Van Dyke and Hunter Jones.

Our gathering in the Sierra Nevada benefited from a bit of meteorological serendipity; poets and prose writers experienced mild weather for the most part, though we had a few wonderful rainstorms throughout the summer. In public health news, we hosted another COVID-free gathering! Our testing requirements ensured that we had a healthy and productive week.

Poetry week shone this year with brilliant first drafts written by our visiting poets who came from all over the country and beyond. The Headquarters was a hubbub of printers printing and copiers copying poems for the morning sessions. And one of the best things ever this year was six-month-old baby Molly Jane Jones who spent her mornings with us, greeting harried poets from a low vantage in her green bouncer. Thanks to her parents (Hunter & Lindsey Jones) for sharing her with the poets. 

We owe a big thank you to our incredible Poetry Elves this year: Burton Scheer, Abby Shaffer, Elaine Vinh. And thanks to Bubba Henson (aka “Walt Whitman”) our biggest-ever “elf” who knows how to both carry a refrigerator and quote the good grey bard, and is a fine fine poet in his own right. And thanks to Graham Knibb who helped us this year during breaks in his tour schedule and, besides assisting with the heavy lifting, sound equipment, and poem collating, spent a good amount of time making Molly happy too. Thanks also to our Housing Director Emerita Kaitlin Klaussen, who, as always, summoned some of her past expertise to ensure that the registration process went smoothly. Thanks also to Audrey Rawson (Kaitlin’s daughter), who worked the podium during registration.

And bless the wonderful Laura Howard (shared with us by ZZYZZYVA and Bomb Magazine) who, though not an elf, comes with a magical quality which fills every gap, and makes everyone feel lighter and happier. And deep appreciation for Deborah Ruth, friend, supporter, and poet who has attended the Poetry week more than any other participant

How to thank someone whose generosity and care truly managed to capture the spirit of the week. Poet and Photographer Nic Nichols joined us this week and was seemingly ubiquitous, always behind the camera photographing each moment. So often we might think to ourselves, I wish we were photographing this moment, and, sure enough, there was Nic, elbow up, with his eye to the viewfinder. Nic is a rare talent and we truly cannot express our gratitude to him for joining us again this year, and for documenting the week so effectively.

This year in the Palisades Tahoe ski area, our poets were outnumbered by competitive long-distance alpine trail runners. We are pretty sure the poets didn’t run and the runners didn’t write poems, but we could be wrong, though certainly both camps were engaged meaningfully in their respective solitary endeavors. Some poets braved the dawn to watch the runners for the Western States 100 Mile Endurance run set out to run right up and over the mountain to a clacking of cowbells at 5:00 AM.

And, in a spirit of collaboration, further (orchestrated) serendipity and absolutely non-competitive good sportspersonship, the annual poetry softball game between the Boneyard and the Sapphos ended in a perfectly poetic tie. The rousing seven-inning spectacle was followed by a picnic and swim in the stunning Lake Tahoe. 

Once again, the annual Community of Writers poetry reading benefit, livestreamed for viewers at home, raised spirits and funds for our scholarship program. Introduced by Nevada County Poet Laureate and past participant Karen Terrey, our teaching staff poets shared some of their best work, including some poems actually written during the week. 

Thank you to Hunter Jones who made real again our hopes to create a live-streamed event from this beautiful valley; and to Lisa Alvarez, who emceed the event, as well as the seven participating poets: Kazim Ali, Ama Codjoe, Carmen Giménez, Brenda Hillman, Brian Teare and Matthew Zapruder.

(You can watch the recording of the Benefit Reading, and other past benefit readings, here.)

Thank you to everyone who attended, in person or online, and supported this project. Thank you to our Benefit Sponsors: Palisades Tahoe, North Tahoe Community Alliance, North Tahoe Chamber, the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation, Bomb Magazine, Alta Journal, ZYZZYVA, and Palisades Press. Thank you!

Per tradition, poets gathered on our final night together to recite from memory their favorite poems, in multiple languages, from Whitman to Lucille Clifton to Lorca and more.

Writers Workshops

The generous, wise, affirming Welcome Address from Pulitzer Prize winner Jason Roberts set the tone for our spectacular week of fiction and nonfiction. His conference opening congratulatory message touched on the theme of “having arrived,” both as conference participants, and as dedicated, sincere practitioners of writing:

“You’ve taken your work seriously enough to apply to the Community of Writers, and you’ve gotten in. You’ve found the time to step outside of your life. And–and this is more important than you know–you’ve found the courage to be here. Welcome. You are here. And you’ve arrived.” You can listen to Jason’s Welcome Address here.

Highlights of the prose week — beyond excellent workshops, fascinating panels and readings — included an ad-hoc Latinx Adventures in Publishing conversation suggested by Dagoberto Gilb and featuring Borchard fellow Francisco Goldman, plus Lisa Alvarez, Chris Feliciano Arnold, Hector Tobar and Oscar Villalon. And we doubt that anyone present for the final night of readings will ever forget Amy Tan’s remarkable and moving reading made up of her correspondence to Russell Banks as he neared the end of his life, and her remarks earlier this year as she accepted the Preston Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community given by the Author’s Guild.  “I have always been a subversively political writer by virtue of my compassion,” she said. “Compassion is political. It is the opposite of a blinkered mind.”

This year we continued to offer special lunchtime meetings as as well as three  popular special afternoon workshops (Adaptation, Open Workshop, and Samuel Freedman’s “The Book Proposal” Seminar) plus a new one: novelist alum Dylan Landis presented a special (limited enrollment) single session seminar on Close Reading, a session examining one particular story, in this case Kate Braverman’s “Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta.”

This summer’s published alumni reading (AKA the ‘This Could Be You’ Reading) was especially impressive, featuring writers from many genres who are already gaining acclaim: Jeanne Carstensen (who this year was a finalist for the 2026 PEN/Galbraith Award for Nonfiction), Vishwas Gaitonde, AnnElise Hatjakes, A. M. Sosa and Daniel Pope. Board member Julia Flynn Siler hosted the event, and honored our late alumna Pamela Rorke Levy, whose memoir, Return to Blue Water, was published posthumously. It’s inspiring to witness the triumphant return of alums to the Valley, hear them read, and watch their books sell out. 

Our annual final night “Follies” talent show included song, skits, and a final sing-along group goodbye performance of “Shenendoah,” a conference closing tradition. Two of this year’s three (returning) elves performed a loving send-up of the administrative and organizational insanity required to run a nonprofit literary event. Naturally, the third was working the sound mixing board. Thanks to musical director and Follies impresario Sands Hall. 

Novelist, teacher, and podcaster (check out his The Lonely Voice) Peter Orner delivered the week’s closing talk, highlighting the role of class consciousness and persistence in the under appreciated writers Lucia Berlin and poet Edward Dorn.

This year, throughout the week, we again featured most events on our podcast feed where listeners could keep up with the afternoon events from afar. We also, for the first time ever, livestreamed nearly all of our public afternoon and evening events, allowing our broader community to join us online and reap the benefits of our remarkable and diverse literary panels, talks and readings, from wherever they may be. You can find all of those recordings, including a schedule of the events therein, here. 

Naturally, we have some essential people to thank for helping us with this complex undertaking.

First, a particular, and unusual thanks goes to Jared Drake of WildBound PR a wonderful Literary PR firm with whom we have partnered for many years on numerous projects. Jared was instrumental in helping us obtain and learn how to use the infrastructure for our first ever livestreamed Writing Workshops. Thank you Jared!

Of course, the greatest debt of gratitude we owe is always to our generous teaching staff members in Fiction and Nonfiction who make the summer workshops an unforgettable and productive experience. Thanks to our program directors: Lisa Alvarez, Julia Flynn Siler, Sands Hall, and Louis B. Jones. Thank you as well to Michael Carlisle whose leadership, friendship and generosity sustain us. 

Last year, esteemed Columbia Journalism School Professor Emeritus Sam Freedman’s Book Proposal workshop was a huge success and so we invited him back. He seems to be building a cult following of enthusiastic participants. If you are interested in his book proposal seminar, he led something similar in the Writers’ Annex earlier this year. You can learn more about, and get access to the recording of his two-hour online course here. 

A big thank you to Patricia K. Meyer and Mel Storm Bloomer for their special screenplay adaptation class, and especially to Board Member Diana Fuller, who long ago founded and shepherded our screenwriting program (along with the late greats Tom Rickman and Gill Dennis). She has been with this organization from the very beginning, and commitment, guidance, and inspiration mean so much.

Andrew Tonkovich (our, ahem, A&R man) was essential every step of the way: from management of manuscripts during registration to moderating panels, he was central to it all. Year round, Andrew edits the in-house invitation-only journal of the Community, the Omnium Gatherum Quarterly, and hosts Bibliocracy Radio, which he generously shares with us to syndicate on our podcast feed. He does a lot of proofreading, and loves it.

Our brilliant  Elves (and all-around helpers) were Anna Carter, Hannah Ross, and Livia Blum. With high energy and good spirits, they all made things happen seamlessly. They boiled eggs for the morning snack bar, wrapped sound cables (a lot), ran our livestream seamlessly, and generally made the week a whole lot better for everyone. If we blink twice it is possible at least one of them may be running this circus in a few years.

Thank you again to Graham Knibb, Lindsey Jones, and Laura Howard, for their good humor, friendship, and hard work. Thanks also to Caridwen Spatz for helping out in so many ways.

Thanks to Will Richardson for leading such informative Nature Walks during both our poetry and prose weeks. Year-round, Will is the executive director of the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science, a nonprofit dedicated to science and research in the Tahoe Area.

We are also so proud to acknowledge our friends and board members, Eddy & Osvaldo Ancinas and Amy Tan & Lou Demattei, who have been so tremendously generous with their time and support over the years. We couldn’t ask for a more responsive, engaged, and wise Board of Directors, especially President Carlin Naify, and Board Vice President Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. Thanks as well to board members who attended this summer to support what we do and/or teach:  Eddy Ancinas, Michael Carlisle, Ken Haas, Katy Hover-Smoot, Jason Roberts, Clyde Rodriguez, Amy Tan, Nancy Teichert, and Oscar Villalon for helping out during the weeks. And to Board Members Michelle Latiolais and Dana Johnson for hosting a Board event on the fly with grace and humor. And particular gratitude goes to our friend and board member, the poet Steve Rempe, who has done so much for us these last few years. Steve, we really cannot thank you enough. For their year round stewardship and care, we must also thank our other board members: Reagan Arthur, Nancy Cushing Evans, Diana Fuller, Lester Graves Lennon, Jim Naify, Sameer Pandya, and Christopher Sindt. What a Board!

Thanks also to Alice Calhoun, of Alice’s Mountain Market, who along with her brother Mark, have created the only market in the world where if you tell someone you’re a poet, they’ll give you a discount.

I want to thank my year-round colleagues Catie Van Dyke, Hunter Jones and Leah Skoyles who did so much to make these programs shine. Along with her usual administrative duties, Leah managed our pop-up bookshop as well as deftly organizing lodging for participants and staff. Hunter took on myriad roles too numerous to name but including managing the sound system, creating the hybrid benefit event, recording, and producing podcasts, livestreaming our events and so much more. How to thank our operations Manager, Catie Van Dyke except adjectivally: Industrious, cheerful, proactive, cool, creative, conscientious and seemingly indefatigable. They all earned a restful vacation, one in Greece, one in Portugal, and the other at home with baby Molly!

Of course, we are grateful to Palisades Tahoe, partnering with us to ensure we have a venue for our programs and a long-term future in California’s high Sierra. Gratitude to Blair Lewis, our new partner at Palisades Tahoe who looks after us so well, and with such kindness. Christine Horvath for helping us get the word our about our Benefit and public events. And to the entire food and beverage team who worked so hard to make our workshops work. Fernando, Justin, Harry, Charlotte and more– thanks to all of you. Danny, Jeanette, and the whole Palisades Security team for always unlocking doors for us at odd hours. We also thank Rocky and Katja who allowed us to use their premises at Le Chamois, which served us as workshop spaces during both conference weeks.

Thanks also to the North Tahoe Community Alliance and the North Tahoe Chamber, which facilitated an event-support grant helping to offset the cost of bringing our esteemed staff here to the North Tahoe region. That support was made possible through TOT-TBID Dollars At Work. 

Thank you also to the incredible people at the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation. Always agile and responsive to the needs of this region, their support boosted our spirits and galvanized us to continue to bring excellent programming to the Tahoe-Truckee region once again. Thank you!

Gratitude to Michael Spurgeon of the Albert & Elaine Borchard Foundation for providing us the support to bring remarkable Borchard Literary Fellows to the Community of Writers to teach. Over the past two years, this support has facilitated many new voices in our community. This year, Francisco Goldman travelled all the way from Mexico City with his family to join us thanks to the Borchard Foundation. 

And to our Donors: What a community this is! Your support is essential to the special work we do. Nearly half of all participants’ attendance this year was made possible specifically because of your support. We have no formal membership, and no traditional fundraising structure. Instead, it is the generosity of past participants that keeps us going each year, so we quite literally could not do this without you. 

We are deeply grateful to our participants and staff, who, all together, bring the magic of the community. Our hope is that you’ve returned home inspired and with new friends who can be part of your writing journey. We at the Community of Writers can do only so much to create the circumstances of a good workshop session. We are proud of our work but ultimately it is our teaching staff and participants who make the week and, hopefully, what follows, so wonderful.

With love and gratitude,

-Brett Hall Jones
Executive Director

This summer, during our Writers’ Workshop week, we received the devastating news that our friend Robin Radin had passed. We want to honor the life and legacy of our dear friend, Robin Radin.

A scholar of Japanese History, and a long-practicing lawyer, Robin was a scholar and a life-long student. He was particularly fascinated with Japan and Japanese-American Relations, traveling extensively in Japan. He was a lover of the arts, supporting our work as well as many arts programs in Florida and New York. Robin was 83.

We came to know Robin in a most unusual way.

In 1970, in a relatively empty valley, the first administrators of the Community of Writers were setting up chairs and workshop spaces. A man approached on a white horse, having made the short trek from his small cabin on National Forest land on the bank of the Truckee river. He had heard about this new Community of Writers and, a writer in his own right, wanted to learn more. Unable to pay, he offered his guitar as collateral to Joan Klaussen – a beloved local who helped to make the summer workshops happen for many decades. His name was Paul Radin, and his presence at our summer gatherings became legendary. Mysterious and solitary, with no formal role, he joined us nonetheless for readings and craft talks, and at dinners on the deck. For more than thirty years, he joined us each summer from then on.

So it was with some melancholy and some deep gladness that we discovered that we weren’t alone in our grieving for this free-spirited man. Indeed, his brothers David and Robin Radin, feeling around as we do in grief for connection, discovered us and our relationship to Paul.

The Radin Family became a part of our community. They were instrumental in galvanizing our Tiny House project, which we named in honor of their brother. Now, our summer book shop and stage is the Paul Radin Memorial Dream Wagon. We remember Paul each summer, and the wagon felt in keeping with the style of Paul’s arrival each summer on his white horse. A migratory creature, a moving literary and cultural ambassador.

As we close out the summer chapter of our work here at the Community of Writers, we are grieving Robin, and we are keeping his sweetheart, Georgia Court, in our thoughts. But we are also grateful for the complex events – going back more than fifty years – that led to our acquaintance. Robin did so much for us as a Community, and we will miss him tremendously, even as we enact his legacy through the Dream Wagon that he helped to envision. Thank you, Robin.

In June, on the first day of Poetry week, wild winds and snow met our participants on the valley floor as they arrived with suitcases. Higher up the collecting snow brought contrast to the dramatic granite rock face that looks over our summer gathering. As the week proceeded and the weather warmed, participants and staff poets had the space and the time to write new poems—and some remarkable poems were written.

Our Writers’ Workshop week was packed with literary events: workshops, individual conferences, craft talks and panels, as well as three special afternoon workshops (Adaptation, Open Workshop, and Samuel Freedman’s “The Book Proposal” Seminar). We hosted two published alumni: Tara Dorabji and Eugenie Montague. It is always a joy to celebrate the successes of our alums here in the Valley.

And again this year, we featured most of these events on our podcast feed where listeners could keep up with the afternoon events from afar. On the final evening, we presented the Invitational Follies in which The Elves debuted a day-in-the-life-of-an-elf from a 10 foot-long scroll, Amy Tan played a cardboard fiddle, and some ankles were sprained during a raucous guided dance.

It was a beautiful summer, full of joy, friendship, craft and community. Naturally, we have some essential people to thank for helping us with this complex undertaking.

The greatest debt of gratitude we owe is always to our generous teaching staff members in Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction who make the summer workshops an unforgettable and productive experience. Thanks to our program directors: Lisa Alvarez, Julia Flynn Siler, Sands Hall, Brenda Hillman, and Louis B. Jones. Thank you as well to Michael Carlisle whose leadership, friendship and generosity sustain us. And thanks in particular to Sands for organizing the fabulous Follies!

A big thank you to Patricia K. Meyer and Mel Storm Bloomer who joined us again this summer to teach their special adaptation class, and especially to Diana Fuller, who founded and shepherded our screenwriting program. She has been with this organization from the very beginning, and we missed her tremendously this summer.

Andrew Tonkovich (our A&R man) was essential every step of the way: from the management of all the manuscripts during registration, to moderating panels, he was central to it all. Year round, Andrew edits the OGQ, hosts the Bibliocracy radio show on our podcast feed, and assists with the planning of the workshops, among many other roles.

Also, we were proud to host esteemed Columbia Journalism School Professor Emeritus Sam Freedman, who led a new special afternoon workshop based on his popular course: The Book Proposal Seminar. It was a resounding success and we have heard nothing but positive things from those who participated.

Our brilliant Elves (and all-around helpers) were Rong Pan, Alex Dawson, Rishona Michael, Anna Carter, Hannah Ross, Claire McNerney, Livia Blum, and Nicolle Delgado. With high energy and good spirits, they all made things happen seamlessly. They baked muffins, boiled eggs, wrapped sound cables (a lot), and even carried a fridge. The eggs peeled so well this year!

Thank you also to Graham Knibb, Lindsey Jones, Dashiell Jones, and ZYZZYVA’s Laura Howard, for their good humor, friendship, and hard work. Thanks also to Caridwen Spatz for helping out in so many ways including building Amy Tan a golden fiddle to play in the Follies!

Thanks to Robert Hass, who directed the Poetry Program for decades, who continues to inspire us, and to Sharon Olds who has been so central to this program for so many years.

Thanks to Will Richardson for leading such informative Nature Walks during our Poetry week. Year-round, Will is the executive director of the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science, a nonprofit dedicated to science and research in the Tahoe Area.

Thank you to all involved with the Benefit Poetry Reading this year which raises important scholarship funds. Thank you to Hunter Jones who made real again our hopes to create a live-streamed event from this beautiful valley; and to Lisa Alvarez, who emceed the event, as well as the seven participating poets: Victoria Chang, Anthony Cody, Forrest Gander, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Jane Miller and Gregory Pardlo. A heartfelt thanks especially to Wildbound Media producing the event and immersing our virtual audience in our mountain community. To view the video, click here. Thank you to everyone who came to the event, in person or online, to support this project. Thank you to our Benefit Sponsors: Palisades Tahoe, North Tahoe Community Alliance, North Tahoe Chamber, Bomb Magazine, Alta Journal, ZYZZYVA, and Palisades Press. Thank you!

We would like to acknowledge our friends and board members, Eddy & Osvaldo Ancinas and Amy Tan & Lou Demattei, who have been so tremendously generous with their time and support over the years. We couldn’t ask for a more responsive, engaged, and wise Board of Directors, especially President Carlin Naify. Thanks as well to board members Katy Hover-Smoot, Jim Naify, Amy Tan, and Nancy Teichert for helping out during the weeks. Thanks also to Michael Carlisle, Dana Johnson, Michelle Latiolais, and Oscar Villalon. And gratitude to our friend and board member Steve Rempe, who has done so much for us this year and last.

Thanks also to Bob Austin for his generous wine donation and to our Valley angel, Alice Calhoun, of Alice’s Mountain Market, who along with her brother Mark, have created the only market in the world where if you tell someone you’re a poet, they’ll give you a discount.

I want to thank my year-round colleagues Hunter Jones and Leah Skoyles who did so much to make these programs shine. Along with her usual duties, Leah managed our pop-up bookshop as well as deftly organizing the lodging for all the participants and staff. Hunter took on a myriad of roles too numerous to name but included managing the sound system, creating the hybrid benefit event, recording, and producing podcasts, and so much more. They deserve a restful vacation soon!

We are also delighted to welcome a new administrative staff member, Catie Van Dyke, who will be serving as the Community of Writers’ Operations Manager. Catie is a brilliant administrator with years of experience in production, administration, and event coordination. Welcome aboard, Catie!

We are grateful to Palisades Tahoe, who has partnered with us to ensure that we can stay in our valley home for another fifty years, as well as providing scholarships for local writers. Christine Horvath, Mike DeGraff, Brad Barth on the administrative side, and in the day-to-day the entire food and beverage team who worked so hard to make our workshops work. Fernando, Justin, Harry, Charlotte – thanks to all of you. We also would like to thank Rocky and Katja who allowed us to use their premises at Le Chamois, where, only once, Oscar Villalon’s workshop was locked inside because, unaware of the workshop upstairs, a Palisades security guard found the door unlocked and secured it. (They were later released–all still in good humor!)

Thanks also to the North Tahoe Community Alliance and the North Tahoe Chamber, who facilitated an event- support grant that helped us to offset the cost of bringing our esteemed staff here to the North Tahoe region. This support was made possible through TOT-TBID Dollars At Work. Thank you!

And to our Donors: What a community this is! Your support is essential to this thing we do. There were many participants whose attendance was made possible specifically because of your support.

We are deeply grateful to our participants and staff, who, all together, bring the magic of the community. Our hope is that you’ve returned home inspired and with new friends who can be part of your writing journey. We at the Community of Writers can do only so much to create the circumstances of a good workshop session, but ultimately it is our teaching staff and participants who make the week so wonderful.

With love and gratitude,

-Brett Hall Jones
Executive Director

The Writers’ Annex is proud to present an upcoming course led by Peter Orner: Things of this World and the Next, a short Course on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Due to popular demand following Orner’s 2024 short course on James Joyce’s Ulysses, author and Dartmouth professor Peter Orner will return to the Writers’ Annex in the fall of 2025 to lead a new short course. All of Moby Dick in six guided sessions, with a bonus seventh session as well as discussion groups, additional essays and short stories, and many other opportunities. Over 14 hours of programming. An early bird discount is available through October 14, 2025. An additional discount is available to past Writers’ Annex participants.

Learn more and register here

Stay abreast of our Summer Workshops in Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir on our podcast feed. Subscribe via the links below, or on your podcast app!

New episodes will also be added here daily.

Recorded on June 21, 2024

An unforgettable evening of poetry live in the California Sierra Nevada, and streamed online from the comfort of your home.

Our annual Benefit Poetry Reading will feature poems from our Poetry Staff: Blas Falconer, Brenda Hillman, Major Jackson, Patricia Spears Jones, Brynn Saito, and Matthew Zapruder.

Learn More and Register

Big Day of Giving, May 2, is an annual 24-hour giving challenge to help over 830 local nonprofits raise funds for their important work. This year, your gift will be doubled by more than $21,000 in matching funds.

These Matching funds support a combination of scholarships and administrative costs that will help us get by this year.

Generous friends and donors, and our Board of Directors, have all contributed to this generous matching pool.

This year, the Community of Writers needs your help more than ever. Your gift today and tomorrow will make all the difference.

Donate today

We are pleased to announce the establishment of The Lucille Clifton Poetry Chair at the Community of Writers! Congratulations to Patricia Spears Jones who will hold the Inaugural Lucille Clifton Poetry Chair in 2024. We are delighted to be able to bestow this distinction on Patricia as she prepares to join us as staff poet at this summer’s Poetry Program in Olympic Valley.

This honor is made possible by a generous donor who is committed to honoring Lucille’s memory as well as her work, values, and influence on Poetry.

View bios as a list

A selection of books published by Alumni & Staff:

January – March, 2023

Each quarter we are pleased to highlight some of the books published by members of our community. For a full chronology of alumni news, visit our Omnium Gatherum & Alumni News Page, which is always up to date with the latest alumni news.

Are you an alumnus of the summer workshops or a former teaching staff member? Do you have news to share? You can send us your news any time here.

Selected New Books From Alums and Teaching Staff

Send us your news

We’re pleased to announce the publication of our eleventh issue of the OGQ (Omnium Gatherum Quarterly) with poetry by Nicholas Reiner and Chrystal AC Salas; essays by Jimin Han, Cai Emmons, Kristen Leigh Schwarz, Susanne Pari, and Keenan Norris; a lyrical essay by Suzanne Roberts; a tribute by Robert Lipton; memoir excerpts by Emi Nietfeld and Christopher Upham; and notes by Matthew Zapruder.

The OQG is edited each quarter by Andrew Tonkovich.

Poems, photocopiers, poetry elves, vegan muffins, handmade tablecloths, softball games, nature walks past roaring snowmelt waterfalls, quaking aspen trees, a live-streamed Benefit Poetry Reading, boxes and boxes of manuscripts, masks! masks! masks!, wild flower-festooned pinecones, the Paul Radin Memorial Dream Wagon, musicians, shade tents and buckets of sand, a dock at Lake Tahoe, recitations under the stars, a staged reading! What a joy it was to return to our beautiful valley in person.

This year in particular stood out among many wonderful sessions.  In addition to it being our first year back in the Valley in three years, the joy of being together again in person in this beautiful place, the high caliber of the work, and the deep commitment to community, made this session particularly memorable.

We are grateful to our generous teaching staff members in Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction who make the summer workshops an unforgettable and productive experience. Thanks to our program directors: Lisa Alvarez, Michael Carlisle, Sands Hall, Brenda Hillman, and Louis B. Jones. And thanks in particular to Sands for her leadership and for organizing the fabulous Follies! Thanks as well to Gary Giddens, husband of participant Beth Giddens, who skillfully ran the sound for the Follies.

Our Special Guests deserve a shout out for the gift of their presence in the Valley: Meg Waite Clayton, Frances Dinkelspiel, Karen Joy Fowler, Andrew Nicholls, Kris O’Shee, Julia Flynn Siler, Jordan Fisher Smith, Caridwen Irvine Spatz, Amy Tan and Dora Wang, who, as a physician, served as an unofficial advice-giver and comfort regarding all things COVID.

Patricia K. Meyer and Megan Fay Raveneau joined us again this summer to teach their special class “The Alchemy of Adaptation.” A big thank you to Diana Fuller, who founded and shepherded this program from a full screenwriting program to an adaptation program for fiction and nonfiction writers.

Andrew Tonkovich was essential every step of the way: from the management of all the manuscripts during registration, to moderating panels, he was central to it all.

We mourned the loss of one of our beloved friends this summer: Al Young. Many thanks to Lisa Alvarez for organizing the event, as well as Andrew Tonkovich and Louis B. Jones for their tributes, and thanks to longtime participant and friend of the community Joe Heinrich, whose tribute was read by fellow participant and boy-camper of the week, Jordan Brown.

Many thanks to Ashlyn Hardie, Katherine Plocharzyk and L Tonkovich, who worked our pop-up bookstore in the Dream Wagon during the Poetry and Writers Workshops weeks. Thanks to our friend Siig of Tahoe Art Haus and Cinema for helping us move the Dream Wagon. And thanks to Dashiell Jones and Kat Feiling for creating a bit of home in our humble snack bar. And thanks to Kaitlin Klaussen and Audrey Rawson for help with housing and registration day!

Our Elves (and all-around helpers) were Kat Feiling, Antonia Fuller, Lindsey Gordon, Ashlyn Hardie, Dashiell Jones, Michaela Korn, Katherine Plocharzyk, and L Tonkovich. With high energy and good spirits, they all made things happen seamlessly.

L helped us record events and will soon be putting them on our website as podcasts. Lindsey, Hunter and Eva organized the Poetry Picnic this year at Skylandia Beach, with help from all the elves.

A big thank you to all of our work-waivers, especially Gauri Awasthi, Luz Casquejo Johnston, Loisa Fenichell, Katarina Lapoll, Natasha Rao, Mark Spero, and Martha Yates for their help all week.

The Benefit Poetry Reading took place in Olympic Valley in June, on the Thursday evening during Poetry Week, and many thanks are in order, to Hunter Jones who made real my hope to create our first-ever live-streamed benefit. Sands Hall who emceed the event, as well as the seven participating poets: Camille Dungy, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Major Jackson, Ada Limón, Sharon Olds and Matthew Zapruder. A heartfelt thanks especially to Jared and Julia Drake of Wildbound Media for all of their brilliant work producing the event and immersing our virtual audience in our mountain community. To view the video, click here. Thanks as well to our sponsors of this event: Tahoe Art Haus and Cinema, Word After Word Books, and PUBS WHO DONATED!! This event benefits our Poetry Scholarship Fund, which we look to expand each year in the face of rising costs. We have tremendous gratitude to everyone who came to the event in person or online to support this project. Donations welcome.

We were delighted to welcome back published alums to read from their new work: Caroline Frost, Gail Reitano, Katherine Seligman. Thank you for making the trek out here to share your work with us!

Due to last minute, COVID-related staff cancelations, we would like to thank all of the Writers Workshop teaching staff who stepped in and volunteered to cover gaps in the schedule of events and workshop schedule, in order to create a seamless experience for our participants. You know who you are! Special thanks to Karen Joy Fowler for stepping in to give a brilliant Opening Talk, Rachel Howard who drove up from Nevada City to lead a morning workshop, and to Amy Tan who stepped in at the last minute and gave a stunning reading from her book Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir.

We would like to acknowledge our friends who have been tremendously generous with their time and local support over the years:  Mimi Miller, Eddy & Osvaldo Ancinas, and Amy Tan & Lou Demattei. Thanks also to alum and friend Bob Austin for his generous wine donation.

Many thanks to the Board of Directors: a person in my position couldn’t ask for a more responsive, generous and wise Board, especially president Carlin Naify. Thanks as well to board members Jim Naify, Nancy and Fred Teichert, and Julia Flynn Siler, for digging in and helping with various events. Deep gratitude to our literary committee led by board vice president Alex Espinoza, along with Lisa Alvarez, Dana Johnson, Louis B. Jones, Michelle Latiolais, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, and Oscar Villalon, for helping us create a more inclusive and responsive community.

I want to thank my year-round colleagues Hunter Jones and Eva Melas who did so much to make these workshops shine. As well as her usual duties, Eva managed our pop-up bookshop as well as deftly organizing the lodging for all the participants and staff. Hunter took on a myriad of roles too numerous to name but which included planning for our first-ever pandemic onsite conference and all that entails including safe and pleasant outdoor spaces, sound system, creating the hybrid benefit event, and so much more. They deserve a restful vacation soon!

We are deeply grateful to our participants and staff. You showed respect and care for one another by following our COVID protocols. We are so glad to have had a safe and healthy summer. We want to thank you for your patience through all the site challenges; from ski-area construction noise to wildfire smoke to windblown roaming tents and, in June, rain and snowfall—all of you made these workshops memorable through your warmth and good will. We at the Community of Writers can only do so much to create the circumstances of a good workshop session, but ultimately it is our teaching staff and participants who make the week so wonderful.

And to our Donors: What a community this is! Your support is essential to this thing we do.

With love and gratitude,

-Brett Hall Jones
Executive Director

The Community of Writers is delighted to announce our inaugural scholarships in partnership with Kimbilio [Fiction] Workshop! The remarkable writers who have been awarded these scholarships to attend the Community of Writers’ 2021 Fiction Workshop are:

Hayward Leach
Darlene Taylor

Darlene and Hayward are Kimbilio [Fiction] Fellows, and come to us through this partnership.

Kimbilio means “safe haven” in Swahili.  The Kimbilio conference is a fellow community of writers, who are committed to developing, empowering and sustaining fiction writers from the African diaspora and their stories. Their annual writers conference, for serious-minded, committed fiction writers, provides a solid grounding in the fundamentals of fiction.

Kimbilio [Fiction] Workshop is a project of Dedman College / Southern Methodist University’s English Department.

Thank you to Kimbilio’s Board Chair, David Haynes, and Community of Writers’ Board Member Dana Johnson, for making this partnership possible. We would also like to thank the donors who together created the funds to allow these talented writers to attend our summer workshops.

To learn about applying to join the next class of Fellows, Click Here
To learn how you can support Kimbilio, Click Here

For over 30 years, Al was a vital member of the Community of Writers, teaching across the programs and serving on the Board of Directors. Many Friday night Follies found Al onstage, often part of the three-man Granite Chief quartet or as a duo with his friend Jim Houston, serenading the audience with such classics as “Hey Good Lookin’” or “Mr. Bojangles.”

 Al, who served as California’s Poet Laureate for three years, wrote over 25 books of fiction, nonfiction and poetry.  A graduate of UC Berkeley, he also taught widely, as a Stegner fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford, as well as at universities and conferences across the country and the world. He was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, among them the Guggenheim, the Richard Wright Award for Excellence in Literature, a Fulbright, NEA Fellowships, PEN-USA awards, and Radio Pacifica’s KPFA Peace Prize.

While Al’s final publication credits include an appearance in The Best American Poetry 2016, edited by Edward Hirsch, as well as our recently published anthology Why to These Rocks: Fifty years of Poems from the Community of Writers, the most impressive credit is certainly the five poems which appear in the Library of America’s African American Poetry: 250 years of Struggle and Song, edited by Kevin Young.  One of those poems, “How Stars Start,” ends like this:

All roads lead back to starts, to where
I started out, to stars: the fiery
beginnings of our ends & means; our
meanness & our meanings. There never
was a night begun in darkness,
nor a single day begun in light.

View Slideshow of Al

Read Berkeleyside‘s Obituary of Al.

Read Andrew Tonkovich‘s 2013 piece on Al Young in the OCWeekly.

In 2018, Al had a debilitating stroke, and for the last two years, Al’s son Michael has managed his father’s affairs and significant health challenges. Amy Tan has observed, “As proof of how beloved Al was, friends donated over $100,000 to help with Al’s care. Michael, who had grown into an amazing son, writer and bookseller, helped us come to know Al as the father who inspired reciprocal devotion.” Folks who still wish to offer Michael support can do so here:

Donate to Al Young Fund

Al Young Memorial Scholarship Fund

We have established a scholarship in Al’s name to help black writers and poets attend our workshops.

Donate to the Al Young Memorial Scholarship

Please indicate “Al Young Memorial Scholarship” in the form. Or send a check to:

Community of Writers – Al Young Memorial Scholarship
PO Box 1416
Nevada City, CA 95959

We send our love and condolences to his son Michael, and to all who loved him.

Read about the anthology in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

“The anthology celebrates the 50th anniversary of the program with poems from its staff poets, a powerhouse group that includes Lucille Clifton, Rita Dove, Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds and UC San Diego professor Kazim Ali. There are also poems from writers who have participated in the program, a stellar group that includes Cal State San Marcos professor Brandon Cesmat, SDSU professor Blas Falconer and Imperial Valley native Jennifer Givhan.”

Read More at the Union-Tribune

More Details about the Anthology

Order the Book

Books published by Alumni Poets and Writers in January – March, 2021.

Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums and staff members who have published books during the first quarter of 2021!

We are thrilled to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below.

Visit our Omnium Gatherum to explore all the recent alumni news.

NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMS

NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOP ALUMS

We are horrified at the violence against Asian American and Pacific Islanders this country has recently witnessed, and our hearts are broken by the fear and pain this has created.
The Community of Writers is united with the AAPI communities in the fight against hate and racism. We need to all work together to stop it.

Please join us in condemning this violence and working against it in our own communities and beyond.

Learn More

• Anti Defamation League: Speak Up Against Ant-Asian Hate
• The New Yorker: Confronting Anti-Asian Discrimination During the Coronavirus Crisis
• The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Discrimination and Violence Against Asian Americans

Take action:

• Educational resources and petitions to sign
• Report hate incidents
• Attend a bystander intervention training
• Send a message to elected officials 

The Community of Writers is delighted to announce scholarships for KIMBILIO Fiction Fellows who require financial aid to attend the Community of Writers Fiction Workshop this summer.

Dates: July 11 – 17, 2021
Deadline to apply: March 28, 2021

Each scholarship will cover: $880 Tuition to Fiction Program.
Interested Kimbilo Fiction Fellows will need to apply to the workshop by March 28, and request this scholarship in the application form.

More Details

The Community of Writers is pleased to announce the 51st Anniversary of our Summer Writing Workshops in Poetry and Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir.
We are now accepting applications.

 THE POETRY WORKSHOP:

June 19 – 26, 2021

The Poetry Program at the Community of Writers is founded on the belief that when poets gather in a community to write new poems, each poet may well break through old habits and write something stronger and truer than before. Although we can’t gather in person, nonetheless we will work together to create an atmosphere in which everyone might feel free to try anything. Director: Brenda Hillman.

Click on the author portraits to learn about these poets and their work. Or View as List

Kazim Ali • Blas Falconer • Forrest Gander
Brenda Hillman • Sharon Olds • Evie Shockley

Visit the Poetry Workshop Page

THE FICTION WORKSHOPS
July 11 – 17, 2021

These workshops assist serious writers by exploring the art and craft as well as the business of writing. The week offers daily morning workshops, craft lectures, panel discussions on editing and publishing, staff readings, and brief individual conferences.The morning workshops are led by staff writer-teachers, editors, or agents. In addition to their workshop manuscripts, participants may have a second manuscript read by a staff member who meets with them in individual conferences.

Special Guests

Click on the portraits to learn about these authors and their work.  Or View as List

Fiction Workshops Teaching Staff

Authors

Click on the portraits to learn about these authors and their work.  Or View as List

Visit the Fiction Workshop Page

THE NONFICTION & MEMOIR WORKSHOP

August 1 – 6 , 2021

These workshops are designed to assist serious writers by exploring the art and craft as well as the business of writing. The week includes daily morning workshops, craft lectures, panel discussions on editing and publishing, staff readings, and brief individual conferences. The morning workshops, led by staff writer-teachers, comprise tracks devoted to both memoir and narrative nonfiction. In addition to having a manuscript addressed in workshop, participants may have the same manuscript read by a staff member, discussed in individual conference. This is not the conference for travel, self-help, how-to, or scholarly works.

Teaching Staff

Click on the portraits to learn about these authors and their work.  Or View as List

Visit the NonFiction/Memoir Workshop Page

Books published by Alumni and Staff Authors in October – December, 2020.

Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums and staff members who have published books during the fourth quarter of 2020!

We are thrilled to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below.

Visit our Omnium Gatherum to explore all the recent alumni news.

NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMNI

NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOP ALUMNI

Please stay safe, and by all means share our journal.

Andrew Tonkovich
Editor, OGQ

Read the OGQ

It’s here!

We are delighted to announce the publication of Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review 2019.  This annual anthology is made up of poems first written during the 2019 Poetry Workshop, and is available now! Proceeds benefit the Poetry Workshop’s Scholarship Fund.

Each June at the Community of Writers, poets gather in the Sierras to write and share their new work. Participants and teaching staff poets alike write a poem each day and then bring their new draft to workshop the next morning. Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review 2019 is an impressive collection of all of the extraordinary poetry to come out of the 2019 Poetry Workshop. Once again, volunteer editors, alumni from the same annual workshop, sort through all of the participant submissions and select the poems that appear in the Review. The 2019 Poetry staff featured Forrest Gander, Brenda Hillman, David Tomas Martinez, Jane Miller, Sharon Olds, and Gregory Pardlo, with special guest Robert Hass. This edition of Written Here was edited by Veronica Corpuz, Jeanne Morel, Jon Riccio, Jennifer Sperry Steinorth, and Leah Xue. Many thanks to Cody Gates and Maureen Forys at Happenstance Type-O-Rama for the beautiful book design and production.

Poets included in the issue:

Threa Almontaser • Laura Atkinson • Kyce Bello • Ambriel Floyd Bostic • Robin Burrows • Brian Carey Chung • Nate Clute • Veronica Corpuz • Beth Ford • Kirk Glaser • Katy Gurin • Ken Haas • J.J. Hernandez • Ethan Heusser • Brenda Hillman • John Hines • Leslieann Hobayan • Lauren Howard • Danny Kraft • Deborah Krainin • Lester Graves Lennon • Helena Li • Sarah Maclay • Holaday Mason • Jane Miller • Matthew Moniz • Jeanne Morel • Julie Murphy • Sharon Olds • Emilie Osborn • Jessica Reed • Jon Riccio • Yiskah Rosenfeld • Gini Savage • Diane Schenker • Richard Sime • Arthur Solway • Benjamin Voigt • Lisa Wenzel • Roberta Werdinger • Amelia L. Williams • Mary Winegarden

Give the gift of poetry this holiday season!
The book is available through a print-on-demand site for $16.

Buy Now

We are delighted to tell you that the long-awaited Why to These Rocks: The 50th Anniversary Poetry Anthology will be published by Heyday Books in March, 2021. Stay tuned for more details in the months ahead. 

More Anthologies 

Books published by Alumni and Staff Authors in July – September, 2020.

Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums and staff members who have published books during the third quarter of 2020!

We are thrilled to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below.

Visit our Omnium Gatherum to explore all the recent alumni news.

NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMNI

NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOP ALUMNI

We are delighted to announce the Literary Arts Emergency Fund has provided the Community of Writers a grant for $15,000 to help us weather these difficult times.

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the organizers of the Fund: the directors of Academy of American Poets, the Community of Literary Magazine & Presses, and the National Book Foundation.

Read more details and a complete list of the other organizations who benefitted from these grants.

The third issue of OGQ: Omnium Gatherum Quarterly, the new quarterly online magazine from the Community of Writers, is here.

In this issue, we present an essay from one of our Community’s legends, the much-esteemed late novelist and journalist Robert Stone. It’s an excerpt from a just-released collection of his nonfiction. Longtime member Molly Fisk shares two poems, one each from two anthologies she’s featured in, one of which she edited. Leland Cheuk makes us all smarter and less America-centric with a journal of his recent internationlist reading. And, finally, we feature two gorgeous fictions from recent participants on the way up. Lyndsey Ellis‘s short story is a musically-structured experiment in association and observation by a mortuary technician. Her novel arrives next year. Elison Alcovendaz offers a poignant story of quotidian loss and emotional discovery.  

We’re also pleased to announce the inaugural episode of Conversations from the Virtual Valley, our new series featuring author interviews, readings and panels.  Our first features Michelle Latiolais in conversation with Ryan Ridge. 

Conversations from the Virtual Valley is hosted by Andrew Tonkovich and produced by Laura Howard. 

OGQ Issue 3

To get the next issue sent directly to your inbox, subscribe today.

Books published by Alumni and Staff Authors in April – June, 2020

Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums and staff members who have published books during the second quarter of 2020!

We are thrilled to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below.

Visit our Omnium Gatherum to explore all the recent alumni news.

NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMNI

NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOP ALUMNI

Join Us for the Memoir Workshop Week with Virtual Panels and Readings!

Please join us for the Public Events at the Community of Writers
during Memoir Week in the Virtual Valley.

Events are on the Zoom platform.

Panels:

Monday, 8/3, 4:00 PM (Pacific): “Effective Strategies for Memoir & Nonfiction,” featuring:
Debra Gwartney • Elizabeth Rosner • Grace Talusan
moderated by Sands Hall

Tuesday, 8/4, 4:00 PM (Pacific): “Who Am I This Time? Revisioning Memoir,” featuring:
Alex Espinoza • Christine Hemp • Sands Hall • Amy Tan
moderated by Debra Gwartney

RESERVE TICKET

Ticket reservations will close one hour before the event. Reserve early.

Readings:

Our Memoir staff talk about and read from their memoirs:

Tuesday, 8/4, 5:30 PM (Pacific):
Debra Gwartney • Sands Hall •  Grace Talusan

Thursday 8/6, 5:30 PM (Pacific):
Alex Espinoza • Christine Hemp • Elizabeth Rosner

RESERVE TICKET

Ticket reservations will close one hour before the event. Reserve early.

The Community of Writers Fiction Workshop in the Virtual Valley is proud to present

“Short Takes” Fiction Readings

These readings are presented to the public as part of our first-ever Fiction workshop held entirely online.
These readings are free to attend. Donations needed and welcome.

Tuesday, July 21st • 5:30 PM Pacific

Tom Barbash • Devi S. Laskar • Krys Lee •  Kirstin Valdez Quade • Gregory Spatz
Emcee: Tom Lutz

Thursday, July 23rd • 5:30 PM Pacific

Janet Fitch • Michael Jaime-Becerra • Dana Johnson • Tom Lutz • Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Emcee: Oscar Villalon

Register Now!

David Perlman, the last of the three founders of our conference, has died, at the age of 101, in San Francisco. Fifty years ago here, editor Blair Fuller and novelist Oakley Hall were regularly spending their summers in the Valley, and David Perlman had a house here, too. It was a small village at the time, and people met up. Oakley had made a great reputation as a novelist; Blair Fuller was an editor at The Paris Review, and the three of them decided to have some fun inventing a week-long summer writers conference. Anne Perlman – who preceded her husband in death by two decades – was a serious, accomplished poet, who had been very respectably published, and in the early days she worked on the Poetry program with Galway Kinnell and Phil Levine and Mark Strand.

Originally a New Yorker, graduate of Columbia, David fell in love with San Francisco early, and migrated early. His first job on the West Coast was as a copyboy at the Chronicle. That was 1940. After WW II military service, he spent some time in Paris and New York, writing for the New York Herald Tribune, but soon devised a way back to San Francisco, where he got hired at the San Francisco Chronicle as a reporter.

He retired from the paper only three years ago, at 98, having worked full-time all those years. He kept arduous regular hours even deep into his 90s, spoke until the end with sharp wit and a rich understanding of the world, and even walked with a spring in his step. On his last day at the Chronicle, he decided to allow himself the unprecedented luxury of leaving fifteen minutes ahead of time, and went to his editor’s office to say he was going to “slide early.” But he was of course noticed slipping out, and everybody in the newsroom got to their feet applauding.

David and Anne gave up their house in Olympic Valley at some point. After that they seldom came up to the workshop, but he always thought of this organization as one of his happiest achievements. The thing he loved most, which kept him at his desk in San Francisco, was explaining science to readers. Elucidating our tectonic jolts, AIDS, moonshots, climate change, he earned a reputation over the years as a “dean of science journalism,” having resolved in his twenties that science journalism was “the most glamorous thing in the world.”

The last story he filed for the Chronicle was a typically long piece (the Chronicle always gave him plenty of space, all he wanted), explaining the total eclipse of eclipse of the sun.

Daylight will turn to midnight. The summer air will turn chilly,
birds will chirp uneasily in the unexpected darkness and the stars will emerge.

Read the San Francisco Chronicle’s appreciation for David Perlman.