Congratulations to our Board Member Jason Roberts for winning the Pulitzer Prize in Biography for his book, Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life (Random House).
Our News
Welcome to our News Page: Here you can find our latest goings-on within the Community: announcements, events, updates, publications, acknowledgements and more.
A Short Course on Moby Dick: Things of this World and the Next, led by Peter Orner. October & November 2025
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
2025 Quarter 1 Writers Workshops and Poetry Alumni News Roundup
January – March, 2025
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 alum 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.
Announcing Issue 17 of the OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly
Our seventeenth issue of the OGQ (Omnium Gatherum Quarterly) features essays and stories by Lauren Hohle, Alix Christie, Maw Shein Win, Sameer Pandya, Robert Hass, and Lindsey Steffes, an op-ed by Héctor Tobar, an interview with Lynne Thompson, and book excerpts by Sandra Scofield and Thomas Lutz.
Announcing I , Too, Sing America: Langston Hughes and his Contemporaries
A Short Course led by Major Jackson and Emily Bernard.
On the eve of the centenary publication of The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes’s debut volume of poetry, we are proud to present, “I, Too, Sing America.” We celebrate Langston Hughes’s life as an essential poet, playwright, memoirist, translator, and central figure of the Harlem Renaissance.
A writer who found inspiration in everyday people, their customs and music, Hughes’ evolution as a cultural and political writer inspired generations of writers on multiple continents. This short course will close read his most important and some obscure poems while addressing his significance as an American writer who, along with his contemporaries, first ushered in the possibilities of literature to address the dreams, aspirations, and political freedom of human beings around the globe. In addition, we will also discuss several prose works by Hughes that dramatize his perspectives on the complex dynamics between Black artists and their expanding readerships, consuming audiences, and structures of support in the twentieth century.
Help Those Affected by the LA Wildfires
So many of our friends and alums live in the Los Angeles area. We send our love and sympathy for those affected by the wildfires. While we know you may have already offered support through other organizations, we’d like to bring your attention to just a few.
Goodbye to Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
The much-beloved longtime member of our Community of Writers, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, died at age 90 in December. Some of us saw our friend Jeanne most recently at the 2023 memorial for her good friend and ours, Al Young. Al was legendary pals with both Jeanne and her husband, novelist James D. Houston, her writing collaborator for her landmark Farewell to Manzanar.
We will miss Jeanne, whose life and work were as impressive as they were inspiring. Her cultural and political influence was undisputed. We were fortunate to know her through the decades as she returned to Olympic Valley for the workshop week— welcomed back by CW founders Barbara and Oakley Hall — often arriving at the end of the week for the Follies and parties, staying over at the Von der Ahe staff house on the Truckee River with Jim, Al Young, Alan Cheuse, and others.
In 2003, during our summer programs, Jeanne led a memorable evening presentation on Farewell to Manzanar, when she and Jim celebrated its 30th Anniversary. Farewell to Manzanar, published in 1973, was a seminal work which explores the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. It tells the personal story of Jeanne and her family’s three-year internment in the Manzanar camp in California.
It isn’t until halfway into Richard Sandomir’s New York Times obituary of Jeanne, that readers find this: “Farewell to Manzanar has sold 1.6 million copies domestically, according to its publisher, HarperCollins.” Talk about burying the lede! The obituary reviews her family’s experience at the Manzanar concentration camp, her education and writing life, her family with Jim Houston, including photos by Ansel Adams and family.
The memoir became a classic of American history, part of the teaching canon, adopted in many K-12, high school, community college and university curricula. In 1977, Jeanne and Jim collaborated with Jim Korty to adapt the book into a film which won the Humanitas prize for teleplay.
Jeanne went on to write a novel, The Legend of Fire Horse Woman, and an essay and story collection, Beyond Manzanar and other views of Asian-American Womanhood. She contributed to Don’t Cry, It’s Only Thunder (Paul G. Hemsler) as well as received accolades including the Japanese American of the Biennium Award for achievement in Arts, Literature and Communication, and the National Women’s Political Caucus’s Women of Achievement Award. In 2019, she was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
“You cannot deport 110,000 people unless you have stopped seeing individuals,” she wrote in her most famous work, a book that still has lessons to teach America.
Donors who wish to honor her may contribute to the Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston Memorial Scholarship fund to bring talented Asian writers to the workshops.
2024/2025 Quarter 4 Writers Workshops and Poetry Alumni News Roundup
November – January, 2025
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 alum 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.
Author Margaret Wilkerson Sexton elected VP of Board of Directors
We are pleased to announce that author Margaret Wilkerson Sexton has been elected to serve as Vice President of our Board of Directors. Margaret has regularly taught fiction at our summer workshops, and has served as a member of our board for since 2020. We are honored and delighted that she will be stepping into this leadership position.
We look forward to working with Margaret as we move into the next chapter of this organization.
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. Her most recent novel, On The Rooftop, was a 2022 Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. Her second novel, The Revisioners, won a 2020 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work and was a national bestseller as well as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her debut novel, A Kind of Freedom, was long-listed for the National Book Award. She lives in Oakland with her family.
Nonprofit Operations Manager
The Community of Writers seeks applicants for our newest position: Nonprofit Operations Manager. Preference will be given to candidates who lives close enough to Nevada City, California, to be able to fulfill the expectations of this hybrid (in-person/remote) position.
The Nonprofit Operations Manager is accountable for bill paying, managing several income streams, overseeing budgets, reconciling transactions, and producing financial reports in collaboration with the Executive Director, Program Directors, and the CPA. The Operations Manager also helps to analyze reports and generate budgets for grants and donors. In addition, the Operations manager will help produce CW’s in person summer workshops, and online offerings.
The candidate ideally will have a keen interest in literature.
The position is open until it is filled.
Position Description:
The Nonprofit Operations Manager is a part-time, but high-level position with primary responsibility for the coordination of C.W.’s core systems, including financial transaction processing, financial budgets and reporting, human resources, nonprofit compliance, information technology, fundraising strategies, and program support.
The operations manager will manage the day-to-day finances, assist the ED with financial reports, manage human resources, information technology, programs, fundraising, and help produce in person and virtual programming, to ensure our nonprofit business runs efficiently.
During the summer workshops, the Nonprofit Operations Manager is an integral component of the day-to-day workings of the workshops, performing a wide variety of tasks to ensure a personalized and excellent experience for all participants and staff.
We are looking for a self-reliant and motivated individual who is flexible, creative, willing to learn, and who can exhibit excellent leadership and organizational qualities.
View Full Job Description
Submit Resume and Cover Letter
Announcing our 2025 Summer Workshops
The Community of Writers is pleased to announce our Summer Workshops in Poetry and Prose in Olympic Valley, CA
We are delighted to announce our 54th annual summer workshops season!
Applications are open for our 2025 summer writing workshops in Olympic Valley. The gatherings are for poets and writers, and include workshops, panel discussions, and craft talks as well as special interest classes.
The Community of Writers was founded half a century ago by California writers Blair Fuller and Oakley Hall, who wished to foster a literary culture in the West that would be conversant with the publishing establishment of the East Coast.
The Poetry Workshop will be held June 21-27, 2025. The program admits 70 talented poets into the week-long program. Directed by Brenda Hillman, this program fosters poets as they produce new work each day. Participating poets meet daily in session to share poems written during the previous 24 hours. Poets attend daily craft talks by the teaching staff poets, and meet in brief one-on-one sessions with staff poets. The week culminates in a public benefit poetry reading featuring the staff poets reading their recent work—sometimes poems written during the week. This year, again, the event will be live-streamed for a local, national and international audience to raise important scholarship funds.
The Writers Workshop will take place July 7-14 and admits up to 110 fiction, nonfiction, and memoir writers. Writers meet in small workshop groups to discuss their submitted manuscript with a member of the teaching staff. The 2025 teaching staff includes fiction and nonfiction writers as well as literary agents and editors working in publishing today. Lectures and panel discussions on the craft of writing, as well as publishing, are offered daily, in addition to staff readings.
All interested writers of prose and poetry are encouraged to apply, though admission is competitive and the writing level is high. No prior publications or academic credits are required; the only criterion for admission is that the applicant submit a sample of original writing. Financial aid is available including scholarships.
2025 Lucille Clifton Poetry Chair
We are pleased to announce the 2nd Annual Lucille Clifton Poetry Chair at the Community of Writers! Congratulations to Evie Shockley who will hold the Lucille Clifton Poetry Chair in 2025. We are delighted to be able to bestow this distinction on Evie 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.
Evie Shockley
Photo credit Stéphane Robolin
Lucille Clifton
Photo credit Tracy Hall
New Board Members Announced
The Community of Writers is tremendously proud to welcome the newest members of our Board of Directors. Our board of directors has elected two esteemed individuals, Sameer Panda and Clyde Rodriguez, to join them at the helm of our institution to help guide us into the next fifty years.
Sameer Pandya is the author of the novel Members Only, a finalist for the California Book Award and an NPR Best Books of 2020, and the story collection The Blind Writer, longlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award. His forthcoming novel Our Beautiful Boys will be published in 2025 by Ballantine/Random House in the US and Bloomsbury in the UK. His cultural criticism has appeared in a range of publications, including the Atlantic, Salon, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN. He is an Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Clyde Rodriguez is a technologist committed to responsible innovation and the founder of Ascend Logic, a technology firm advising C-level executives on AI technology strategy, governance, product development, and leadership. He has advised the UN on the use of technology for global development and contributed to product development across multiple sectors, including AI, cloud, social media, operating systems, finance, and semiconductors, and government. His leadership has contributed to the success of early-stage startups and Fortune 20 companies like Microsoft, Meta, and Bank of America developing services used by billions of customers. He serves on the boards of academic organizations dedicated to helping individuals advance in their personal and professional lives, as well as supporting technology policy efforts in service to society. He is a Trustee for the UC Berkeley Foundation, and a member of the Advisory Boards for Berkeley’s College of Engineering and the Goldman School of Public Policy’s Center for Security in Politics. He served on the Board of MIT’s One Laptop Per Child initiative, the Open Networking Foundation, the Open-Source Security Foundation, New York City FIRST Robotics, and First Place School, an organization dedicated to serving homeless children in Seattle. He became an Aspen Institute Technology Policy Fellow in March 2024 and has advised the White House on open-source software security and the use of AI for public services. Clyde delivered the 2023 UC Berkeley Computer Science Commencement keynote, sharing observations from his career and the ethical implications of AI. He is working on a memoir focused on reinvention as a means of survival, chronicling a journey from extreme poverty to the heights of Silicon Valley, and the personal cost of relentless ambition.
Please join us in welcoming and celebrating these two incredible individuals to our Board of Directors. We are so grateful to have a Board with the vision and stewardship to help us continue to do our important work. A full list of our board is here.
2024 Quarter 3 Poetry Alumni News Roundup
July – September, 2024
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 alum 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
2024 Quarter 3 Writers Workshops Alumni News Roundup
July – September, 2024
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 alum 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
Announcing Issue 16 of the OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly
Our sixteenth issue of the OGQ (Omnium Gatherum Quarterly) features essays and stories by Tyler Dilts, Susanne Pari, Andrew Tonkovich, Shi Naseer, Max Byrd, Steve Susoyev, Eugenie Montague, David L. Ulin, and Gina DeMillo Wagner, poems by Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras, Beverley Bie Brahic, and Ruben Quesada, and watercolor sketches by Janet Fitch.
The OGQ is edited each quarter by Andrew Tonkovich.
Announcing LATIN AMERICAN DEATH TRIP, led by Forrest Gander and Carmen Giménez
Death is the subject of many of the greatest (most moving, innovative, funny, haunting, political, oneiric) Latin American poems of the 20th century, from José Gorostiza’s Death without End to Gabriela Mistral’s “Death Sonnets,” from Xavier Villaurrutia’s Nostalgia for Death to María Rivera’s “The Dead.
What can we learn from that body of poetry that might be generative for our own thinking, feeling, writing? Many philosophers tell us that there is a signal connection between death and “the meaning of life.” What particularities of culture, gender, sexuality, age, faith or experience might account for the visionary clarity of death as constant companion or permeable border, etc. in Latin American poetry? Why are death poems so common in those cultures? Is it connected to traumatic resonances from the conquest? Does it go back to Maya, Aztec, or Incan cultural traditions? With what kinds of syntax, sound, image, structure, and vocabulary is death treated? How different are the cultural contexts from country to country? And why did we once think that only men seem to write them?
Thank you for an extraordinary summer!
With our summer workshops behind us, we are delighted to report that this was a particularly wonderful summer of poetry and prose. We saw rain, lightning, wind, and thunder, June nights below freezing and 90+ degree days in July, and the smoke from a fire on Donner Summit. We also had skies of startling blue and pleasant evenings under the stars. And we saw great writing, hard work, new friendships, peace, respect, and understanding. We saw generosity, patience and kindness. We are so grateful to everyone who joined us.
Our Poetry Program in June provided participants and staff poets the space and the time to write new poems—and some remarkable poems were written. Our photocopy machine was busy printing copies for each morning session. Our annual Benefit Poetry Reading was a hybrid event – both online and in-person under the stars. (You can watch the recording here.) We hiked among waterfalls and plunged into the icy waters of Lake Tahoe, had a raucous tie-game of Poetry Softball this year that also featured a surprise visit from a coyote. As is the tradition, on the final night poets recited their favorite poems from memory.
Our Writers’ Workshop week was packed with literary events and community. Through workshops, individual conferences, craft talks and panels, as well as three special workshops (Finding the Story, Adaptation, and Open Workshop), our “You Must Read This” event, and a brilliant nonfiction evening on the deck of the Paul Radin Memorial Dream Wagon, participants benefited from packed days of literary opportunities. And for the first time, we created a podcast feed where anyone could keep up with the afternoon events. We were proud to celebrate published alums and enjoyed listening to readings from their newly published works and their memories of their time at the Community of Writers.
As such, we need to acknowledge people who made it possible.
We are grateful to Palisades Tahoe, who has partnered with us to ensure that we can stay in our valley home of more than fifty years. Christine Horvath, Mike DeGraff, Dee Burne, and Brad Barth on the administrative side, and in the day-to-day the whole food and beverage team who worked so hard to make our workshops work. We also would like to thank Rocky and Katja who allowed us to use their premises at Le Chamois.
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 Jones. And thanks in particular to Sands for her leadership and for organizing the fabulous Follies! Thank you as well to Michael Carlisle whose friendship and generosity makes all the difference. And of course, we must thank the incredible Nicholas Nichols (@maruneboy), who captured so many gorgeous photos this summer.
Our Writers’ Workshop week was jam-packed and full of excellent writing. In addition to our workshops craft talks and panels, we had two special workshops (Finding the Story and Adaptation), and for the first time, we created a podcast feed where anyone could access the afternoon events in real time. We hosted a beautiful published alumni reading, and our primary goal, as always, was to facilitate excellent writing through community building, and we are so proud to say that this year was a resounding success.
A big thank you to Patricia K. Meyer and Stacy Spruill who joined us again this summer to teach their special adaptation class, and especially to Diana Fuller, who founded and shepherded this program from a full screenwriting program to an adaptation program for fiction and nonfiction writers. She has been with this organization from the very beginning.
Likewise, Leslie Daniels took up Gill Dennis‘s torch once again this year, leading the beloved Finding the Story Workshop for the second year in a row. Thank you Leslie!
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.
Our Elves (and all-around helpers) were Irish Ely, Michaelyn Logue, Emma McCandless, Jaz Nguyen (the printer guru), Rumi Petersen, Gyana Roberts and Kate Rogers. With high energy and good spirits, they all made things happen seamlessly.
Thank you also to Graham Knibb, Lindsey Jones, Tracy Hall, Jim Chumbley, and Dashiell Jones for their support and hard work during the summer. Thanks also to Sands Hall for everything she brings to the workshop week from her Making Workshops Work presentation to The Open Workshop, to her brilliant teaching, and the Follies, which she emcees and puts together.
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 decades.
Thanks to Will Richardson for leading such informative Nature Walks during our Poetry week.
The Benefit Poetry Reading raises important scholarship funds which we look to expand each year in the face of rising costs. 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: Blas Falconer, Brenda Hillman, Major Jackson, Patricia Spears Jones, Brynn Saito, 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. We have tremendous gratitude to everyone who came to the event, in person or online, to support this project. Donations welcome. And thank you to our Benefit Sponsors: Copper Canyon, Wesleyan University Press, Word After Word Books, Beers Books, and the Nevada County Arts Council.
We also want to thank Ken Haas, who galvanized us to create the Writers Annex, which brings poetry and literature and world-class teachers into your living rooms, and Brenda Hillman and Lisa Alvarez who have helped create this remarkable program that allows the Community of Writers to continue to produce our summer workshops (affordably) in an increasingly unaffordable environment. With our Paul Radin Memorial Dream Wagon now in its fifth year, we are grateful to Robin Radin and David Radin, and everyone for their contributions to this beautiful tiny house that we now use as a stage, bookstore and year-round office.
We would like to acknowledge our friends and board members, Eddy & Osvaldo Ancinas and Amy Tan & Lou Demattei, who have been tremendously generous with their time and support over the years. We couldn’t ask for a more responsive, generous and wise Board of Directors, especially president Carlin Naify. Thanks as well to board members Katy Hover-Smoot (Katy Hays), Jim Naify, Amy Tan, and Nancy Teichert for pitching in and helping with various events. Thanks also to our Literary Committee: Michael Carlisle, Dana Johnson, Michelle Latiolais, Margaret Wilkserson Sexton, and Oscar Villalon. And thanks to Reagan Arthur, Lester Lennon, and Jason Roberts. We also want to thank Alex Espinoza whose work as a board member has made lasting changes to this organization, which we value so deeply. And gratitude to our friend and board member Steve Rempe, who has done so much for us this year.
Thanks also to alum and friend Bob Austin for his generous wine donation. And thank you to our angel in Tahoe, 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 workshops 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 creating COVID-safe pleasant outdoor spaces, devising the sound system, creating the hybrid benefit event, recording and producing podcasts, and so much more. They deserve a restful vacation soon!
We are deeply grateful to our participants and staff, who, all together, bring the magic of the community. You showed care for one another, following our COVID protocols and treating each other with love and respect in the workshops and beyond. Our hope is that you’ve made life-long friends. We are so glad to have had a safe and healthy summer without COVID joining us.
Thank you to the intrepid staff at Palisades Tahoe who made us feel so welcome and taken care of through the week. You rolled with the punches, and the food has never been better.
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.
Finally, we want to thank our participants who made these workshops so productive through your active participation in building this brief, seasonal community, and for 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.
With love and gratitude,
-Brett Hall Jones
Executive Director
Announcing Issue 15 of the OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly
Our fifteenth issue of the OGQ (Omnium Gatherum Quarterly) features essays by R.O. Kwon, Cameron Walker, Sara Ellen Fowler, Dashka Slater, Rosa Lowinger, Jaclyn Moyer, Marguerite L. Harrold, Ismet Prcic, and Jason Roberts, and poems by Armen Davoudian and RJ Ingram.
The OGQ is edited each quarter by Andrew Tonkovich.
Join us for the Summer Workshops craft talks and panels – uploaded daily all week
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.
Register to watch the 2024 Poetry Benefit Reading in Olympic Valley and Live Online
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
Introducing Podcasts From the Community of Writers – Summer Craft Talks, plus Bibliocracy Radio!
We are delighted to announce that you can now stay abreast of the happenings at our summer workshops in Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir via our new podcast feed! This summer, we will be uploading craft talks and panel discussions each day, featuring the esteemed members of our summer teaching staff.
We are also proud to present our new partnership with KPFK’s Bibliocracy Radio – hosted by our own Andrew Tonkovich, editor of the Santa Monica Review, Citric Acid and the Omnium Gatherum Quarterly!
Right now, you can subscribe to our podcast on any app you want and get weekly episodes of Bibliocracy direct to your device. After the summer workshops have ended, we will also be adding selected craft talks from our archive. There is a wealth of craft, literary news, and incredible conversation. Subscribe to the Community of Writers Podcast feed now, wherever you get your podcasts, or click on the button below to learn more about recent episodes and where to listen.
Learn More
Big Day of Giving 2024
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
AND THEN: Time In Fiction: A Craft Intensive with Edan Lepucki
This two-day intensive will be a combination of lecture, discussion, and quick writing prompts meant to inform and inspire. Occasionally, students will be divided into small groups–called Houses–to get to know one another and to work on in-class writing in companionable silence. You will have the option to send your writing to the members of your House for positive feedback using Slack, but it won’t be required.
Click Here to Learn More and Register
2024 Quarter One Alumni News Roundup
January – March, 2024
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 alum 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
Announcing our 2024 Short Course Offerings in the Writers’ Annex
Victoria Chang • Matthew Zapruder • Peter Orner
Brenda Hillman • Robert Hass
We are pleased to announce our 2024 online offerings in the Writers’ Annex. These several-week virtual courses are open to anyone and aim to be a forum where esteemed poets and writers can teach topics that they love to teach. Courses are intended to facilitate deep, close readings, with expert instruction and additional discussion sections and resources.
Learn more about our upcoming Short Courses Below.
You can also register for all three courses for a $250 discount here.
This spring, Victoria Chang and Matthew Zapruder will lead a five-part course intended to complicate the modern understandings of Sylvia Plath‘s poetry, and distinguish her work from her tragic biography, with an additional session focusing on Plath’s revision.
Learn More
Starting late August, Peter Orner will reimagine his popular course on James Joyce‘s Ulysses for the Writers’ Annex space. Participants will read Joyce’s challenging novel over seven weeks, focusing on the text itself, Joyce’s humor and grace, and with Orner’s guidance each week.
Learn More
Heading into the winter, Brenda Hillman and Robert Hass will be leading a course surveying some of Emily Dickinson‘s extraordinary catalogue of work, with particular attention to the poems themselves, but including some biography, letters, critical literature, and awareness of life in 19th century Amherst.
Learn More
Register for all three upcoming short courses ($250 savings – not eligible for additional discounts)
Financial aid is available for those who need it. Contact us for more information.
Announcing Issue 14 of the OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly
Our fourteenth issue of the OGQ (Omnium Gatherum Quarterly) features a poetry craft talk by Victoria Chang, essays by Amanda Churchill, Reid Sherline, and Parul Kapur, poems by Yiskah Rosenfeld and Georgia San Li, an op-ed from Tom Zoellner, a selection from a lyric memoir by Jay Aquinas Thompson, and a dispatch on the founding of a new journal by William Ward Butler.
The OGQ is edited each quarter by Andrew Tonkovich.
The Lucille Clifton Poetry Chair
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
Announcing Issue 13 of the OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly
Our thirteenth issue of the OGQ (Omnium Gatherum Quarterly) features the 2016 Poetry Workshop craft talk by Patricia Spears Jones, essays by Victoria Patterson, Molly Giles, Mary Otis, Mary Camarillo, David Womack, Lauren Hohle, and Sommer Schafer; poetry by Sarah Maclay and Violeta Orozco; and an excerpt from Steve Almond‘s craft book.
The OGQ is edited each quarter by Andrew Tonkovich.
Announcing our 2024 Summer Workshops
The Community of Writers is pleased to announce our Summer Workshops in Poetry and Prose in Olympic Valley, CA
We are delighted to announce our 54th annual summer workshops season!
Applications are open for our 2024 summer writing workshops in Olympic Valley. The gatherings are for poets and writers, and include workshops, panel discussions, and craft talks as well as special interest classes.
The Community of Writers was founded half a century ago by California writers Blair Fuller and Oakley Hall, who wished to foster a literary culture in the West that would be conversant with the publishing establishment of the East Coast.
The Poetry Workshop will be held June 17 – 23, 2024. The program admits 70 talented poets into the week-long program. Directed by Brenda Hillman, this program fosters poets as they produce new work each day. Participating poets meet daily in session to share poems written during the previous 24 hours. Poets attend daily craft talks by the teaching staff poets, and meet in brief one-on-one sessions with staff poets. In addition, Sharon Olds will lead afternoon sessions. The week culminates in a public benefit poetry reading featuring the staff poets reading their recent work—sometimes poems written during the week. This year, again, the event will be live-streamed for a local, national and international audience to raise important scholarship funds.
The Writers Workshop will take place July 8-15 and admits up to 110 fiction, nonfiction, and memoir writers. Writers meet in small workshop groups to discuss their submitted manuscript with a member of the teaching staff. The 2024 teaching staff includes fiction and nonfiction writers as well as literary agents and editors working in publishing today. Lectures and panel discussions on the craft of writing, as well as publishing, are offered daily, in addition to staff readings.
All interested writers of prose and poetry are encouraged to apply, though admission is competitive and the writing level is high. No prior publications or academic credits are required; the only criterion for admission is that the applicant submit a sample of original writing. Financial aid is available including scholarships for the under-represented.
2023 Fall/Winter Alumni Roundup
July – December, 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
Announcing the Special Guest Lineup for That Poetry, By Which I lived
We are proud to announce that these seven special guests will be joining Major Jackson in conversation about the life and work of Community of Writers Poetry Program founder Galway Kinnell as part of the Short Course, That Poetry, By Which I lived.
The short course will take place online Tuesdays and Thursdays from November 30 to December 14. Join us this winter to celebrate the life and poetry of Galway Kinnell with the support of poets. Among them are former students, lifelong friends, and colleagues. With Jackson, they will discuss Kinnell’s influence, craft and the major themes found in his tremendous body of work.
Learn More and Register
Bios:
Toi Derricotte‘s sixth collection of poetry, “I“ New and Selected Poems, was shortlisted for the 2019 National Book Award. She was awarded the Pegasus Award from the Poetry Foundation in 2023, the
Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets in 2021, and the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America in 2020. With Cornelius Eady, she co-founded Cave Canem, a home for the many voices of African American poetry, in 1996. More
Nick Flynn is the author of five books of poetry, four memoirs, a play, a handbook for teaching poetry to young people, as well as a compendium of his artistic collaborations / influences. One of the most inventive writers at work today, his poetry and prose both explore the tenuous membrane that separates our comfortable, everyday existence from the ragged margins of society. The questions he poses are tough and urgent. Flynn teaches creative writing at the University of Houston, and splits his time between Houston and Brooklyn, New York. More
Robert Hass has published many books of poetry including Field Guide, Praise, Human Wishes, Sun Under Wood, and The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems. His collection of poems entitled Time and Materials won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He has also written books of essays including Twentieth Century Pleasures, Now & Then, and A Little Book on Form: An Exploration Into the Formal Imagination of Poetry. His book of essays, What Light Can Do: Essays on Art, Imagination, and the Natural World, is the recipient of the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Hass translated many of the works of Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz, and he has edited Selected Poems: 1954-1986, by Tomas Transtromer; The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa; Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life; the 2001 edition of Best American Poetry; and Modernist Women Poets: An Anthology (with Paul Ebenkamp). He wrote the introduction to an edition of selected Walt Whitman poems titled Song of Myself: And Other Poems. He also wrote The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass. His most recent book is Summer Snow: New Poems. He directed the Poetry Program at the Community of Writers for over 20 years.
Edward Hirsch is a celebrated poet and tireless advocate for poetry. His first collection of poems, For the Sleepwalkers (1981), received the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University and the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets. His second collection, Wild Gratitude (1986), won the National Book Critics Award. He has published eight additional books of poems: The Night Parade (1989), Earthly Measures (1994), On Love (1998), Lay Back the Darkness (2003), Special Orders (2008), The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (2010), which brings together thirty-five years of poems, Gabriel: A Poem, a book-length elegy for his son (2014), and Stranger by Night (2020).
Hirsch is also the author of seven prose books, including, most recently, 100 Poems to Break Your Heart (2022) and The Heart of American Poetry (2023), as well as A Poet’s Glossary (2014), the result of decades of passionate study, Poet’s Choice (2006), which consists of his popular columns from the Washington Post Book World, and How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999), a national bestseller. He is the editor of Theodore Roethke’s Selected Poems (2005) and co-editor of The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology (2008). He also edits the series “The Writer’s World” (Trinity University Press).
Edward Hirsch taught for six years in the English Department at Wayne State University and seventeen years in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston. He has been president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation since 2002. More
Tyehimba Jess is the author of two books of poetry, Leadbelly and Olio. Olio won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The Midland Society Author’s Award in Poetry, and received an Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. It was also nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN Jean Stein Book Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Leadbelly was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. The Library Journal and Black Issues Book Review both named it one of the “Best Poetry Books of 2005.”
Jess’ fiction and poetry have appeared in many journals, as well as anthologies such as Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, Beyond The Frontier: African American Poetry for the Twenty-First Century, Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Power Lines: Ten Years of Poetry from Chicago’s Guild Complex, and Slam: The Art of Performance Poetry. More
Sharon Olds has written thirteen books of poetry. Balladz was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Stag’s Leap (2012) received the Pulitzer Prize and England’s T. S. Eliot Prize. Olds holds the Erich Maria Remarque Chair at New York University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing, where she helped to found workshop programs for residents of Coler-Goldwater Hospital, and for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. More
Lisa Sewell is the author of several books of poems, including Birds of North America, with Susan Hagen and Nathalie Anderson, a pandemic-inspired collaboration that joins art, poetry and the love of birds, Impossible Object, which won the 2014 Tenth Gate prize from The Word Works, as well as The Way Out (Alice James Books) Name Withheld (Four Way Books), and Long Corridor, which received the 2009 Keystone Chapbook award from Seven Kitchens Press. A new book, Mean Season, will be published in June 2024 with The Word Works press. She is also co-editor of several collections of essays on contemporary poetry and poetics, including North American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Beyond Lyric and Language (Wesleyan 2021) with Kazim Ali and American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics (Wesleyan 2007) with Claudia Rankine. She has received grants and awards from the Leeway Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, and held residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Fundacion Valparaiso and The Tyrone Guthrie Center. Recent work is appearing or forthcoming in Harvard Review, Ploughshares, Salamander, Crab Orchard Review and Prairie Schooner. She lives in Philadelphia and teaches at Villanova University. More
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
A selection of books published by Alumni & Staff:
April – June, 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
Announcing issue 12 of the OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly
Our twelfth issue of the OGQ (Omnium Gatherum Quarterly) features the 2023 Writer’s Workshops opening talk by Oscar Villalon, poetry by Lisa Alvarez and Frank Karioris; essays by Hilary Zaid, Rita Chang-Eppig, Jasmin Hakes, and Stephanie Austin; remembrances of Al Young by Barbara Tannenbaum and Persis Karim; a recipe by Natasha Saje; and a dispatch by Andrew Nicholls.
The OGQ is edited each quarter by Andrew Tonkovich.
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
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
Announcing Issue 11 of the OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly
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.
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
Books published by Alumni & Staff in October – December, 2022.
Congratulations to these Community of Writers alumni and teaching staff who have published books during the fourth quarter of 2022! We are delighted to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below. Support these writers and buy their books!
Visit our Omnium Gatherum to explore all the recent alumni news.
NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMS & TEACHING STAFF
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOPS ALUMS & TEACHING STAFF
Announcing the 2023 Summer Workshops
The Community of Writers is pleased to announce our Summer Workshops in Poetry and Prose in Olympic Valley, CA
WRITERS WORKSHOPS – JULY 10-17
We are delighted to announce our fifty-fourth annual summer workshops season!
Applications are open for our 2023 summer writing workshops in Olympic Valley. The gatherings are for serious poets and writers, and include workshops, panel discussions, and craft talks as well as special interest classes.
The Community of Writers was founded over four decades ago by California writers Blair Fuller and Oakley Hall, who wished to foster a literary culture in the West that would be conversant with the publishing establishment of the East Coast.
The Poetry Workshop will be held June 19 – 25, 2023. The program admits 70 serious poets into the week-long program. Directed by Brenda Hillman, this program fosters poets as they produce new work each day. Participating poets meet daily in session to share poems written during the previous 24 hours. Poets attend daily craft talks by the teaching staff poets, and meet in brief one-on-one sessions with staff poets. In addition, Sharon Olds will lead afternoon sessions. The week culminates in a public benefit poetry reading featuring the staff poets reading their recent work—sometimes poems written during the week. This year, again, the event will be live-streamed for a local, national and international audience to raise important scholarship funds.
The Writers Workshop will take place July 10 – 17 and accepts up to 110 fiction, nonfiction, and memoir writers. Writers meet in small workshop groups to discuss their submitted manuscript with a member of the teaching staff. The 2023 teaching staff includes fiction and nonfiction writers as well as literary agents and editors working in publishing today. Lectures and panel discussions on the craft of writing, as well as publishing, are offered daily, in addition to staff readings.
All interested writers of prose and poetry are encouraged to apply, though admission is competitive and the writing level is high. No prior publications or academic credits are required; the only criterion for admission is that the applicant submit a sample of their original writing. Financial aid is available including scholarships for the underepresented.
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
Books published by Alumni & Staff in July – September, 2022.
Congratulations to these Community of Writers alumni and teaching staff who have published books during the third quarter of 2022! We are delighted to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below. Support these writers and buy their books!
Special congratulations to staff members Ada Limón who was named U.S. Poet Laureate in July, and Sharon Olds who won a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize and published her new collection Balladz (Knopf), which is a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry.
Congratulations to Karen Joy Fowler whose novel Booth made the Booker Prize Long-List, and to Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, whose new novel On the Rooftop was named a Reese’s Book Club Pick.
Visit our Omnium Gatherum to explore all the recent alumni news.
NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMS & TEACHING STAFF
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOP ALUMS & TEACHING STAFF
Thank you for an extraordinary summer!
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
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
Books published by Alumni & Staff Poets and Writers in January – March, 2022.
Congratulations to these Community of Writers alum and teaching staff who have published books during the first quarter of 2022! We are delighted to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below. Support these writers and buy their books!
Visit our Omnium Gatherum to explore all the recent alumni news.
NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP TEACHING STAFF & ALUMS
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOP TEACHING STAFF & ALUMS
Announcing Issue 9 of the OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly
Spring has sprung. Workshop applications are in, taxes filed, boosters available, wildflowers abloom, and the new OGQ…live. This issue of our online Community of Writers journal presents some of the best recent prose and poetry by alums, offered in celebration of their most recent publications. Do check out their full bios and by all means do purchase their work.
Meanwhile, award-winning short story writer Mary Kuryla shares a chapter from her newest, a debut novel. Poet Lester Graves Lennon memorializes state-sanctioned racist murder but also the life of our own Community of Writers legend Lucille Clifton: “Oceans remember,” indeed! Novelist Rhoda Huffey gamely engages her wild dreamlife, laugh-out-loud creative insights into perhaps the writing of her 31 Paradiso. Patricia Dunn considers the inspiration, perspective, and timing required to grow as a writer, with a shout-out to activist-writer hero Grace Paley herself. Poet and anthology editor Emily Perez meditates on what’s required to assemble an anthology on motherhood, a standout collection which features, happily, many Community of Writers alums! Author and activist Ellen Bravo delivers one of many real-life episodes of struggle included in her decades-spanning survey of American peace, justice and labor rights organizing, Standing Up: Tales of Struggle.
We offer hearty congratulations to all as we struggle, together, to affirm, create, and realize the best of our collective imaginings and re-imaginings.
Andrew Tonkovich
Editor, OGQ
Read the OGQ
Announcing the 2022 Summer Workshops
The Community of Writers is pleased to announce our Summer Workshops in Poetry and Prose – now in person and face-to-face once again
WRITERS WORKSHOPS – JULY 18-25
This will be a particularly special year for the Community of Writers. We had intended to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary with all of you in our valley two years ago. While the past two years have been incredibly difficult for our Community, we also feel that we have demonstrated a capacity to come together as poets and writers regardless of our circumstances.
This will be our fifty-third year as a Community, but our fiftieth year together in our valley.
The Poetry Workshop 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. The idea is to try to expand the boundaries of what one can write. In the mornings we meet to read to each other the work of the previous twenty-four hours, and in the late afternoons we gather for a conversation about some aspect of craft.
The Writers 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, as well as brief individual conferences. The morning workshops are led by staff writer-teachers, editors, or agents. There are separate morning workshops for Fiction and Narrative Nonfiction/ Memoir. In addition to their workshop manuscript, participants may have a second manuscript read by a staff member who meets with them in an individual conference.
This summer we are lucky to have a terrific teaching staff joining us in our valley, including poets, writers, teachers, agents and editors. We also anticipate this year to feature a cohort of extremely talented poets and writers – all of whom represent our community’s depth, diversity, talent and commitment to cultivating friendships that boost one another’s writing lives and careers.
This pandemic has caused every member of our broader community to endure tremendous difficulties. We want those of you who will join us here in the valley to consider it a refuge, and a safe place in general. Therefore certain measures will be taken to ensure the safety of all of our community members. Please refer to our health guidelines over the coming months for up-to-date information on our evolving safety strategy.
Year-Round Online Opportunities
As we gear up for our first summer back in the valley since the pandemic began, we will continue to put out messaging to keep you abreast of the exciting year that is to come. In the meantime, we encourage you to engage with our virtual offerings. Now, we are building the infrastructure for year-round programming that is affordable and accessible to anyone through our Virtual Valley and through the Writers’ Annex, which is currently offering weekly courses offered by Community of Writers staff – all online and interactive. This month, Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet, Robert Hass is teaching a six-week intensive course on the life and work of Polish Poet Czesław Miłosz. Later this spring, Community of Writers Staff Poet Kazim Ali will teach a short course called “The Poetry & Poetics of Lucille Clifton.” Over the course of four weeks (Thursday evening sessions, live on Zoom), Ali will guide us through the work of long time Community of Writers staff poet, Lucille Clifton. The Writer’s Annex will continue to offer programming year-round as we seek to cultivate a broader and more inclusive community that is not limited to those who can attend the summer workshops. Likewise, we are exploring ways in which our in-person events can be made available online in some capacity moving forward, whether streamed or available as a Video On Demand after the fact.
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
Books published by Alumni & Staff Poets and Writers in October – December, 2021.
Congratulations to these Community of Writers alum and teaching staff who have published books during the fourth quarter of 2021! We are delighted to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below. Support these writers and buy their books!
Visit our Omnium Gatherum to explore all the recent alumni news.
NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP TEACHING STAFF & ALUMS
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOP TEACHING STAFF & ALUMS
Announcing Issue 7 of the OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly
The fall issue of our online, in-house, invitation-only, COVID-era quarterly Community of Writers journal arrives, as you will note, with a lot of adjectival explanation. Fortunately, the writing once again lives up to the hype, with poetry and prose which runs the gamut. Running the gamut has been a marathon lately, as reflected in personal, political, meditative if reliably artful offerings from this issue’s contributors: poet David Mills, novelist Monica West and nonfiction writers Martina Clark and Kate Nason. Dear friend Kris O’Shee shares an excerpt from her memoir about life and love with longtime staffer Alan Cheuse (1940-2015), with archival photos by Brett Hall Jones and Tracy Hall. Fiction Co-Director Louis B. Jones starts us off with a seasonal report from the actual Valley. I hope you are delighted, inspired, and affirmed by exemplary work from your Community of Writers pals, whether you’ve met them in real life at the conference or not.
Andrew Tonkovich
Editor, OGQ
Read the OGQ
Quarterly Roundup of Alumni Books
Books published by Alumni Poets and Writers in July – September, 2021.
Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums who have published books during the third quarter of 2021! We are delighted to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below. Support these writers and buy their books!
Visit our Omnium Gatherum to explore all the recent alumni news.
NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMS
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOP ALUMS
Public Memoir & Narrative Nonfiction Events as Part of our Summer Workshops
August 1 – 6 , 2021 in the Virtual Valley
Join us for craft panels and readings which will take place as part of our workshop week.
Offerings includes craft discussions, panels on editing and publishing, and staff readings, and brief individual conferences.
Please see our schedule below.
These events are free; donations welcome.
All times Pacific.
Monday, August 2
1:00 PM: Panel: Structure and Other Essential Narrative Strategies in Memoir and Nonfiction, with Alex Espinoza, Debra Gwartney, Sands Hall, Julia Flynn Siler, moderated by Frances Dinkelspiel
Register
5:00 PM: Short Takes: Staff read work in progress and talk about issues of craft: Frances Dinkelspiel, Alex Espinoza, Julia Flynn Siler, Martin J. Smith
Register
Tuesday, August 3:
1:00 PM: Panel: Locating and Researching the Story You Need to Tell with Lauren Markham, Julia Flynn Siler, Martin J. Smith, Grace Talusan, moderated by Alex Espinoza
Register
5:00 PM: Short Takes: Staff read work in progress and talk about issues of craft: Sands Hall, Lauren Markham, Grace Talusan
Register
Thursday, August 5:
1:00 PM: Writing About Family and Other Difficult Topics, with Glen David Gold, Sands Hall, Gregory Pardlo, and Grace Talusan, moderated by Debra Gwartney
Register
5:00 PM: Short Takes: Staff read work in progress and talk about issues of craft: Glen David Gold, Debra Gwartney, Gregory Pardlo
Register
Friday, August 6:
1:00 PM: Panel: Short Forms, Hybrid Forms with Frances Dinkelspiel, Alex Espinoza, Debra Gwartney, Martin J. Smith, moderated by Sands Hall
Quarterly Roundup of Alumni Books
Books published by Alumni Poets and Writers in April – June, 2021.
Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums who have published books during the second quarter of 2021! We are delighted to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below. Support these writers and buy their books!
Visit our Omnium Gatherum to explore all the recent alumni news.
NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMS
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOP ALUMS
Conversations from the Virtual Valley featuring David Ulin and Laura Cogan
We are pleased to present another Conversation from the Virtual Valley with ZYZZYVA‘s Laura Cogan and Air/Light‘s editor David Ulin.
The Community of Writers continues its series of literary conversations as part of our online literary journal, The OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly.
With the release of its Los Angeles-themed issue, Bay Area-based ZYZZYVA provides our “Conversations from the Virtual Valley” video-cast series an opportunity to see how one Northern and one Southern California magazine consider and, at times, reconsider Los Angeles. ZYZZYVA editor Laura Cogan joins editor, author and anthologist David Ulin, whose new online magazine Air/Light is devoted to Southern California writing, to talk about, share, and critique the literary scene in Los Angeles. In this Conversation, these two experienced and engaged literary pals, and friends of the Community of Writers, talk about their projects, offer insights, celebrate writers, and encourage readers of, and possible contributors to, each of their magazines. And, ultimately, invite you to become subscribers to both journals!
and our own https://ogquarterly.org/.
View Conversation
The 50th Anniversary Poetry Anthology featured in the newest issue of Blue Door magazine
Read about the anthology in the Blue Door magazine:
“The poems tell a California story and the story of the American West and American poetry,” Alvarez says. “Contributors include some of the country’s most acclaimed poets, along with those just starting out, each with something to say about where and how we live together.”
“The poets in the (Poetry) program are being celebrated in a new anthology published by Heyday Books: Why to These Rocks: 50 Years of Poetry from the Community of Writers. The title comes from a poem by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Galway Kinnell, who directed the Poetry Program for 17 years: “Then why to these rocks/ Do I keep coming back why.”
Read More at Blue Door (pgs. 38-39)
More Details about the Anthology
Order the Book
Announcing the Inaugural Kimbilio [Fiction] Scholarship Recipients
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
Al Young, 1939 – 2021
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.
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.
It’s Pub Day! Our 50th Anniversary Anthology is Available Now!
| More than two years ago we set out to create an anthology to celebrate the story of our fifty-year-old summer writing workshop. It has been more work than we could ever have imagined, and an utter joy, but we did it. With help, advice, encouragement, and support from dozens of people and organizations, we can now announce that finally, today is PUBLICATION DAY for Why to These Rocks: Fifty Years of Poems from the Community of Writers from Heyday Books. As editor Lisa Alvarez writes in her introduction: “Why to These Rocks tells part of the story of the Community of Writers through work produced in the valley by both staff and participant poets, using three self-explanatory lenses: Over the Mountains: Poems About Place; Scrupulous Mercy: Poems about the Process; and After Surfacing: Poems Produced by the Process in the Place. Reading them will begin to answer the question posed by Kinnell in his poem “The Old Moon” and paraphrased here: Why to these rocks do we return?” It speaks to our special community nurtured in this stunning setting, one that has inspired poets worldwide — many of whom developed significant bodies of award-winning work in its creative and generative atmosphere.Contributors include both workshop staff and participants, among them Kazim Ali, Don Mee Choi, Lucille Clifton, Toi Derricotte, Rita Dove, Cornelius Eady, Juan Felipe Herrera, Brenda Hillman, Cathy Park Hong, Forrest Gander, Major Jackson, Yusef Komunyakaa, Harryette Mullen, Sharon Olds, Greg Pardlo, Evie Shockley, Al Young, Kevin Young, Matthew Zapruder, a never-before-published poem by founder and former long-time director, Galway Kinnell, and many more. We think the book is really handsome with a hard cover, and a lovely woodcut image courtesy of the artist Tom Killion. Join us as we celebrate our five decades of Poetry. PS: Heyday Books is offering our buyers a 20% discount use promo code: WTOTFRIENDS |
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2021 LARB Publishing Workshop
After many years of hosting founder Tom Lutz and other members of the Los Angeles Review of Books staff during the summer workshops, we’ve now begun making institutional collaborations of mutual benefit together.
This summer, in addition to featuring members of LARB’s editorial staff and contributors at our own writer’s workshop in the Virtual Valley, we’re pleased to promote the 2021 LARB Publishing Workshop and further this support with a scholarship for a past fellow to attend the Community of Writer’s workshop this summer.
Applications for the 2021 program close April 15
Apply today and join us from June 27 – July 30 for an intensive dive into the world of publishing with incredible speakers and hands-on training in book and magazine production. LARB Publishing Workshop Fellows learn from 60+ leading industry professionals from all over the country including Nicole Counts (One World), Nicole Chung (Catapult), Evette Dionne (Bitch Media), Dennis Johnson (Melville House), Jennifer 8. Lee (Plympton), Ismail Muhammad (New York Times Magazine), Jyothi Natarajan (The Margins, Asian American Writers’ Workshop), Niko Pfund (Oxford UP), Rebecca Saletan (Riverhead), Joshua Trannen (Duke UP), and many, many more. Our curriculum and program of speakers reflect LARB’s commitment to innovation, inclusivity, and independent literary production.
More Details and to Apply
The 50th Anniversary Poetry Anthology featured in The San Diego Union-Tribune
Read about the anthology in the San Diego Union-Tribune:
“The works featured in this rich new anthology are all the product of the Community of Writers, an annual gathering of poets who hunker down in the wooded beauty of [Olympic Valley] for a week of intensive workshops, writing marathons and readings in the most beautiful setting possible.”
From The San Diego Union-Tribune. Sunday, April 11, 2021
“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
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Quarterly Roundup of Alumni Books
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
New Upcoming Readings for our 50th Anniversary Poetry Anthology
We’re delighted to announce two new poetry readings to celebrate the publication of our 50th anniversary poetry anthology, Why to These Rocks: 50 Years of Poetry from the Community of Writers.
• April 11: At the Sierra Poetry Festival online. More details
• April 16: At Skylight Books reading series online. More details.
The Community of Writers celebrates fifty years of its annual poetry workshop with an extraordinary collection by some of the country’s most prominent contemporary poets. “Why To These Rocks: 50 Years of Poetry from the Community of Writers” includes over 140 poems inspired by or written in High Sierra during the annual workshop week. Read more.
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At the Sierra Poetry Festival!
Sunday, April 11 | 11:30 AM (Pacific)
The Community of Writers will join the Sierra Poetry Festival online for a virtual poetry reading for Heyday’s release of Why to These Rocks: 50 Years of Poetry from the Community of Writers.
Introduced by: Lisa D. Alvarez, the anthology’s editor.
Both teaching staff poets and alumni poets of the storied annual summer Poetry Workshops of the Community of Writers will read from the first section of the anthology, “Poems about Place.” In addition to reading from their own work, each featured poet will also select another poem to read. Although the place where these poems were first written unifies these poems, they are as varied and distinctive in their lyricism, voice, and scope as the watershed of the Sierra itself.
Join Chris Davidson, Christina Hutchins, Patricia Spears Jones, Francisco Márquez, Sharon Olds, Maw Shein Win, and Matthew Zapruder for another celebration of the publication of this extraordinary anthology, as they read and discuss poems first written during the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop.
REGISTER TO ATTEND EVENT SIERRA POETRY FESTIVAL
At SkyLight Books!
Wednesday, April 21 | 6:30 PM (Pacific)
Virtual event on Crowdcast. Registrants will be sent a Crowdcast link upon registration.
The Community of Writers will join SkyLight Books online for a virtual poetry reading for Heyday’s release of Why to These Rocks: 50 Years of Poetry from the Community of Writers. The evening will celebrate fifty years of poetry written during the Poetry Workshop in the High Sierra.
Emcee: Lisa D. Alvarez, the project’s editor.
Join Francisco Aragón, Joan Baranow, Katie Ford, Jay A. Fernandez, Lester Graves Lennon, Michelle Brittan Rosado, Vickie Vértiz, Sholeh Wolpé, and Charles Harper Webb for another celebration of the publication of this extraordinary anthology, as they read and discuss poems first written during the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop.
REGISTER TO ATTEND SKYLIGHT READING
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Statement Against Anti-Asian Violence
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:
Celebrating 50 years: A Community of Writers feature in the SF Chronicle’s Datebook.
The Community of Writers turns 50 this year. A new book highlights how the Olympic Valley retreat steered California’s voice.
“In late 1969, California’s literary scene was in trouble.” Two couples founded the Community of Writers to save it. In this article from the San Francisco Chronicle’s Datebook, written by Scott Thomas Anderson, read about our 50-year history and our new poetry collection from Heyday Books celebrating this milestone called Why to These Rocks: 50 Years of Poetry from the Community of Writers. Read the article here.
The 2021 PEN Emerging Voices Scholarship
The Community of Writers is delighted to announce two scholarships for PEN Emerging Voices Fellows who require financial aid to attend the Community of Writers Summer Workshops this summer.
Dates:
Poetry: June 19 – 26, 2021
Fiction Workshop: July 11 – 17, 2021
Narrative Nonfiction and Memoir Workshop: August 1 – 6, 2021
Deadline to apply: March 28, 2021
Each scholarship will be for the full tuition cost of each workshop ($900 for Poetry, $880 for Fiction, and $850 for Narrative Nonfiction and Memoir).
Interested Emerging Voices Fellows will need to apply to the workshop by March 28, and request this scholarship in the application form. Fellows offered scholarships will need to submit a $100 deposit (which will be refunded on the first day of the workshop.) This is a scholarship for poets and writers who have not previously attended the Poetry Workshop.
More Details
The 2021 Cave Canem Poetry Scholarships to attend the Community of Writers
The Community of Writers is delighted to announce three scholarships for Cave Canem Fellows who require financial aid to attend the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop this summer.
Dates: June 19 – 26, 2021
Deadline to apply: March 28, 2021
Each scholarship will be for $900, which is the full tuition to the 2021 Poetry Program.
Interested Cave Canem Fellows will need to apply to the workshop by March 28, and request this scholarship in the application form. Fellows offered scholarships will need to submit a $100 deposit (which will be refunded on the first day of the workshop.) This is a scholarship for poets who have not previously attended the Poetry Workshop.
More Details
Announcing the KIMBILIO l Fiction Scholarships
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
Announcing our 2021 Summer Writing Workshops
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
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
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
Announcing Issue 4 of the OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly
Welcome to our final installment of our first year of the online quarterly of the Community of Writers. In this issue, we celebrate our history of community, and engage its vigorous, diverse and transformative new manifestations in essays, poetry and fiction chosen to encourage and inspire. Longtime staffer Elizabeth Rosner meditates, generously and insightfully, on the enduring individual and community imperative to describe, explain, transform, complain, criticize, celebrate and, most of all, collaborate. Elizabeth was meant to deliver this gorgeous essay as a talk in an anniversary event postponed due to the pandemic. Novelist and activist Jervey Tervalon, founder of LitFest Pasadena, tells the story of its origins and explores the political economy of creating community as an answer to cultural hegemony, racism, and Hollywood’s disappointing lack of imagination. Jonathan Cohen’s meditation on grief and loss considers the possibilities of incompleteness, with a vividness and empathy that offers so much beauty and, yes, completion. Poet and scholar Therí A. Pickens shares three beautiful poems of self-instruction, analysis and memory: “Linger at the lost spaces of not and undoing.” Finally, Caroline Kim, whose collection The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories won the 2020 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, gives us a short story of spooky or only everyday political and cultural alienation.
Please stay safe, and by all means share our journal.
Andrew Tonkovich
Editor, OGQ
Read the OGQ
Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review 2019
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.
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
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
2020 Alumni Reading Series (Prose)
Each summer, recently published alumni are invited to return to the Valley to read from their books and talk about their journey from unpublished writers to published authors. This year we’ve decided to hold the reading online in the Virtual Valley!
The Community of Writers is delighted to celebrate the success of these writers and to present them to the participants, staff, and the public.
Please join us! The event is free and will be presented on Zoom.
2020 Alumni Readers
Click on the portraits to learn about these authors and their work. View as a List
Our Emcee for the evening is Jimin Han.
Buys books from these authors on Bookshop.org.
Reserve Ticket Now
(You will be eventually be asked to register for this event at Zoom.)
Alumni who have been part of this reading series include Anita Amirrezvani, Eddy Ancinas, Michael Andreason, Ramona Ausubel, David Bajo, Aimee Bender, Mauro Cardenas, Jade Chang, David Corbett, Charmaine Craig, Frances Dinkelspiel, Heather Donahue, Laurie Ann Doyle, Cai Emmons, Alex Espinoza, Carole Firstman, Joshua Ferris, Amy Franklin-Willis, Jamie Ford, Vicki Forman, Alison Singh Gee, Tanya Egan Gibson, Alan Grostephan, Glen David Gold, Jimin Han, Judith Hendricks, Susan Henderson, Sara J. Henry, Vanessa Hua, Rhoda Huffey, Michael Jaime-Becerra, Alma Katsu, Stephanie Kegan, Mary Kuryla, Krys Lee, Paulette Livers, Regina Louise, Michael David Lukas, Peyton Marshall, Marisa Matarazzo, Mark Maynard, Christina Meldrum, Nayomi Munaweera, Janis Cooke Newman, Jessica O’Dwyer, Aline Ohanesian, Marian Palaia, Victoria Patterson, Ismet Prcic, Frederick Reiken, Andrew Roe, Robin Romm, Brian Rogers, Elizabeth Rosner, Adrienne Sharp, Alice Sebold, Julia Flynn Siler, Jordan Fisher Smith, Scott Sparling, Ellen Sussman, Kimball Taylor, Lisa Tucker, Juan Alvarado Valdivia, Brenda Rickman Vantrease, Mary Volmer, Dora Calott Wang, M.D., Heather Young, Andrew Winer, Alia Yunis, and Désirée Zamorano among others.
Literary Arts Emergency Fund Grant for the Community of Writers
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.
Fiction First Aid – Private Consultations
This Friday, join us for private consultations: Fiction First Aid
August 28, 2020, between 10 am and 3 p.m (Pacific)
Private 15-Minute Appointments $25
First-come first-served: appointments are limited.
Quick fifteen-minute consultations will be offered on Zoom with some of our finest writer-teachers, including Leland Cheuk, Janet Fitch, Glen David Gold, Vanessa Hua, Michael Jaime-Becerra and Victoria Patterson. Come with a question. Or come with a page! Having a thorny problem with a story? Worried about the end of your novel? Do you have issues about the writing life? This is the place to get fresh insight. The focus of your session is up to you.
Sign up for a consultation today. You will be paired with one of these generous and talented writer-teachers. (You may request your top two choices of staff member, subject to availability. ) If there is a time of day (between 10 AM – 3 PM Pacific) that doesn’t work for you, please let us know.
Come with a question: Issues about dialogue, prose style, characterization? Come to the session prepared with a question or more than one! The time is yours.
Or come with a page: Need help with dialogue or prose style? Submit one page, double spaced (limit 250 words), and a staff member will respond to what’s on the page and beyond.
To read a bio, click on the image below, or view them all as a list.
Sign Ups open close 6:00 PM on Thursday, August 27. (Pacific)
SIGN UP
Once you register, we will be in touch with your appointment details.
Please make sure you’ve downloaded and installed the most recent version of Zoom and have good audio and video available.
(Cancellations for full refunds, to be considered, must be requested before 6 pm on Thursday, July 27.)
*Thanks to Sharon Olds who originally coined this term for the Poetry Workshop’s “Poem First Aid.”
The Newest OGQ is Here!
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.
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
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
Memoir Workshop Public Events in the Virtual Valley
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.
Film Adaptation Seminar
Film Adaptation Seminar for Writers
August 17-21, 2020
Open to all! $350 – Register by August 10
Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – Noon (Pacific)
Led by screenwriter Laura Harrington, this film adaptation workshop will consist of five three-hour online seminars. The focus will be on story structure, character development, scene creation, and uses of dialogue; the crucial elements of screenwriting, which will help lay the groundwork for your future book, screenplay, or series adaptation.
Even if you don’t plan on adapting your novel into a dramatic work, learning the skills vital to a screenwriter—writing visually vivid and emotional scenes; creating structure that invisibly marries plot to character development; revealing character through action; advancing connected themes; creating organic twists; creating a sense of urgency; creating a sensory, memorable world with the kinds tensions that reveal character — are useful skills for every writer
No application necessary. Simply register. Please include a one-page synopsis of your story, novel, memoir or nonfiction manuscript.
Deadline to Register: August 8
Register Now
Fiction First Aid Private Consultations
This Friday, join us for private consultations: Fiction First Aid*
July 31, 2020, between 10 am and 5 p.m (Pacific)
View as a list
Private 15-Minute Appointments $25
First-come first-served: appointments are limited.
Quick fifteen-minute consultations will be offered on Zoom with some of our finest writer-teachers, including Alex Espinoza, Janet Fitch, Sands Hall, Dylan Landis and Krys Lee. (We are sorry, but Glen David Gold is no longer participating.) Come with a question. Or come with a page! Having a thorny problem with a story? Worried about the end of your novel? Do you have issues about the writing life? This is the place to get fresh insight. The focus of your session is up to you.
Below are the Times When the Writers Are Scheduled
(Subject to availability)
10:00 AM – 12:00 Noon
Alex Espinoza
Janet Fitch (sold out)
1:00 – 3:00 PM
Sands Hall
3:00 – 5:00 PM
Dylan Landis
Krys Lee
Come with a question: Issues about dialogue, prose style, characterization? Come to the session prepared with a question or more than one! The time is yours.
Or come with a page: Need help with dialogue or prose style? Submit one page, double spaced (limit 250 words), and a staff member will respond to what’s on the page and beyond.
Sign Ups open 12:00 Noon Monday, July 27,
and close 5:00 on Thursday, July 30. (Pacific)
SIGN UP
You may request your top three choices of staff member, subject to availability. Once you register, we will be in touch with your appointment details.
(Cancellations for full refunds, to be considered, must be requested before 5 pm on Thursday, July 30.)
*Thanks to Sharon Olds who originally coined this term for the Poetry Workshop’s “Poem First Aid.”
“Short Takes” Fiction Staff Readings in the Virtual Valley
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 (1918 – 2020)
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.
Black Lives Matter: A Time for Action, not Words
This summer as the Community of Writers comes together as we have done for 50 years, we do so at a time of urgently needed social and political change. We honor the scores of Americans who have taken to the streets to protest the systemic racism and injustice.
It has always been our goal to create, out of our summer meetings, a community that nourishes and supports a diversity of writers and poets at all stages of their development. We are a seasonal gathering, each member belonging to other home communities, aligned with other institutions. There, many of us are deeply engaged in the streets, classrooms, community centers, the halls of government and, of course, as we are writers, on the page.
Part of our mission has been to erase obstacles for emerging writers, especially Black writers and poets, to attend a workshop such as ours.
In light of recent national debates surrounding equity and systemic racism, we are even more committed in our efforts to build new, and sustain current essential partnerships which will help us reach deeper into underserved communities to find poets and writers with voices that contribute to the diversification of the country’s narrative.
We will continue to do what we have done that has worked – raise funds to support writers of color, especially Black writers, and work to further diversify our board and staff. We will also look at those policies and practices, formal and informal, that have weakened these efforts. We will examine the Community’s culture that allows for participants to experience exclusion, disrespect, and microagressions at all levels of our organization, including, but not limited to, the workshop itself.
As part of our ongoing evaluation, we changed the name of our conference, previously scheduled to have been announced this Spring at our anniversary celebrations. Just as protesters and social justice advocates have called for the dismantling of Confederate symbols and statues because of their racist connotations, we recognize the painful and derogatory legacy of the word “squaw” as a slur, a word that is disrespectful to the Native American Community. We acknowledge that this word is offensive, that it goes against everything we stand for and believe, thus, we will no longer be branding ourselves as such and will now be known as the Community of Writers.
We are grateful to the participants and staff who care enough about the integrity of the Community to have communicated their concerns with us. We hear you.
We have always felt that what we were doing addressed the multicultural life of this country in deep ways and we have reason to be proud of the stories, poems, essays, films that have been produced over fifty years by the staff and participants in this community, including work by some of our most gifted Black, Latinx, Asian American writers, disabled and LGBTQ+. This last painful month has made it clear that, whatever we have been doing, it hasn’t been enough. Just as it hasn’t been enough not to be racist or to practice modest and benign forms of affirmative action. New behaviors require new visions. Our mission is to support new visions and we have work to do.
-The Community of Writers
Summer Writing Workshops in Olympic Valley Cancelled (But New Opportunities Available!)
Dear Friends,
We are sorry to report that we have been forced to cancel our summer workshops in Olympic Valley due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was to be our 50th Anniversary session, and so we’re particularly sad that we won’t be able to get together.
Our participants and teaching staff come in from all over the country, and a dozen foreign countries as well. They live together in houses and condos during their stay, eat dinner together, meet for lectures and panels, and in smaller workshops where they sit close together. It was a hard decision to make but we feel it would be impossible to run the workshops and still keep everybody safe.
Please visit our program pages for more information.
POETRY:
The Community of Writers will offer the Poetry Workshop entirely online this year. June 20 – 27, 2020. It will be the very same intensive week of writing, craft talks and individual conferences.
More details can be found on the Poetry Workshop page.
WRITERS WORKSHOPS
The Writers Workshops week is entirely too complex and large to shift over to the online format as is, so we will be postponing the 50th Anniversary session to July 5 – 12, 2021. Mark your calendars! Our plan is also to put together some online offerings for 2020. More details can be found on the Writers Workshops page.
* * * * * *
We don’t yet know how this pandemic will play out in 2021, but we hold out hope that we will be in a position to hold the workshops again then. We will miss workshops this summer in our beloved valley, we’ll miss getting acquainted with all of you, and we will miss the thin mountain air, those bluest of skies, and gathering under the stars together in the evening. Here’s hoping we can all be together next summer and that this worldwide nightmare will be behind us.
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
Books published by Alumni and Staff Authors in January – March, 2020
Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums and staff members who have published books during the first 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
And congratulations to Poetry Workshop alum Diannely Antigua, who was recently awarded the Whiting Award for Poetry!
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOPS ALUMNI
NEWS AND NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY AND WRITERS WORKSHOPS TEACHING STAFF
And a special congratulations to Poetry Program co-director, Brenda Hillman, who was recently awarded the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. This award goes to a poet of progressive, original, and experimental tendencies.
Do you have a forthcoming publication? Send us your news, and and we will post it in our Omnium Gatherum: Alumni News. And if your news is a book publication, we’ll include it in our next quarterly 2020 New Alumni Books Update here.
The Newest OGQ is Here!
The second issue of OGQ: Omnium Gatherum Quarterly, the new quarterly online magazine from the Community of Writers, is here.
In this issue, Robin Romm gives us her previously unpublished recent Community of Writers craft talk, to instruct and amuse. In three poems, Danusha Laméris esteems both beauty and pain, with simultaneous dignity, humor and wild enthusiasm. Ted Fowler offers vulnerability and empathy in an elegantly precise chapter from a loving memoir of his late wife. (Watch for the small plane at its conclusion!) Finally, fiction fabulist Ryan Ridge leads a smart, darkly funny romp through real and unreal worlds of social, literary and political imagination.
Visit the OGQ to read the latest issue, and subscribe to get the next issue sent directly to your inbox!
Announcing our 2020 Summer Writing Workshops
The Community of Writers is pleased to announce the 50th Anniversary of our Summer Writing Workshops in Poetry and Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir.
We are now accepting applications.
THE POETRY WORKSHOP:
June 20 – 27, 2020
The Poetry Workshop 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. The idea is to try to expand the boundaries of what one can write. In the mornings we meet to read to each other the work of the previous twenty-four hours, and in the late afternoons we gather for a conversation about some aspect of craft.On several afternoons staff poets hold brief individual conferences. Director: Robert Hass.
Camille Dungy • Robert Hass • Brenda Hillman
Major Jackson • Ada Limón • Matthew Zapruder
Financial Aid Available.
Application Deadline: March 28, 2020.
More program details, bios, logistics, and application form:
Visit the Poetry Workshop Page
THE WRITERS WORKSHOPS
in Fiction, Nonfiction & Memoir
July 6 – 13, 2020
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. There are separate morning workshops for Fiction and Narrative Nonfiction/Memoir. In addition to their workshop manuscripts, participants may have a second manuscript read by a staff member who meets with them in individual conferences.
TEACHING STAFF
Lisa Alvarez • Tom Barbash • Michael Carlisle • Jane Ciabattari • John Daniel • Leslie Daniels • Cai Emmons • Alex Espinoza • Joshua Ferris • Janet Fitch • Karen Joy Fowler • Lynn Freed • Molly Giles • Sands Hall • Michael Jaime-Becerra • Dana Johnson • Louis B. Jones • Dylan Landis • Krys Lee • Edie Meidav • Patricia K. Meyer • Kirstin Valdez Quade • Jason Roberts • Elizabeth Rosner • Margaret Wilkerson Sexton • Julia Flynn Siler • Martin J. Smith • Gregory Spatz • Elizabeth Tallent • Andrew Tonkovich • Oscar Villalon
SPECIAL GUESTS
Max Byrd • Meg Waite Clayton • Selden Edwards • Richard Ford • Diana Fuller • Anne Lamott
Diane Johnson • Michelle Latiolais • Kem Nunn • Amy Tan
PLUS
Literary Agents – Book & Literary Magazine Editors and more
INTRODUCING PUBLISHED ALUMS
Robin Page • Shobha Rao • Marci Vogel • Alia Volz • Kate Wisel
Financial Aid available.
Application Deadline: March 28, 2020
More program details, bios, logistics, and application form:
Visit the Writers Workshops Page
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
Books published by Alumni Authors published in October – December, 2019
Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums who have published books during the fourth quarter of 2019!
We are delighted 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 WORKSHOPS ALUMNI
Do you have a forthcoming publication? Send us your news, and and we will post it in our Omnium Gatherum: Alumni News. And if your news is a book publication, we’ll include it in our next quarterly 2020 New Alumni Books Update here.
Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation Awards Grant!
We are pleased and honored to announce that the good folks at the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation have awarded the Community of Writers a $5,000 grant to support the work of our organization.
This remarkable organization is a tremendous community leader in so many ways. They really do make our area a better place to live and work by supporting a wide range of nonprofits and community-minded projects.
Thank you to Chief Impact Officer Phyllis McConn, the CFRE Stacy Caldwell, and the Board of Directors for all they do for the Community of Writers and the Tahoe Truckee region!
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
Books published by Alumni Authors published in July – September, 2019
Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums who have published books during the third quarter of 2019!
We are delighted 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 WORKSHOPS ALUMNI
Do you have a forthcoming publication? Send us your news, and and we will post it in our Omnium Gatherum: Alumni News. And if your news is a book publication, we’ll include it in our next quarterly 2019 New Alumni Books Update here.
Images from the June 2019 Poetry Benefit Reading
After a long delay, we have finally uploaded images from the 2019 Benefit Poetry Reading. The Benefit was held in Grass Valley at the historic Saint Joseph’s Cultural Center on June 21 to an overflowing and enthusiastic crowd.
The 2019 Benefit Reading featured poets Forrest Gander, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, David Tomas Martinez, Jane Miller, Sharon Olds, and Gregory Pardlo, emcee Maxima Kahn, and were welcomed by Judy Crowe.
The Benefit Reading is held every year on the night before the Poetry Workshop in Squaw Valley to raise important funds for the Community of Writers Scholarship Fund for Poets.
Many thanks to the coordinator Eva Melas, as well as YubaLit’s Rachel Howard, and all the volunteers who made the event such as success.
Special thanks to Adrian Schneider for the photographs! You can view more of his work on his website: Adrian Schneider Photograhy.
View Photos
Join us at San Francisco’s LitCrawl for an Alumni Poetry Reading
Join the Community of Writers for an Alumni Poetry Reading during Phase 3 of the 2019 LitCrawl in San Francisco!
Saturday, October 19th, from 8-9 PM
Red Poppy Art House
2698 Folsom at 23rd,
San Francisco
www.litquake.org
Come celebrate the publication of Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review 2018, where alumni poets continue the tradition of publishing a collection of poems conceived in Squaw Valley during the Poetry Workshop at the Community of Writers.
Featured readings by
Joan Baranow • Marcene Gandolfo • Masha Lisak • Jesse Nathan • Emily Wolahan
In addition to readings from our featured poets, other poets published in the anthology will be chosen to read via draw of the hat:
Jeremy Cantor • Jolie Clark • Armen Davoudian • Rosa de Anda • Rob Lipton • Diane K. Martin
Florencia Milito • Jacqueline Hughes Simon
In Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review, alumni poets continue the tradition of publishing a collection of poems begun during the Poetry Workshop. Poets from the most recent workshop submit three poems, revised or the same as the day the poem was first imagined. Volunteer editors, alumni from the same annual workshop, select the poems that appear in the Review. Proceeds benefit the Poetry Workshop Scholarship Fund.
The 2018 edition of Written Here was edited by Masha Lisak, Judy Brackett Crowe, Christine H. Cummings, Nancy Kangas, Diane Martin, Joan Baranow, Ted Lardner, Jack Martin, and Kate O’Neill. Book design and production by Cody Gates and Maureen Forys at Happenstance Type-O-Rama. The cover photograph was taken by Christopher Upham.
Copies of Written Here 2018 will be available for purchase!
Hope to see you there!
Thank You For An Extraordinary Summer!
Thank you to all who helped make the 2019 summer of workshops happen!
2019’s Summer Workshops and events were a tremendous success.
Poems, photocopiers, poetry elves, vegan muffins, handmade tablecloths, softball games, nature walks past roaring snowmelt waterfalls, quaking aspen trees, anthologies, manuscripts, festooned pinecones, the Paul Radin Memorial Dream Wagon, music and the inimitable Joyce Carol Oates and her brilliant reading of her story “Assassin!”
This year in particular stood out among many wonderful sessions. 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. And in particular I want to thank our program directors: Lisa Alvarez, Michael Carlisle, Brenda Hillman, Diana Fuller, and Louis B. Jones. And thanks to Sands Hall for her leadership and for organizing the fabulous Follies!
And thanks to our Special Guests for the gift of their presence in the Valley: Daniel Halpern, Robert Hass, Michelle Latoiolas, Joyce Carol Oates, and Amy Tan.
Patricia K. Meyer joined us in the valley again this summer to teach her 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. Thanks to Whitney Fuller and Christopher Upham for taking wonderful photographs. Thanks to Chris, also, for his technical support.
We mourned the loss of two of our beloved friends this summer: Burnett Miller and Tom Rickman. Many thanks to poet Gary Short for his moving comments about Burnett. And thanks to our friends Diana Fuller and Patricia K. Meyer for helping us to celebrate Tom’s life and history with the Community of Writers. We were so pleased and honored to be joined by the families of Burnett and Tom.
We are deeply grateful to the Capital Public Radio’s generous and remarkable Beth Ruyak for leading panels and interviews during our Writers Workshop week.
Heaps of gratitude again to Andrew Tonkovich, who 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. He is also invaluable as we work toward celebrating our 50th Anniversary.
A big thank you to Julia Flynn Siler and Charlie Siler for all of their work on the 50th Anniversary Oral History Project, including interviewing longtime staff members and filming panels and readings, videotaping them and making them available to us as we move into our 50th year.
We are grateful for the outstanding work done by Kaitlin Klaussen coordinating our participant and staff housing. Many thanks to Livia Keene, who worked our pop-up bookstore in the Dream Wagon during the Poetry Program. Thanks also to Lindsey Gordon and Tracy Hall for documenting the goings-on with their cameras (including the photos here). And thanks to Tracy, Dashiell Jones, and Kat Feiling, for creating a bit of home in our humble snack bar.
Our Elves (and all-around helpers) were Jesse Bedayn, Kat Feiling, Lindsey Gordon, Sean Hamilton, Jesse Israel, Dashiell Jones, Hunter Jones, Remy Mickelson, Livia Keene, Audrey Rawson, and Louis Tonkovich. With high energy and good spirits, they all made things happen seamlessly. Special thanks to Eva Melas for the myriad of projects she managed. We would be lost without her. Details below.
Hunter and Dashiell helped us record events and will soon be putting them on our website as podcasts. Eva organized the Poetry Picnic this year at Meeks Bay along with the help of Lindsey Gordon and Hunter Jones. Indispensable also at the Poetry Picnic was our grill-master Leslie Hobayan who barbecued with confidence and good humor. A big thank you to all of our work-waivers Matthew Moniz, Andrew Dally, Nathan Cheng, Brian Chung, Benjamin Voigt, and Jennifer Steinorth for their help all week. Thanks to Karen Terrey for helping with local publicity. And a special thanks to Poetry program work-waiver Nicholas Nichols for documenting the week through his lens.
The Benefit Poetry Reading took place in Grass Valley in June and many thanks are in order, especially to Maxima Kahn who emceed the event, Judy Crowe who introduced the event, as well as the seven participating poets: Forrest Gander, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, David Tomas Martinez, Jane Miller, Sharon Olds and Gregory Pardlo.
Special thanks to the Event Coordinator Eva Melas who, with the brilliant help of Rachel Howard at YubaLit, and Don Rogers (publisher of the Grass Valley Union Newspaper) were instrumental in making sure we had a robust audience in such a small town. Thanks so much to our sponsors Grass Valley Courtyard Suites, YubaLit, and Nevada County Arts Council. Thanks to Copper Canyon Press, New Directions Press, Sarabande Books, and Wesleyan University Press for donating books.Thanks to our enthusiastic volunteers: Lindsey Gordon, Lisa Malsam, Emily Malsam & Michael Melas, Lydia & Jim Seely, and Mary Vogt. And special thanks to our friend Tom Taylor (lights and sound) who climbed a terrifying ladder to set the lights for the event. Thanks to Adrian Schneider for his wonderful photos. Elias Funez (Union Newspaper) also took some terrific photos from that night.
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. Thanks also to Ben Preston for being so helpful with our conference move, and for his masterful management of the sound during the Follies.
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 Jim Naify. I am grateful to our Events Committee (Carlin Naify, Nancy Teichert and Ruth Blank) who made great things happen during the programs. Special thanks this year to my comrades Michael Carlisle and Michelle Latiolais, who are always there with advice, support and friendship. This year we welcomed one new Board Member: poetry workshop alum Ken Haas.
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
An Evening With Janet Fitch
The Community of Writers
and
Stories on Stage Sacramento
are proud to present the return of New York Times bestselling author of White Oleander, and The Revolution of Marina M.
Janet Fitch
Friday, July 26th, 2019, at 7:00 PM
The Auditorium at CLARA
1425 24th St., Sacramento
Come celebrate the release of the second volume of Janet Fitch’s sweeping saga of a young woman’s coming of age during the Russian Revolution. Featuring Capital Public Radio’s Beth Ruyak in conversation with the author, highlighted by readings of vital passages in the book by Carissa Meagher.
Doors Open at 6:30 pm
- Reception to follow with Russian sweets and vodka (and wine and beer). Souvenir shot glass included with ticket price.
- Copies of Chimes of a Lost Cathedral will be available for sale
- Janet Fitch will sign copies during the reception.
- Beaucoup Chapeaux will perform Eastern European and Balkan traditional folk songs. (See video below.)
Proceeds will support the Community of Writers and Stories on Stage.
Tickets:
- Tickets $30/Students $15
- Advance Premium Tickets (first 2 rows only) $40
- Group Tickets Available for $20. (10 Ticket Minimum.) To purchase group tickets call 530-470-8440 or contact us by email.
(Online/advance ticket sales will end at 1pm on the day of the event, July 26.)
Buy Tickets
Readings and “in conversation with” begin at 7:00, with a reception to follow at 8:30.
We will have Russian fare including caviar, Russian pastries, vodka, wine and waters!
Books will be available for purchase before and during the reception.
The band Beaucoup Chapeaux will take us to Eastern Europe and the Balkans will their music!
Directions and Parking:
The Auditorium at CLARA (E. Claire Raley Studios for the Performing Arts) is located at 1425 24th Street, Sacramento (on 24th Street between N and O Streets) in midtown Sacramento. Street parking is plentiful, and free on weekends. You may also use the free lot behind the Auditorium. The entrance to the lot is on O Street, between 24th and 25th streets.
Please enter The Auditorium at CLARA from the door on 24th Street (closest to O Street), or from the parking lot. We will mark both entrances with balloons and fliers.
Accessible parking: Available from the lot behind the Auditorium. The Auditorium can be entered from the ground level.
Janet Fitch
Janet Fitch’s first novel, White Oleander, a #1 bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club selection, has been translated into 24 languages and was made into a feature film.Her second novel, Paint It Black, hit bestseller lists across the country and has also been made into a film. She was a Community of Writers participant in Fiction in 1998, the Poetry Workshop in 2017, and returns regularly to teach during the Writers Workshops at the Community of Writers. www.janetfitchwrites.com
Beth Ruyak
Beth Ruyak is the host of Capital Public Radio’s Insight. www.capradio.org
Beaucoup Chapeaux
Beaucoup Chapeaux, a Nevada City, CA based quartet, plays music and blends of music from many countries and cultures–including their own. Maggie McKaig, accordion; Randy McKean, clarinet; Murray Campbell, violin; Luke Wilson, plectrum banjo. More information. (Please note Murray Campbell is unable to participate that evening.) See video
Dramatic Readings by Carissa Meagher
Carissa Meagher has appeared in Antigone (Big Idea Theatre); Brilliant Traces (Ovation Stage); An Octoroon and Anna Karenina (Capital Stage) and Steel Magnolias (Sacramento Theatre Company.) She’s also appeared in The Little Prince and Henry IV at The Theater at Monmouth in Maine. She earned her BFA in acting from University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and an MFA In Playwriting from Ireland’s Lir Academy.
Stories on Stage, Sacramento
Sacramento’s award-winning reading series, Stories on Stage, features short fiction by established and emerging writers from Sacramento and surrounding areas, introduced by their authors and read by actors. More information.
Beers Books
Many thanks to Beers Books who will be on hand to sell books for the event. For over seventy years, Beers has served Sacramento and Northern California. They buy, sell, and trade books everyday, and pride themselves on fair prices and ample selection. Their stock is perpetually changing, so frequent visits may yield amazing finds. More information.
Thanks to the support of our friends at YubaLit in Nevada City.The reading series where Sierra foothills literature lovers gather to celebrate the written word.
The Community of Writers
Proceeds will support the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, a not-for-profit organization which, for 48 years, has been one of the premier writers conferences in the country, assisting talented writers and poets with diverse cultural perspectives. More information.
For more information about this event, call 530-470-8440 or contact us by email.
Buy Tickets
2019 Poetry Benefit Reading
An Evening With Beloved Poets
Nationally Known Poets return to Nevada County
Click on the author portraits to learn about these poets and their work. Or View as List
Forrest Gander • Brenda Hillman • David Tomas Martinez
Jane Miller • Sharon Olds • Gregory Pardlo • with special guest Robert Hass
This year we are pleased to welcome seven extraordinary poets including four Pulitzer Prize winners, a recipient of the Griffin International Prize, a recipient of the Wallace Award for Poetry, a former U.S. Poet Laureate, a National Book Award winner, and a recipient of the Pushcart Prize.
Community of Writers Poetry alum Maxima Kahn will Emcee the Event.
Friday, June 21, 2019
7:00 p.m. (doors open at 6:00)
St. Joseph’s Cultural Center
On Friday, June 21, 2019, acclaimed poets Forrest Gander, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, David Tomas Martinez, Jane Miller, Sharon Olds, and Gregory Pardlo will read from their poetry at the St. Joseph’s Cultural Center
410 S. Church Street, Grass Valley, CA 95945
This gathering of the tribe—all staff poets from this year’s Community of Writers’ Summer Poetry Workshop in Squaw Valley—will raise money for the Poetry Program’s financial aid and scholarships. Join us for a reading, signing, and reception with the poets. Books by the poets will be available for purchase before and after the reading.
We are delighted to report that St. Joseph’s Cultural Center is air-conditioned!
For more information contact us.
TICKET PRICES
General Admission: $25 advance/$30 at the door
Students: $12 advance/$15 at the door for students (with current student ID)
Premium Seats (first 2 rows): $45
Groups (10 or more purchased at the same time): $20/ticket
** Advance Ticket Sales end at 10:00 AM on June 21 **
If you would like to purchase tickets over the phone, call 530-470-8440
Tickets
Directions
St. Joseph’s is located at 410 S. Church Street, Grass Valley, CA 95945. For location map and directions, please visit the St. Joseph’s Cultural Center’s website.
Parking
St. Joseph’s has a parking lot. If full there are several other lots in Grass Valley as well as street parking.
Parking for visitors with disabilities can be found in St. Joseph’s lot.
This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Get Involved!
Become a Sponsor or Give to the Poetry Scholarship Fund
We are looking for volunteers! We need help with:
- Promoting the event during the months of April and May.
- Crowd-wrangling on the evening of June 21.
If you are interested in helping (and in a free ticket to the event), please contact us.
Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review 2017
It’s here!
We are delighted to announce the publication of Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review 2017. This annual anthology is made up of poems first written during the 2017 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. All of the poems in Written Here 2017 first emerged during the Poetry Workshop week. This edition of Written Here contains a historic first for the Community: it contains work by each and every one of the poets who attended in 2017, as well as poems by each of the staff poets: Francisco Aragón, Forrest Gander, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Sharon Olds, and Gregory Pardlo. The result is an astonishing look into what this generative and supportive week can yield. Congratulations to the volunteer alums who made this happen: Editor, Aaron Graham; managing editor Roger Soffer; photographer, Ananda Lima; and Cody G. Gates, the book’s designer.
Poets included in the issue:
Allison Albino · Amy Antongiovanni · Francisco Aragón · Gene Berson · Judy Bertelsen · Rebecca Black · Allyson Boggess · Jennifer Swanton Brown · Sammi Bryan · Lucy Burns · Anita Ann Cabrera · James Cagney · Brian Cochran · Susan Cohen · Alana de Hinojosa · David R. Dixon · Ryan Dzelzkalns · Janet Fitch · Neil Flatman · Kari Flickinger · Tracy Fuad · Josie Gallup · Forrest Gander · Aaron Graham · Kelsey Gutierrez · Susie Hammond · Kim Harvey · Robert Hass · Zakia Henderson-Brown · Brenda Hillman · Jackie Hymes · Alisha Kaplan · Michele Karas · Stefan Karlsson · Hannah Perrin King · Elizabeth Lapin · Lester Graves Lennon · Raina J. León · Ananda Lima · Yuxi Lin · Bonnie Long · Antonio Lopez · Jami Macarty · Dean Wilfred Martineau · Max McDonough · Dawn McGuire · Maggie Millner · Penelope Moffet · David Moody · Madeleine Mori · David Mucklow · Robin Myers · Kimberly Nunes · Sharon Olds · Gregory Pardlo · Therí Pickens · C. Pirloul · Laura Post · Henry Rappaport · Nicholas Reiner · Laura Rosenthal · Deborah Dashow Ruth · Brynn Saito · Cintia Santana · Matthew Schmidt · Vernon Small · Roger Soffer · Carl Steen · Jeanine Stevens · Cameron Stuart · Gabriella R. Tallmadge · Jan Verberkmoes · Marci Vogel · Katie Walker · Jeff Walt · Paul Watsky · Randy White · Annette Wong · Emma Winsor Wood
The book available through a print-on-demand site for $18
Buy Now
Dream Manifested: The Paul Radin Memorial Dream Wagon
Today we want to celebrate the construction and near completion of the Paul Radin Memorial Dream wagon. Construction started in early 2018, but months of planning, researching and fundraising came first.
Please scroll down and see the dozens of photos we’ve posted. We will take you from initial planning to the finished project.
An homage to our neighbor, the late Paul Radin, this Tiny House on wheels offered a practical answer to the problem of limited space and time constraints for a bookstore in the Valley. The Dream Wagon is a multipurpose tiny house on wheels. It is hard to believe we actually accomplished this project in so little time, and the endeavor was a delightful project once we saw clearly how to make it happen.
The Dream Wagon had its debut during the workshops last summer, and even in its not-quite-finished state, it was a success in every way. As a bookstore and as a stage for our readers and performers, it met and exceeded all our expectations. Imagine our authors giving readings from the stage. Then, when the reading is over, the audience can move inside to purchase that author’s book.
After the summer, it arrived back in Nevada City where it was settled under the canopy of a pear tree. Each fall it will serve as our headquarters until next spring when it will be towed to the Valley again.
We’re deeply grateful to everyone who contributed to its creation, whether with donations, labor, advice or materials. Now that it is (mostly) complete, we’re proud to show it off. The process of inventing and bringing it to fruition was risky, stressful, and deeply satisfying. It responds to a long-standing need for a moveable office, archives, and bookstore space. It helps us look to the future as a charming and unforgettable evocation of our place in the writing world. Scroll down to see pictures of the construction process and join us on our journey!
Deep thanks to the family of Paul Radin for major funding of the project and for providing the initial burst of inspiration and enthusiasm, and to the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation for the last funds that kept us under budget. (See the full list of project donors below.)
When he died in 2005, Paul Radin left to the Community of Writers a small box of books labeled “Paul Radin Library.” Now, in his honor, the Community has dedicated a mobile bookstore, office and library in his name.
To sit in the audience in Olympic Valley with the day transitioning to dusk, and to see our staff writers read from the stage as the landscape changed character with the setting sun, was deeply moving. This wagon is wonderfully emblematic of the ethos and spirit of this transient, yet half-century-enduring community, as well as the man whose legacy inspired it.
Thank you to everyone who donated to make this dream possible!
Dream Wagon Founding Donors
David Radin and Robert Radin
With A Generous Grant From
The Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation
Vardo
Eddy and Osvaldo Ancinas • René & April Ancinas • Michael Carlisle • Michael and Janet Pietsch • Steve & Michele Rempe • Cecile Weaver
Caravan
Reagan Arthur • Adam Cole • Nancy Evans • The Hall Family • Sands Hall • Joy Harris • William Haxton • Pam Rorke Levy • John Roberts II • Carlin & James Naify • Beth Ruyak & Mike McWhirter • Julia Flynn Siler & Charlie Siler • Nancy Teichert • Cora Yang & • Myron Marx • Pat Woeber • Vonetta Young
Wain
Marcia Bradley • Elizabeth Chapman • Susan Call • Charmaine Craig • Leslie Daniels • Thomas Ennis • Margot Garcia • Harriet Garfinkle • Jim Hill • Joy Johannessen • Calvert Morgan • Cynthia Newberry • David Paul • John Pula • Barbara Ristine • Logan Robertson • Greg and Caridwen Spatz • Elizabeth Tallent & Gloria Rogers • Mary Winsor • Kent Wright
And a big thank you to our wonderful Board of Directors for their constant guidance and support.
Thank you to all who believed in this project and who helped to make it happen.
Announcing our 2019 Summer Writers Workshops
The Community of Writers is pleased to announce the 2019 Summer Writing Workshops in Poetry and Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir.
We are now accepting applications.
THE POETRY WORKSHOP
June 22 – 29, 2019
The Poetry Workshop 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. The idea is to try to expand the boundaries of what one can write. In the mornings we meet to read to each other the work of the previous twenty-four hours, and in the late afternoons we gather for a conversation about some aspect of craft.On several afternoons staff poets hold brief individual conferences. Director: Robert Hass.
Forrest Gander • Brenda Hillman • David Tomas Martinez
Jane Miller • Sharon Olds • Gregory Pardlo
with special guest Robert Hass
Financial Aid Available.
Application Deadline: April 1, 2019.
More program details, bios, logistics, and application form:
Visit the Poetry Workshop Page
THE WRITERS WORKSHOPS
in Fiction, Nonfiction & Memoir
July 8 – 15, 2019
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. There are separate morning workshops for Fiction and Narrative Nonfiction/Memoir. 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
Katharine Dion • Richard Ford • Diana Fuller • Daniel Halpern • Michelle Latiolais •
Joyce Carol Oates • Beth Ruyak • Amy Tan
TEACHING STAFF
Lisa Alvarez • Ramona Ausubel • Michael Carlisle • Leland Cheuk • Tyler Dilts
Frances Dinkelspiel • Alex Espinoza • Janet Fitch • Dagoberto Gilb • Sands Hall
Rachel Howard • Vanessa Hua • Rhoda Huffey • Louis B. Jones • Krys Lee • Tom Lutz
Patricia K. Meyer • Howard Norman • Victoria Patterson • Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Greg Spatz • Héctor Tobar • Andrew Tonkovich • Jane Vandenburgh
PLUS
Literary Agents – Book & Literary Magazine Editors and more
INTRODUCING PUBLISHED ALUMS
Marcia Butler • Kate Day • Devi S. Laskar • Wayétu Moore
Financial Aid available.
Application Deadline: April 1, 2019
More program details, bios, logistics, and application form:
Visit the Writers Workshops Page
Quarterly Roundup of New Alumni Books
Books published by Alumni Authors published in October – December, 2018
Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums who have published books during the last quarter of 2018!
We are delighted 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 WORKSHOPS ALUMNI
Do you have a forthcoming publication? Send us your news, and and we will post it in our Omnium Gatherum: Alumni News. And if your news is a book publication, we’ll include it in our next quarterly 2019 New Alumni Books Update here.
Burnett Miller: 1923-2018
The Community of Writers is mourning the loss of our founding Board Member, friend and supporter, Burnett Miller.
Burnett made the Community of Writers possible since its earliest days. It’s a lucky thing for us, in the first place, that he and Mimi have always had a house in the Valley, and it’s a lucky thing for us that they’ve been such champions of the arts, including literature. In the city of Sacramento, Burnett and Mimi have been longstanding pillars of the cultural scene, and to Squaw Valley they brought the same warm enthusiasm and stewardship that they provided the Sacramento region.
Here is how the Sacramento Bee begins its remembrance of Burnett:
Burnett Miller survived shrapnel wounds at the Battle of the Bulge, helped liberate a concentration camp — and recounted his war stories for an acclaimed PBS documentary. After returning home to Sacramento, he spent his business career running a millwork and cabinetry company founded by his ancestors shortly after the Gold Rush.
He helped save historic Old Sacramento buildings from the wrecking ball, and was founding member of an annual conference at Lake Tahoe that mentors aspiring poets and writers. He rode camels in Iran and, until recently, played tennis with one of America’s most celebrated painters.
Oh, and he served as Sacramento’s mayor for about a year.
The city of Sacramento would be a plainer place today if not for Burnett’s work on behalf of its great museums, parks, historic buildings, arts organizations. And as a summer resident of this unincorporated resort village in the mountains, he may not have been the mayor, but he had his hand on the tiller of the Valley’s major cultural institution. As Chairman of our Board of Directors, Burnett for many years sat at the head of the table, knowing when to intervene and change the subject but also – and mostly – practicing the art of listening with an intense empathy. Wherever Burnett was, things flourished. We remember one August, when, on the post-conference day after all the participants had gone home, a few of us administrators were beginning the packing-up process, in our morning-after fatigue – and then the Chairman of the Board arrived, with a spring in his step. And with, also, the slight hitch in his walk that came along in his eighties, he started picking things up and churned everyone into action, making decisions about sorting office equipment for winter storage, carrying off boxes or computer printers. It was Private 1st Class Miller, the one who led a patrol in the Battle of the Bulge.
Burnett must have seized on the Community of Writers (and, by the way, made lifelong friends of us all) because he was at heart an intellectual. He may have been a practical politician and a businessman, and those are two callings that don’t like overly highbrow pursuits or fancy tastes – businessmen and politicians have good reasons to, rather, be known as down-to-earth. But in Burnett’s home, the freshest “New York Review of Books” was always out on the coffee table, and it had obviously always been ransacked, its tabloid folds disheveled. The walls of all the rooms and staircases in that house are covered chockablock, salon-style, with oil paintings by contemporary artists, and new hardcover fiction and nonfiction stands on end tables, bookmarked. He and Mimi showed up at every one of the summer conferences, attending lectures and readings stylishly dressed and seated in the very front row. Burnett knew how to be a bon vivant, often buying a bottle to go around, and sometimes ruling a dinner table with his beautifully told stories. He had plenty of stories to tell. His patrol in the Ardennes forest walked “on point,” meaning at the brunt. He was one of the American officers who personally, literally, opened gates at the Mauthausen concentration camp, while prisoners on the other side watched him do it. And all their lives, he and Mimi have been adventurous world travelers, not the kind of tourists who merely ride and eat, but explorers seeking out hard-to-get-to places, and places without amenities. His stories were always masterpieces. His destiny was to work largely in the business and government worlds, but he may have been an artist or writer manqué – as if, maybe, had there been no “Burnett & Sons” (fine millwork and planning, founded 1869), he might have been an editor or critic, one of us ink-stained wretches. We’re fortunate that one of Burnett’s greatest arts was making everybody else’s life brighter.
Read more about Burnett in the Sacramento Bee.
If you are interested in honoring Burnett’s long 50 year history with the Community of Writers with a donation, please go here.
Thank You For A Remarkable Summer!
Thank you to all who helped make the 2018 summer of workshops happen!
As they have done for 48 years, the Summer Workshops came together with the tireless participation of many friends and colleagues.It always strikes me as a minor miracle when the workshops all come together. But of course it is the enmeshing of hundreds of kindred spirits, learning about and from each other and their work, that makes it so. Without all of you it just wouldn’t be possible.
We are grateful to and astounded by our generous teaching staff members in Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction who make the summer workshops an unforgettable and productive experience. And in particular I want to thank our program directors: Lisa Alvarez, Michael Carlisle, Robert Hass, Diana Fuller, and Louis B. Jones.
Thanks also to Patricia K. Meyer who joined us in the valley to teach her special class on the Alchemy of Adaptation. A big thank you to Diana who founded and shepherded this program from a full screenwriting program to an adaptation program for fiction and nonfiction writers. Thanks to Christopher Upham as well for photography and general technical support.
Heaps of gratitude again to Andrew Tonkovich, who 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. Many thanks to Eva Melas and Livia Keene, who both managed our pop-up bookstore in the Dream Wagon. Thanks also to Lindsey Gordon and Tracy Hall for documenting the goings-on with their cameras (including the photos here). And thanks to Tracy and Jim Chumbley, Hunter Jones and Lindsey Gordon, for creating a bit of home in our humble snack bar. Our Elves (and all-around helpers) were Christian Aguilar, Jesse Bedayn, Hannah Casey, Lindsey Gordon, Jesse Israel, Hunter Jones, Eva Melas, Jack Norman, Livia Keene, Audrey Rawson, and Louis Tonkovich. With high energy and good spirits, they all made things happen seamlessly.
Hunter helped us record events and will soon be putting them on our website as podcasts. Eva Melas organized the Poetry Picnic this year at Meeks Bay along with the help of Lindsey Gordon, Hunter Jones, and Jack Norman. Indispensable also at the Poetry Picnic was Ethan Andrews who barbecued with confidence. A big thank you to all of our work waivers Daniel Duffy, Anuradha Bhowmik, Lily Jamaludin, and Katherine Noble for their help all week. And thanks to Sands Hall for the inimitable Follies and for hosting Poetry’s final dinner. Liz Thiem and Storey Rafter graced our Poetry party with delicious food and good humor.
The Paul Radin Memorial Dream Wagon: On Saturday, during the Writers week, the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley memorialized one of its longtime friends, the late Paul Radin, during the dedication of the Paul Radin Memorial Dream Wagon. The commemoration ceremony preceded the Writers Workshop’s annual Follies, with remarks by Louis B. Jones and Robin Radin. David and Robin Radin, along with members of Paul Radin’s extended family, were there to represent the family. The Radin family donated seed money to the Community dedicated to the purchase of a portable “tiny house” on wheels to be used as an office and bookstore onsite during the conference weeks in Squaw Valley. Also honored that night was the builder of this tiny house on wheels project, Jim Seely, who was given a standing ovation. We have many other donors to thank for helping make the Dream Wagon real, please stay posted.
We would like to acknowledge our friends who have been tremendously generous with their time and local support over the years: Eddy & Osvaldo Ancinas, Mimi & Burnett Miller and Amy Tan & Lou Demattei. And thanks for years of advice and excellent legal care David Riegels who has been our generous pro-bono attorney for decades. We say a loving goodbye to him as he starts his retirement. Thanks also to alum and friend Bob Austin for his ADA compliance advice. Special thanks also to Capital Public Radio’s Beth Ruyak, who impressed us all as she emceed a panel of memoir-writing fiction writers, and more.
The Benefit Poetry Reading took place in Nevada City in June and many thanks are in order, especially to Molly Fisk who emceed the event, as well as the six participating poets: Kazim Ali, Mónica de la Torre, Robert Hass, Sharon Olds, Evie Shockley, and Dean Young.
Special thanks to the Event Coordinator Elizabeth Kelley Gillogly who, with the able help of Rachel Howard at YubaLit, made this one of the best-attended Benefit
events we’ve done. Thanks so much to our sponsors Caseywood Corporation, Joan Baranow and David Watts, The Entrekin Foundation, YubaLit, and Nevada County Arts Council. Thanks to Copper Canyon Press, Counterpoint Press, and Wesleyan University Press for donating books.Thanks to our enthusiastic volunteers: Catherine Bilheimer, Cathy Chappell, Eva Melas, Michael & Emily Malsam, Lydia & Jim Seely, Tom Taylor, and Mary Vogt.
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 Jim Naify. I am grateful to our Events Committee (Carlin Naify, Nancy Teichert & Ruth Blank) who made great things happen during the programs. Special thanks this year to my comrades Michael Carlisle and Michelle Latiolais who are always there with advice, support and friendship. This year we welcomed two new Board Members: Reagan Arthur and Dana Johnson.
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
Goodbye to Tom Rickman, 1940-2018
People may have heard that the legendary screenwriter was rumored to be around, but those who didn’t happen to be enrolled in the Screenwriting Program might not have run into Tom Rickman during the week – or recognize him, until the night of the Follies came around.
He loved the Follies. One particular song he’d written, “Why Does the Toast Fall Butter-Side-Down?” had to be reprised every year by popular demand; people got to know the refrain by heart and came to sing along with loud abandon making that existential complaint. He also had an a cappella version of “Minnie the Moocher,” just him and the mic up there, where his voice swung low and took on an amazing trombone blare. His avid performing abilities – implying a necessary empathy for actors and their art – of course must have helped make his success as a dramatic writer. He was always happy and relaxed onstage. People will remember under bright lights the ruddy cheeks and the plentiful snow-white hair, the recurrent, even perpetual shrug, hands-in-pockets, the impression he always made that he was, somehow, standing off to one side from the point he was making.
He grew up in Kentucky in a home without plumbing or television and made a journey from there to writing the movie “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” No doubt as a boy he heard Loretta Lynn on the radio, so coming to write her bio-pic would have been a fine life experience. He had first come to Squaw Valley some years before that success, to help get a screenwriting program going; Diana Fuller had invited him because she was adding a movie component to a playwriting program that existed here at the time. And she and Tom, along with Gill Dennis, invented a whole separate world across the campus, where participants’ scripts were analyzed, and then during the week, actors would learn the parts and scenes would be blocked out, directed, filmed, and even edited (in those days before digital), then screened for the whole group – so that inexperienced screenwriters might see the practical outcome of written work. It was a great program and we’re sorry it’s gone, dependent as it was on Tom and Gill. He was young then when it started, in his early thirties, and he continued to come up and help run it every year without fail, except for maybe one or two times when production schedules wouldn’t allow. He stopped coming a few years ago when cancer therapy started keeping him home. He hasn’t, ever since, been able to return.
An important element in Tom was his cordial humility. In an industry town where self-effacement is not recommended for beginners, Tom (the Kentucky boy, as he styled himself) arrived and throve, transiting naturally to the rare Hollywood echelons where to be laid back isn’t a ruinous handicap. Here at the Workshops, even the shyest, most unpublished short-story writer found an easy comrade in Tom, somebody who would confide unpretentiously, somebody who would listen with genuine fresh interest. Always witty and unassuming and quiet with his entrances and exits, he’s gone up yonder. We here have been missing him for a long time already.
New Alumni Books Update
Books by Alumni Authors published in Summer 2018
Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums who have published books during the summer months of 2018!
We are delighted to share their success with you. Visit our alumni newsfeed on our Omnium Gatherum page.
NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMNI
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOPS ALUMNI
View Summer News
Do you have a forthcoming publication? Send us your news, and and we will post it in our Omnium Gatherum: Alumni News. And if your news is a book publication, we’ll include it in our next quarterly 2018 New Alumni Book Update here!
Recently Published Alums Return to Read From Their Books
In July 2018, we continued our tradition of inviting recently published alums back to the Community of Writers to read from their new books. On Wednesday, July 11, we presented The Published Alumni Reading Series, preceded by a reception in the honor of these writers, who made the journey to present their newly published work to participants and staff of the 2018 Writers Workshop. This year’s alums were Michael Andreasen (The Sea Beast Takes a Lover), Laurie Doyle (World Gone Missing), Jimin Han (A Small Revolution), Mary Kuryla (Freak Weather: Stories),and Brian Rogers (The Whole of the Moon),all introduced by Charmaine Craig. The Community of Writers was delighted to celebrate the success of these writers and to present them to the participants, staff, and the public.
Michael Andreasen
Michael Andreasen
Laurie Ann Doyle
Laurie Ann Doyle
Jimin Han
Jimin Han
Mary Kuryla
Mary Kuryla
Brian Rogers
Brian Rogers
Six Extraordinary Poets Together on One Night in Nevada City
Nationally Known Poets Return to Read in Nevada City to Benefit the Community of Writers
This year we are pleased to welcome six extraordinary poets, including two Pulitzer-Prize winners and a 2018 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Last year’s Benefit Poetry Reading was such a success that we have decided to once again return to the Miners Foundry in Nevada City, California.
FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2018, 7:00pm
Buy Tickets Online Now
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Kazim Ali
Kazim Ali
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Mónica de la Torre
Mónica de la Torre
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Robert Hass
Robert Hass
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Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds
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Evie Shockley
Evie Shockley
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Dean Young
Dean Young
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Kazim AliKazim Ali
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Mónica de la TorreMónica de la Torre
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Robert HassRobert Hass
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Sharon OldsSharon Olds
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Evie ShockleyEvie Shockley
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Dean YoungDean Young
View Poet Bios
NOTE: We have a limited number of premium seats available in the first two rows–get yours today!
This gathering of nationally known poets—all staff poets from this year’s Community of Writers’ Summer Poetry Workshop in Squaw Valley—will raise money for the Poetry Program’s financial aid and scholarships. Join us for a reading, signing, and reception with the poet teachers. Books by the poets will be available for purchase before and after the reading.
Tickets are $25 advance/$30 at the door for general admission and $15 advance/$20 at the door for students (with current student ID).
Premium seating, first 2 rows: $45.
Group price, 10 or more tickets purchased at the same time: $20/ticket.
If you would like to purchase tickets over the phone, call 530-470-8440.
Thank you to our sponsors:
Caseywood • The Entrekin Foundation • Nevada County Arts • YubaLit • David Watts and Joan Baranow • Hip Pocket Press
Buy Tickets Online Now!
Just 7 Days Until the 2018 Big Day of Giving
Next Thursday, May 3rd, is a Big Day!
Because we are based in Northern California, the Community of Writers has the extraordinary opportunity to participate in the BIG Day of Giving, which benefits our region’s nonprofits. If you already plan on making a gift to the Scholarship Fund, donating on Thursday, May 3rd may leverage your donation even further with over $10,000 in matching funds available!
Last year, because of the many generous friends and alumni who donated during the Big Day of Giving, we raised over $20,000. Those funds helped us bring in new teaching staff, sustain our remarkable alumni community with many events and opportunities, and offer financial aid to talented writers who would not have been able to attend the workshops without it. We’d love to be able to better that number this year.
How you can help on May 3rd:
1) Make a donation to The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley at www.bigdayofgiving.org.
2) Spread the word. Tell your friends, post on Facebook, and tweet about it. This is an opportunity to be part of something really big. Help us get there!
Thank you in advance for your generosity to our community; together, we can make a BIG impact!
Facebook: BIG Day of Giving
Twitter: @Bigdayofgiving
Hashtag: #BDOG2018
This event is produced by the wonderful people at the Sacramento Regional Community Foundation.
Donate
Poetry Alums Among Headliners at the Sierra Poetry Festival
The Community of Writers is pleased to recommend the 2nd Annual Sierra Poetry Festival, this Saturday, April 28 which will feature several Community of Writers alums.
Among the poets headlining the Festival are Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Molly Fisk, and Judy Halebsky. Maxima Kahn‘s workshop “Igniting Your Poetic Fire,” will also be featured. The event will be emcee’d by our own Sands Hall.
Click on the author portraits to learn about these poets and their work.
Molly Fisk
Molly Fisk
Judy Halebsky
Judy Halebsky
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Maxima Kahn
Maxima Kahn
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo • Molly Fisk • Judy Halebsky • Maxima Kahn
Nevada County Arts Council will present the 2018 Sierra Poetry Festival on April 28, all day, at Sierra College in Grass Valley. Activities will include a keynote address by Los Angeles Poet Laureate Robin Coste Lewis, author of Voyage of the Sable Venus, winner of the National Book Award for Poetry. Three other California poets laureate, and an array of local, national and international poets and performers will join Coste Lewis. Among the day’s line-up are Kim Shuck, Indigo Moor, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Judy Halebsky, V.S. Chochezi and Staajabu as Straight Out Scribes, Neeli Cherkovski, Bill Gainer, Molly Fisk, Charles Entrekin, Gail Entrekin, Sands Hall, Mel Pryor, Kirsten Casey and more.
Join us there for a wonderful day of workshops, readings and performances!
More Details
The Tiny House on Wheels Project
We are excited to report that construction on our long-planned bookshop/headquarters on wheels has begun. The Paul Radin Memorial Writers Lodge (named in honor of our friend), this project will be complete by this summer. Yesterday, the first wall was pushed up by the journeymen on the project.
Spearheaded by a major donation by the family of Paul Radin, and with substantial support of other donors, this project was conceived to create a useful way for us to solve several problems:
- It will create a bookshop that can sell hundreds of staff books on site during the workshops, as demands for space in the Squaw Valley resort continue to grow more competitive.
- When our access to the venue ends on the same day the conference does, it will allow us to simply tow it away and complete our extensive inventories and returns off-site.
- The structure will also serve as our year-round headquarters (office) in Nevada City .
With a fold-down stage for readings and presentations, French doors, built-in book cases, and an office, this promises to be a whimsical and useful abode for the Community of Writers. More details on Paul Radin and the origins of this project can be found here. The dedication of the tiny house will be Saturday evening, July 14, as part of the Writers Workshops Follies.
Send us your ideas…
The structure is now called The Paul Radin Memorial Lodge. However, we are interested in your ideas on its more informal everyday appellation, as “Lodge” brings to mind a larger structure and might be confused with other local buildings. The Paul Radin Memorial… __________… what? The name might evoke books, learning, writing, migration, travel…
If you too would like to support this project and have your name on the donor wall, contact us for more details.
The Continuum: Gifts To Our Scholarship Fund Sustain Poetry and Prose
One of our principle goals, always, is to keep the Summer Workshops affordable for our participants.
In the early days, our workshops shared the Valley with few other visitors, (cheerleaders! wrestlers! endurance runners!) but as the ski resort has prospered, the Valley has become an attractive year-round destination and the local costs of participant and teaching staff accommodations and food for the workshop week have risen dramatically.
With rising costs, financial aid has become essential for many of our participants. Offering scholarships and waivers ensures that talented writers from all backgrounds and means are able to attend, and that new and diverse writers continue to benefit from this opportunity.
The Continuum: Many of you reading this now were once recipients of some kind of financial aid. Some of you may still be strapped financially; nevertheless we hope you can send something. You may no longer be a student, or may have a better job, or you may have even seen your book published. Did your time at the Valley help your writing life? If it did, I hope you will consider sending us a larger donation to help another talented writer have that experience.
The application manuscripts have arrived for the 2018 Summer Workshops. We are delighted and astonished with the work, and we are all looking forward to another productive summer with these writers and poets. In the next few weeks, we will be making admissions decisions. Those decisions include grants of financial aid for our most talented and needy writers.
Visit our Financial Aid & Scholarships page for more information on how you can donate to our scholarship fund, or to a specific scholarship.
Donations to the Community of Writers may be tax-deductible.
Please give Today. All gifts received on or before May 1 will go directly to our 2018 Scholarship Fund. If you would like to help, but cannot donate before May 1, please email us and pledge the amount you would like to give.
If you are interested in creating an honorary scholarship, email brett@communityofwriters.org.
Or you can donate online today or send a check to:
Community of Writers – Scholarship Fund
PO Box 1416
Nevada City, CA 95959
Announcing Our 2018 Summer Writers Workshops
The Community of Writers is pleased to announce the 2018 Summer Writing Workshops in Poetry and Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir. We are now accepting applications.
THE POETRY WORKSHOP
June 23 – 30, 2018
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Kazim Ali
Kazim Ali
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Mónica de la Torre
Mónica de la Torre
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Robert Hass
Robert Hass
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Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds
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Evie Shockley
Evie Shockley
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Dean Young
Dean Young
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Kazim AliKazim Ali
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Mónica de la TorreMónica de la Torre
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Robert HassRobert Hass
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Sharon OldsSharon Olds
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Evie ShockleyEvie Shockley
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Dean YoungDean Young
Kazim Ali • Mónica de la Torre • Robert Hass
Sharon Olds • Evie Shockley • Dean Young
The Poetry Workshop 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. The idea is to try to expand the boundaries of what one can write. In the mornings we meet to read to each other the work of the previous twenty-four hours, and in the late afternoons we gather for a conversation about some aspect of craft.On several afternoons staff poets hold brief individual conferences. Director: Robert Hass.
Financial Aid Available.
Application Deadline: March 28, 2018.
More program details, bios, logistics, and application form:
Visit the Poetry Workshop Page
THE WRITERS WORKSHOPS
in Fiction, Nonfiction & Memoir
July 8 – 15, 2018
TEACHING STAFF
Lisa Alvarez • Tom Barbash • Michael Carlisle • Charmaine Craig • Leslie Daniels • Karen Joy Fowler • Glen David Gold • Sands Hall • Dana Johnson • Louis B. Jones • Edan Lepucki • Edie Meidav • Peter Orner • Kirstin Valdez Quade • Jason Roberts • Elizabeth Rosner • Margaret Wilkerson Sexton • Julia Flynn Siler • Elizabeth Tallent • Andrew Winer
PLUS
Literary Agents – Book & Literary Magazine Editors and more
SPECIAL GUESTS
Max Byrd • Mo Gawdat • Michelle Latiolais • Gabriel Tallent • Amy Tan
INTRODUCING PUBLISHED ALUMS
Michael Andreasen • Laurie Ann Doyle • Jimin Han • Mary Kuryla • Brian Rogers
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. There are separate morning workshops for Fiction and Narrative Nonfiction/Memoir. In addition to their workshop manuscripts, participants may have a second manuscript read by a staff member who meets with them in individual conferences.
Financial Aid available.
Application Deadline: March 28, 2018
More program details, bios, logistics, and application form:
Visit the Writers Workshops Page
New Alumni Books Update
Books published by Alumni Authors published in October – December, 2017
Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums who have published books during the last quarter of 2017!
We are delighted to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below.
NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMNI
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOPS ALUMNI
Do you have a forthcoming publication? Send us your news, and and we will post it in our Omnium Gatherum: Alumni News. And if your news is a book publication, we’ll include it in our next quarterly 2018 New Alumni Book Update here!
Community of Writers Poetry Program Founder Galway Kinnell’s “Collected Poems” Now Available
We are excited to announce the publication of Galway Kinnell’s Collected Poems, just out this week from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt!
The definitive collection of poems from Pulitzer Prize-winner, MacArthur Fellow, National Book Award-winner, and Community of Writers Poetry Program founder, Galway Kinnell.
“It’s the poet’s job to figure out what’s happening within oneself, to figure out the connection
between the self and the world, and to get it down in words that have a certain shape, that have
a chance of lasting.” —Galway Kinnell
The Poetry Program, as we’ve practiced it since 1985, was Galway Kinnell’s design, along with Sharon Old’s. When he became director, he created a poetry program different from any other that operated on very simple principles.: to write a new poem every single day, avoid critical comments and find what is working in each other’s poems. Galway died in 2014 and left a legacy of poetry and community that can find no parallel.
Now comes the long-awaited compendium of his work: “a body of poetry that pushed deep into the heart of human experience” (New York Times). This vast collection is the very first to represent Kinnell’s entire body of work, including seven previously uncollected poems. Collected Poems collects 65 years of, as he would call poetry, ” inspired thought.” This large and lovely volume is sure to be an essential part of any poetry collection, especially of those who worked with him at the Community of Writers.
From the Publisher:
In a remarkable generation of poets, Galway Kinnell was an acknowledged, true master. From the book-length poem memorializing the grit, beauty, and swarming assertion of immigrant life along a lower Manhattan avenue, to searing poems of human conflict and war, to incandescent reflections on love, family, and the natural world—including “Blackberry Eating,” “St. Francis and the Sow,” and “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps”—to the unflinchingly introspective poems of his later life, Kinnell’s work lastingly shaped the consciousness of his age.
In his introduction to the book, Edward Hirsch writes: “Reading over Kinnell’s work as a whole, one finds that he was essentially looking for ultimate meaning, which he could not find in a provisional universe. What he could create was a poetry that embraced our earthly hold, the bonds of connection, the nature of being. His ambition was overarching. He dreamed of a true poem of embodiment, one that would incorporate as much of the available world as possible. That dream is realized as these Collected Poems, the single work he was writing all his life, his Leaves of Grass. It could be described as Tenderness Toward Existence.”
“There’s no one whose work has so often and with such consistency brought into the world a sense of wonder and exaltation, no one who so often discovered rich new harmonies of poetic language, no one who devised so many metaphors that resonate through so many levels of materiality and spirit, uniting the physical with the moral and passion with thought. In short, there’s no one whose work has elaborated so ample and comprehensive a vision of the lives we’ve lived.” — C. K. Williams, The New Yorker
Galway Kinnell published ten books of poetry, a novella, and several books of translations, including of the poetry of François Villon and Rainer Maria Rilke. In 1982 his Selected Poems won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. A former MacArthur fellow and State Poet of Vermont, he was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Creative Writing and the cofounder and longtime mentor of the graduate creative writing program at New York University. For many years he enriched the life of American culture, not only through the printed word but also through his teaching, his devotion to the tribe of poets, and his indelibly powerful public readings.
We hope you will go to your local or online bookseller and purchase a copy ($35.) Or, for the next 10 donors of $250 or more, we will send you a copy as a thank you gift.
Donate Today
Thoughts of Summer and A Time To Give
Everything is in storage now for the winter, the folding tables and pop-up tents, the coffee carafes and wicker baskets, the painted canvas stage backdrop, the tablecloths, and the orange plastic jack-o-lantern we put out at evening events to collect donations. Next June, after the long months of winter, we will throw open the storage unit’s roll-up door to reveal it all, and set it all up again. We’ll be here in June as usual – and we hope some of you may be here again, too. We return each year for one simple reason: to help usher literature into the world.
And so I am writing you today to ask for your support as we close out 2017. It is hard to express how complex and challenging is this thing we do. And how expensive. In an atmosphere of increasing costs, our goal, always, is to keep the workshops affordable, and this experience possible, for talented writers. Now we need your help to close the gap between our tuition income and the actual costs of the summer of workshops.
Of course, so much has been shaken loose of late – in winds, fires, floods – and there are so many who need your help, but we hope nevertheless that we will be part of your giving plan for 2017. With your help, previously isolated poets and writers may find friendship and support in their writing lives, and discover a wider audience for their work, so their words may have a lasting influence in this world.
Donations, large and small are needed and appreciated. All donations are tax-deductible. We can’t do what we do without you. Please give today. You may donate securely online, or mail a check to the address below.
With gratitude and warm wishes,
Brett Hall Jones, Executive Director
Community of Writers
PO Box 1416, Nevada City, CA 95959
Donate
Words, Music and Vodka flowed at our Evening with Janet Fitch!
On Saturday, November 11, Sacramento was treated to a festive evening with Janet Fitch to celebrate the publication of her new novel The Revolution of Marina M.
The event was a fundraiser for the Community of Writers and featured a conversation between Janet and local radio host Beth Ruyak, dramatic staged readings from the novel by local actor Allyson Finn, and lively acoustic music by the band Beaucoup Chapeaux! This staging was inspired and supported by Stories on Stage Sacramento, who has actors perform readings from authors’ works. The interview was interspersed with the dramatic readings which brought Fitch’s words to life. Vodka (donated by Dripping Springs Distillery) flowed into the commemorative shot glasses generously donated by Little, Brown & Co, Janet’s publisher. The food, prepared and donated by friends and Board Members included Russian brown bread, caviar and more.
We were honored to have Beth Ruyak participant in this the event. Tremendous gratitude goes to Sue Staats and Stories on Stage Sacramento, who has been instrumental in bringing this together. Thanks to Andrew Naify and Beers Books for making books available for sale. Many thanks to our wonderful volunteers Cathy Chapell, Ana Cotham, Livia Keene, Emily Malsam, Michael Melas, Tatiana Morfas, Lydia and Jim Seely, as well as our board members Ruth Blank and Chris Spanos, James and Carlin Naify, and Nancy and Fred Teichert. Thanks also to Peggi Wood, the casting director for the event. A big thank you goes out to Beaucoup Chapeaux for donating their appearance and serenading us with Eastern European, Balkan and Russian folk music. And, of course, thank you to Janet Fitch for making this all possible!
The Event was Sponsored by Stories on Stage Sacramento and Beers Books.
View Photos Here
Many thanks to Barry Schwartz Photography and Eva Melas and for taking these wonderful photos.
Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review 2016
Available for the Holidays!
Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review 2016
We are delighted to report that the annual poetry anthology of poems first written during the 2016 Poetry Workshop is available now! Order it now and it will arrive in time for the holidays. This lovely edition would make a wonderful Christmas present.
Book Description: Invite some of the magic of wind on the mountain and warm days in the valley into your mailbox. From the turbulent summer of 2016, 43 poets bring you 67 poems. This edition of Written Here presents a selection of the pieces that emerged from our week of poetry workshops. Edited and designed by participant volunteers from the workshop, it’s a beautiful anthology that reflects a range of subjects, a variety of styles, and concerns that continue today. Edited by Amy Elisabeth Davis, Richard Sime, Christine Gosnay, Abriana Jetté, Trisha Peck, and Roberto Santiago and designed by Cody Gates and Maureen Forys, the book’s profits go to the Community of Writers Scholarship Fund. Every copy you get for yourself or someone else is also a gift to a future participant in the workshop.
More Details
Images from the June 2017 Benefit Poetry Reading
After a long delay, we finally uploaded images from the 2017 Benefit Poetry Reading. The Benefit was held in Nevada City at the historic Miners Foundry on June 23 to an overflowing and enthusiastic crowd. The June evening in the Sierra Foothills was blistering hot — nevertheless, the audience endured the heat to hear great poetry and meet the beloved guest poets.
The 2017 Benefit Reading featured poets Francisco Aragón, Forrest Gander, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Sharon Olds, and Gregory Pardlo, emcee Molly Fisk, and were welcomed by Sands Hall.
The Benefit Reading is held every year on the night before the Poetry Workshop in Squaw Valley to raise important funds for the Community of Writers Scholarship Fund for Poets.
Many thanks to the coordinator Elizabeth Kelley Gillogly, as well as YubaLit’s Rachel Howard, and all the volunteers who made the event such as success.
Special thanks to Chuck and Jo Baker for the photographs!
View Photos
Recently Published Alums Return to Read From Their Books
In July 2017, we continued our tradition of inviting recently published alums back to the Community of Writers to read from their new books. On Wednesday, July 12, we presented The Published Alumni Reading Series, preceded by a reception in the honor of these writers. This year’s alums were Mauro Javier Cardenas, Jade Chang, Carole Firstman, Vanessa Hua, Kimball Taylor all introduced by Natalie Baszile. The Community of Writers was delighted to celebrate the success of these writers and to present them to the participants, staff, and the public.
Bestselling Author Janet Fitch Comes to Sacramento to Benefit the Community of Writers
The Community of Writers in collaboration with
Stories on Stage Sacramento,
is proud to present New York Times bestselling author of White Oleander Janet Fitch
Saturday, November 11, 2017 at 7:00 pm
The Auditorium at CLARA
1425 24th St., Sacramento
The Russian Revolution will be center stage for this evening of literature, conversation, and music. Made doubly relevant by today’s headlines, and the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, this interview and exploration of Janet Fitch’s new novel, The Revolution of Marina M. will be interspersed with dynamic readings from the book by a professional actor.
Set in the turbulent period before and after the overthrow of the Tsar, this historical novel presents a sweeping account of a young poet carried by the tide of revolution into a life greater than anything she ever imagined.
- Reception with Russian sweets and vodka (wine and beer). Souvenir shot glass included with ticket price.
- Copies of The Revolution of Maria M. will be available for sale
- Janet Fitch will sign copies during the reception.
- Beaucoup Chapeaux will perform Eastern European and Baltic traditional folk songs. (See video below.)
Proceeds will support the Community of Writers.
MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
New Alumni Summer Books Update
Books written by Alumni Authors published in July-September, 2017
Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums who have published books this Summer quarter, 2017.
We are delighted to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below.
NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMNI
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOPS ALUMNI
Do you have a forthcoming publication? Send us your news, and and we will post it in our Omnium Gatherum: Alumni News. And if your news is a book publication, we’ll include it in our next quarterly 2017 New Alumni Book Update here!
Thank You For A Remarkable Summer!
Thank You To All Who Helped Make the 2017 Summer of Workshops Happen
So many friends and colleagues helped make it happen.
In May we said goodbye to the wonderful Amy Rutten, our director of Alumni Relations. She was offered a terrific full-time job in the local library. We will miss her. Eva Melas has since joined us in that same position and we are delighted to have her. She came to us after seven years as a Poetry Elf, with a BA from UC Davis in English and an internship with Soho Press under her belt.
As they have done for 47 years, the Summer Workshops came together with the energetic participation of many friends and colleagues. We are grateful to and astounded by our brilliant, warm and generous teaching staff members in Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction who make the summer workshops an unforgettable and productive experience. And in particular I want to thank our program directors: Lisa Alvarez, Michael Carlisle, Robert Hass, Diana Fuller, Louis B. Jones, and guest Poetry director, Brenda Hillman.
Heaps of gratitude again to Andrew Tonkovich who was essentially essential: from the management of all the manuscripts during registration, to moderating panels, to his very fine Closing Talk, he was central to it all. Many thanks to Kaitlin Klaussen, who ran our popup bookstore, and to Marlo Eckert who helped Kaitlin coordinate the housing. Thanks also to Tracy Hall for documenting the goings-on with her camera (she took the photos included here). And thanks to Tracy and Jim Chumbley for creating a bit of home in our humble snack bar. Our Elves (and all-around helpers) were Jesse Bedayn, Lindsey Gordon, Julia Hass, Dashiell Jones, Hunter Jones, Eva Melas, Jack Norman, Livia Keene, Audrey Rawson, and Louis Tonkovich. Dashiell and Hunter helped us record events and later on will put them on our website. With high energy and good spirits, they all made things happen seamlessly. We are also grateful to Rob and Meg Gordon who helped out in a dozen different ways including baking muffins each morning. Eva Melas organized the Poetry Picnic this year at Meeks Bay along with the help of Heather Altfeld and Troy Jollimore. Indispensable also at the Poetry Picnic were Aaron Dylan Graham and Henry Rappaport who barbecued with confidence unlike most writers. And thanks to Sands Hall for the inimitable Follies and for hosting Poetry’s final dinner. Thanks to co-founder, Barbara Hall, for opening her home to the writers and poets. Liz Thiem and Storey Rafter graced our Poetry party with delicious food and good humor. Huge thank to Ben & Elissa Prescott who helped out where needed while juggling the attentions and needs of twins: the bookstore, moving out, and the sound during the Follies.
The Paul Radin Memorial Writers Lodge (The Tiny House Project): On Thursday, during the Poetry week, the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley memorialized one of its longtime friends, the late Paul Radin, whose family then honored his memory with a significant and defining gift to the work of our non-profit. The remembrance ceremony in honor of Paul Radin preceded the Community’s annual poetry reading, with remarks by editor and writer Andrew Tonkovich, and novelist Louis B. Jones, who knew Radin and helped care for him as he struggled with illness, as well as founding Board Member Burnett Miller. Robert Radin represented the family. Radin’s family, including brothers Robert Radin and David Radin, donated seed money to the Community dedicated to the purchase of a portable “tiny house” on wheels to be used as a portable office and bookstore onsite during the conference weeks in Squaw Valley. With gratitude to the Radins for this major gift, the Community of Writers will still need to raise an additional $25,000 or more to bring make it a reality.
We would like to acknowledge our friends who have been tremendously generous with their time and local support over the years: Eddy & Osvaldo Ancinas, Mimi & Burnett Miller and Amy Tan & Lou Demattei.
Thanks also to Christopher Monger who joined us in the valley to teach his special class on the Art of Adaptation. And to Diana who helped put that together. Thanks to Christopher Upham and Christopher Beaver as well, for technical help.
The Benefit Poetry Reading took place in Nevada City in June and many thanks are in order, especially to Molly Fisk who emceed the event, as well as the six participating poets: Francisco Aragón, Forrest Gander, Brenda Hillman, RobertHass, Sharon Olds, Gregory Pardlo. Special thanks to the Event Coordinator Elizabeth Kelley Gillogly who, with the able help of Rachel Howard, YubaLit and Sands Hall, made this one of the best-attended Benefit events we’ve done. Thanks so much to our sponsors: Deborah Dashow Ruth, The Entrekin Foundation, YubaLit, and Nevada County Arts Council. Thanks to Copper Canyon Press, Counterpoint Press, University of Arizona Press, and Wesleyan University Press for donating books, and to Lisa Rappoport at Littoral Press for the broadsides.Thanks to our enthusiastic volunteers: Heather Altfeld, Chuck and Jo Baker who took wonderful photos, Fiona and Shawn Gillogly, Troy Jollimore, Eva Melas, Michael & Emily Malsam, Lydia & Jim Seely, David Tallitsch, and Tom Taylor.
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 Jim Naify. I am grateful to our Events Committee (Carlin Naify, Nancy Teichert & Ruth Blank) who made great things happen during the programs. Special thanks this year to my comrades Michael Carlisle, Chris Sindt, and Michelle Latiolais who are always there with sage advice, support and friendship.
Our Friends: Thank you to all our individual and institutional donors. What a community this is! Your support is essential to this thing we do.
It always strikes me as a minor miracle when the workshops all come together. But of course it is the enmeshing of hundreds of kindred spirits, learning about and from each other and their work, that makes it so. Without all of you it just wouldn’t be possible.
With love and gratitude,
—Brett Hall Jones
Executive Director
Community of Writers’ Screenwriting Program Director Diana Fuller Launches New Documentary Project
Diana Fuller is producing the film, Where Once Was Water, directed by Christopher Beaver.
Where Once Was Water is a lively solutions-oriented documentary that tells the story of how the driest city in America, in the middle of the Mojave desert, leads the way in sustainable water conservation.
Las Vegas, Nevada, better known for its bright lights and extravagance is certainly the most unlikely city to lead the nation in this effort. The development of the innovative techniques that enabled this constantly expanding city to emerge today, as a leader in water conservation, is primarily due to the efforts of Patricia Mulroy, known to some as the Water Tsar of Las Vegas.
Join in this exploration of a vital frontier of water sustainability, by supporting this film. The efforts of Las Vegas, in its search for sustainability, have produced important solutions, technological, political, and financial that have on-going global importance. www.wherethereoncewaswater.com
Here is a link to the trailer.
Great Notice in the Sacramento Bee
An article written for the Sacramento Bee by alum and friend Stephanie Taylor. Link to the full article below.
Over the decades, these writers have become a community at Squaw Valley
BY STEPHANIE TAYLOR AUGUST 09, 2017
Sacramento Bee, August 9, 2017
There’s something infectious about 150 or so creative people, all chattering at once. This is a weeklong annual conference of writers, established and aspiring, who come from all over to this valley near the north shore of Lake Tahoe, some every summer, year after year. If ideas and genius are tangible molecules floating in the air, I can only hope they’ll land on me.
The operative word is “community,” chosen on purpose by the founders in 1969, when the novelists Oakley Hall and Blair Fuller gathered to build an institution that’s thrived ever since. Some of the writers have passed — sort of. I say “sort of” because their spirits linger. Some are declining gently into old age. Their children carry on, and their children’s children. It’s an honor to be here, to be included in what has evolved as a family.
It’s also difficult not to be intimidated by those who have been here before, studying and discussing the craft of poetry, fiction, nonfiction and screenwriting: Peter Matthiessen, Richard Ford, Michael Chabon, Robert Hass and Anne Rice, to name a few. In 1985, Amy Tan arrived with stories that became The Joy Luck Club. This year, Janet Fitch’s novel Paint It Black is her second movie. Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird is every writer’s classic. Read the full article at the Sacramento Bee.
July Events During The Writers Workshops
You are Invited to Our 2017 Public Events
Are you a Tahoe Area local or visitor? Are you an alum who wants to come and visit? Every year, the Community of Writers puts on a number of readings and events as part of our Summer Writing Workshops that are open to the public, and most are free of charge.
Get Updates!
July Events During The Writers Workshops
Print July Events Schedule
Panels & Craft Talks
Don’t miss the chance to hear our staff share insights into the craft and business of writing. Topics are new each year, with the exception of our popular publishing panels, which feature agents, editors, and publishers providing insights and answering questions on this shifting landscape. Most panels and craft talks take place during the afternoon. Admission is free to the public and no reservations are required.
Most Craft Talks and Panels will take place in Bar One in the Olympic House between 1 and 4 pm.
Craft talks this year will be given by: Mark Childress and Josh Weil.
Late Afternoon Short Takes Readings
On many afternoons during the Writers Workshops, we invite staff members to read brief works of fiction and nonfiction, published and unpublished. Admission is free to the public and no reservations are required.
Most afternoon readings will take place in Plaza Bar in the Olympic House between at 5:30 pm.
Special Events
Reservations and/or ticket purchase recommended: Suggested donation $20/$8 student.
The Community of Writers also invites you to attend our remarkable evening events. This year we offer Special Events on two separate evenings, Monday 10 and Thursday July 13 with readings by authors with new publications. $20 adult/$8 Student. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Books will be available for purchase.
Most evening events will take place in Plaza Bar in the Olympic House between at 7:30 pm. However, if that venue is too warm, we may move it outside, under the stars, so please dress in layer.
On Monday, July 10 we present:
Natalie Baszile
Natalie Baszile
John Daniel
John Daniel
Lynn Freed
Lynn Freed
Martin J. Smith
Martin J. Smith
Natalie Baszile, John Daniel, Lynn Freed, and Martin J. Smith.
Tickets
Please note: This event may be outside, so please dress in layers.
♦ ♦ ♦
On Tuesday, July 11 we present:
An evening panel discussion about the risks and rewards of writing a book-length memoir.
Belle Boggs
Belle Boggs
Rachel Howard
Rachel Howard
Tom Lutz
Tom Lutz
Frances Stroh
Frances Stroh
With Belle Boggs, Rachel Howard, Tom Lutz, Frances Stroh
Moderated by Sands Hall
Admission is free to the public and no reservations are required.
Please note: This event may be outside, so please dress in layers.
Special Afternoon Event: Meet our Published Alumni!
On Wednesday, July 12 at 1:00 pm we present:
The Published Alumni Reading Series. The Community of Writers is delighted to celebrate the success of these writers and to present them to the participants, staff, and the public.
Please join us to hear brief readings from Mauro Javier Cardenas, Jade Chang, Carole Firstman, Vanessa Hua, Kimball Taylor.
Introduced by
♦ ♦ ♦
On Thursday, July 13 we present:
Paul Harding
Paul Harding
Dylan Landis
Dylan Landis
Krys Lee
Krys Lee
Josh Weil
Josh Weil
Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Harding, Dylan Landis, Krys Lee, and Josh Weil
Tickets
Please note: This event may be outside, so please dress in layers.
♦ ♦ ♦
PRINT SCHEDULE OF JULY EVENTS
Paul Radin remembered with a major gift to the Community of Writers
On Thursday, June 19, 2017, the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley memorialized one of its longtime friends, the late Paul Radin, whose family then honored his memory with a significant and defining gift to the work of our non-profit.
Mr. Radin’s family, including brothers Robert Radin of Florida, and David Radin of New York, donated funds to the Community dedicated to the purchase of a portable “tiny house” on wheels to be used as a portable office and bookstore onsite during the conference weeks in Squaw Valley.
We are so pleased at the poetry expressed in this gift. A house on wheels is wonderfully emblematic of the ethos and spirit of our enduring of this transient, yet half-century enduring community. This gift is just perfect, and responds to a long-standing need for an office, archives, bookstore space. In addition, the tiny house will have a charming, whimsical aspect to remind us of Paul, who brought curiosity, poetry and goodwill to our summers.
Although the Tiny House has yet to be built, it will be dedicated The Paul Radin Memorial Writers’ Lodge.
The remembrance ceremony in honor of Paul Radin preceded the Community’s annual poetry reading, with remarks by director Jones, editor and writer Andrew Tonkovich, and novelist Louis B. Jones, who knew Radin and helped care for him as he struggled with illness, as well as former Board President Burnett Miller. Robin Radin represented the family.
Paul Radin was born in Boston, was a singularly recognizable character in the neighborhood whose commitment to the study of philosophy, Judaica, Native American culture and ecological wisdom defined the way he lived, as close to Nature as possible, on property owned by his family on the Truckee River. He was an early guest at the Community of Writers’ summer poetry and fiction workshops. He would attend the annual gathering and would attend the readings and events, befriending writers and occasionally sharing his own writing. His scholarly interests included research on Native American culture, in which he immersed himself, often attending pow-wows.
Legendary was Radin’s arrival one summer on horseback, wearing his trademark flat-brimmed hat and western boots. We all remember his dramatic entrance with white horse and enjoyed his recollections of the seminal years of the Conference
Paul was a part of this community. We are so grateful to his family for permanently including his place in it through this timeless gift. Paul had a home with us. Now he has given us a small home.
2017 New Alumni Books Update-Quarter 2
Books written by Alumni Authors published in April-June, 2017
Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums who have published books this Spring quarter, 2017.
We are delighted to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below.
NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMNI
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOPS ALUMNI
Do you have a forthcoming publication? Send us your news, and and we will post it in our Omnium Gatherum: Alumni News. And if your news is a book publication, we’ll include it in our next quarterly 2017 New Alumni Book Update here!
Six Extraordinary Poets Together On One Night in Nevada City!
Nationally Known Poets Read in Nevada City to benefit the Community of Writers
This year we are pleased to welcome three Pulitzer-Prize winners to the stage in addition to an International Griffin Prize-Winner, and so much more!
FRIDAY JUNE 23, 2017, 7:00pm
Buy Tickets Online Now
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Francisco Aragón
Francisco Aragón
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Forrest Gander
Forrest Gander
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Robert Hass
Robert Hass
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Brenda Hillman
Brenda Hillman
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Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds
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Gregory Pardlo
Gregory Pardlo
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Francisco AragónFrancisco Aragón
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Forrest GanderForrest Gander
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Robert HassRobert Hass
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Brenda HillmanBrenda Hillman
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Sharon OldsSharon Olds
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Gregory PardloGregory Pardlo
Francisco Aragón • Forrest Gander • Robert Hass
• Brenda Hillman • Sharon Olds • Gregory Pardlo
PLUS: Community of Writers alum and the new Poet Laureate of Nevada County, Molly Fisk, will serve as our evening’s Emcee.
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Molly Fisk
Molly Fisk
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Molly FiskMolly Fisk
View Poet Bios
NOTE: We have a limited number of premium seats available in the first two rows–get yours today!
This gathering of the tribe—all staff poets from this year’s Community of Writers’ Summer Poetry Workshop in Squaw Valley—will raise money for the Poetry Program’s financial aid and scholarships. Join us for a reading, signing, and reception with the poet teachers. Books by the poets will be available for purchase before and after the reading.
Tickets are $25 advance/$30 at the door for general admission and $12 advance/$15 at the door for students (with current student ID).
Premium seating, first 2 rows, $45.
Group price, 10 or more tickets purchased at the same time: $20/ticket.
If you would like to purchase tickets over the phone, call 530-470-8440.
Thank you to our sponsors:
Deborah Dashow Ruth • The Entrekin Foundation • Nevada County Arts • YubaLit
Buy Tickets Online Now!
The Continuum: Gifts To Our Scholarship Fund Sustain Poetry & Prose
One of our principle goals, always, is to keep the Summer Workshops affordable for our participants.
In the early days, our workshops shared the Valley with few other visitors, (cheerleaders! wrestlers! endurance runners!) but as the ski resort has prospered, the Valley has become an attractive year-round destination and the local costs of participant and teaching staff accommodations and food for the workshop week have risen dramatically.
With rising costs, financial aid has become essential for many of our participants. Offering scholarships and waivers ensures that talented writers from all backgrounds and means are able to attend, and that new and diverse writers continue to benefit from this opportunity.
The Continuum: Many of you reading this now were once recipients of some kind of financial aid. Some of you may still be strapped financially; nevertheless we hope you can send something. You may no longer be a student, or may have a better job, or you may have even seen your book published. Did your time at in the Valley help your writing life? If it did, I hope you will consider sending us a larger donation to help another talented writer have that experience.
The application manuscripts have arrived for the 2017 Summer Workshops. We are delighted and astonished with the work, and we are all looking forward to another productive summer with these writers and poets. In the next few weeks, we will be making admissions decisions. Those decisions include grants of financial aid for our most talented and needy writers.
Visit our Financial Aid & Scholarships page for more information on how you can donate to our scholarship fund, or to a specific scholarship. Donations to the Community of Writers are 100% tax-deductible.
Please give Today. All gifts received on or before May 1 will go directly to our 2017 Scholarship Fund. If you would like to help, but cannot donate before May 1, please email us and pledge the amount you would like to give.
If you are interested in creating an honorary scholarship, email brett@communityofwriters.org.
Or you can donate online today or send a check to:
Community of Writers – Scholarship Fund
PO Box 1416
Nevada City, CA 95959
2016 Summer Writing Workshops Podcasts Now Available
Listen to your favorite craft talks again!
The Community of Writers is pleased to offer the best of the 2016 Writers Workshops to the public as podcasts. We have seventeen of the most popular panels, craft talks, and lectures available for download on our website, including Tom Barbash‘s talk, “The Germs (of stories, that is): From Where Do Stories Emerge?” and Dava Sobel‘s craft talk on “The Construction of a Nonfiction Narrative.”
You can browse our selection of podcasts on our website, and download and listen to any talk on your computer or device.
You may also visit our Podcast Archives for previous years’ podcasts.
Spotlight On Tom Lutz
The Community of Writers welcomes Tom Lutz to teach this summer at our Writers Workshops July 9 – 15. He is the author of And the Monkey Learned Nothing: Dispatches from a Life in Transit; Drinking Mare’s Milk on the Roof of the World: Wandering the Globe from Azerbaijan to Zanzibar; the American Book Award-winning Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers and Bums; and other books, as well as many pieces in literary, general interest, and academic venues. He has taught at the University of Iowa, University of Copenhagen, Stanford, and CalArts, and is now at University of California, Riverside. He is the founding editor-in-chief and publisher of Los Angeles Review of Books. Read about Tom’s newest book, And the Monkey Learned Nothing, in SFGate.com.
Explore the Writers Workshops program, and learn more about the other authors, editors, and agents on our teaching staff. Deadline to Apply: March 28.
In the next few weeks, we will feature authors on our teaching staff.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet Gregory Pardlo comes to the Community of Writers This June!
The Community of Writers is delighted and honored to announce that Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gregory Pardlo will join our teaching staff June 24 – July 1.
Gregory Pardlo‘s collection Digest (Four Way Books) won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Digest was also shortlisted for the 2015 NAACP Image Award and was a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. His other honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts; his first collection Totem was selected by Brenda Hillman for the APR/Honickman Prize in 2007. He is also the author of Air Traffic, a memoir in essays forthcoming from Knopf. Pardlo joins the faculty of the M.F.A. program in creative writing at Rutgers University-Camden in the fall of 2016. He lives with his family in Brooklyn.
View video profile of Pardlo on PBS’s NewsHour with Jeffrey Brown.
Explore the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop, and learn more about the other poets on our teaching staff. Deadline to Apply: March 28.
In the next few weeks, we will feature authors who, in 2017, are new to our teaching staff.
Photo credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Spotlight on Krys Lee
The Community of Writers is delighted to announce that Krys Lee will join the teaching staff this summer all the way from South Korea. She is the author of Drifting House and How I Became a North Korean, both published by Penguin Random House. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize and the Story Prize Spotlight Award, the Honor Title in Adult Fiction Literature from the Asian/Pacific American Libraries Association, and a finalist for the BBC International Story Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Award, and the Andrew Carnegie Mellon Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Medal. Her fiction, journalism, and literary translations have appeared in Granta, The Kenyon Review, Narrative, San Francisco Chronicle, Corriere della Sera, and The Guardian, among others. She is an assistant professor of creative writing and literature at Yonsei University, Underwood International College, in South Korea. Read the 2016 interview with her in the Guardian.com.
Explore the Writers Workshops program, and learn more about the other authors, editors, and agents on our teaching staff. Deadline to Apply: March 28.
In the next few weeks, we will feature authors who, in 2017, are new to our teaching staff.
It’s Time To Apply for This Summer’s Workshops
The deadline approaches to apply to our workshops in Poetry, Fiction, Memoir, and Narrative Nonfiction. We’re very excited about the teaching staff we’ve assembled for this summer’s writing workshops! Take a look at the writers and poets who are joining us this summer. The deadline to Apply is March 28, 2017.
Apply Now!
The Poetry Workshop
June 24 – July 1, 2017
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Francisco Aragón
Francisco Aragón
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Forrest Gander
Forrest Gander
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Robert Hass
Robert Hass
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Brenda Hillman
Brenda Hillman
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Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds
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Gregory Pardlo
Gregory Pardlo
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Francisco AragónFrancisco Aragón
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Forrest GanderForrest Gander
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Robert HassRobert Hass
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Brenda HillmanBrenda Hillman
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Sharon OldsSharon Olds
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Gregory PardloGregory Pardlo
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. To help this happen we work together to create an atmosphere in which everyone might feel free to try anything. In the mornings we meet in workshops to read to each other the work of the previous twenty-four hours; each participant also has an opportunity to work with each staff poet. Financial Aid available. More Details.
The Writers Workshops
July 9 – July 15, 2017
Staff Writers
Lisa Alvarez
Lisa Alvarez
Natalie Baszile
Natalie Baszile
Belle Boggs
Belle Boggs
Mark Childress
Mark Childress
John Daniel
John Daniel
Alex Espinoza
Alex Espinoza
Janet Fitch
Janet Fitch
Lynn Freed
Lynn Freed
Sands Hall
Sands Hall
Paul Harding
Paul Harding
Rachel Howard
Rachel Howard
Michael Jaime-Becerra
Michael Jaime-Becerra
Louis B. Jones
Louis B. Jones
Dylan Landis
Dylan Landis
Krys Lee
Krys Lee
Tom Lutz
Tom Lutz
Christopher Monger
Christopher Monger
Martin J. Smith
Martin J. Smith
Gregory Spatz
Gregory Spatz
Andrew Tonkovich
Andrew Tonkovich
Josh Weil
Josh Weil
Al Young (1939-2021)
Al Young (1939-2021)
Special Guests
Michelle Latiolais
Michelle Latiolais
Michael Lavigne
Michael Lavigne
Frances Stroh
Frances Stroh
Amy Tan
Amy Tan
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. Financial Aid available. More Details.
2017 New Alumni Books Update: First Quarter
Books written by Alumni Authors published in January – March, 2017
Congratulations to these Community of Writers Alums who have published books in the first three months of 2017.
We are delighted to share their success with you. You can explore these books by clicking the book cover images below.
NEW BOOKS FROM POETRY WORKSHOP ALUMNI
NEW BOOKS FROM WRITERS WORKSHOPS ALUMNI
Do you have a forthcoming publication? Send us your news, and and we will post it in our Omnium Gatherum: Alumni News. And if your news is a book publication, we’ll include it in our next quarterly 2017 New Alumni Book Update here!
Spotlight on Dylan Landis
The Community of Writers is honored to announce that Dylan Landis will join us on the teaching staff this summer. She is the author of Rainey Royal, a novel set in Greenwich Village in the 1970s, and Normal People Don’t Live Like This, a collection of linked stories. Her fiction and essays have appeared in the 2014 O. Henry Prize Stories, The New York Times Book Review, Harper’s Magazine, Tin House, and Bomb, and she received a 2010 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in fiction. She lives in New York City. Learn more about her in this 2014 interview in The Sunday Rumpus Interview.
Explore the Writers Workshops program, and learn more about the other authors, editors, and agents on our teaching staff. Deadline to Apply: March 28.
In the next few weeks, we will feature authors who, in 2017, are new to our teaching staff.
Photo credit:Lauren Shay Lavin
The Community of Writers is pleased to announce our Veteran Scholarships
Our Veteran Scholarships will cover both tuition and shared housing for a writer and a poet who has served in the armed forces, and who would not be able to attend without financial assistance.
- Veterans who are prose writers should explore the Writers Workshops page.
- Veterans who are poets should explore the Poetry Workshop page.
Those who are interested should learn more about the program and apply before the deadline. Applicants should also indicate interest in this scholarship in the financial aid section of the application form, and should describe their military service in the “Special Scholarship Notes” field there.
Deadline to Apply: March 28.
Spotlight on Rachel Howard
This summer we are delighted to welcome Rachel Howard to the Writers Workshops teaching staff, July 9 – 15, 2017. She is the author of The Lost Night, a memoir about her father’s unsolved murder. Her essays and short stories have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Gulf Coast, the Arroyo Literary Review, the Hudson Review, and OZY, among other publications. Her essay for Oprah Magazine, “The Love Fast,” was recently included in the collection O’s Little Guide to Starting Over. She teaches memoir and personal essay writing at Stanford Continuing Studies and the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, and was an associate editor at Shebooks. She has also served as Interim Director of Undergraduate Creative Writing at Warren Wilson College, and as Distinguished Visiting Writer for the Saint Mary’s College MFA program. She joins us from the other side of Donner Summit where she produces a popular reading series called YubaLit. Listen to Ira Glass interview Rachel for the prologue of the radio program This American Life.
Explore the Writers Workshops program, and learn more about the other authors, editors, and agents on our teaching staff. Deadline to Apply: March 28.
In the next few weeks, we will feature authors who, in 2017, are new to our teaching staff.
Photo credit: Pat Mazzera
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Harding comes to the Community of Writers July 9 – 15
The Community of Writers is delighted and honored to announce that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Harding will join our teaching staff July 9 -15. He is the author of two novels about multiple generations of a New England family: the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tinkers, and Enon. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, he was a drummer for the band Cold Water Flat before earning his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Harvard University, and Grinnell College. Check out this video of Paul in conversation at the Neiman Foundation at Harvard University.
Explore the Writers Workshops program, and learn more about the other authors, editors, and agents on our teaching staff. Deadline to Apply: March 28.
In the next few weeks, we will feature authors who, in 2017, are new to our teaching staff.
“Meet the Authors” Event Showcased Alumni Authors
Wednesday evening, Sacramento was offered a literary treat as Alumni authors of the Community of Writers were featured with readings, a reception, and book-signings.
Emcee Julia Flynn Siler shaped the evening with warmth and skill as she highlighted each author’s literary accomplishments. Featured authors were Jade Chang, who flew from Los Angeles, Michael Lavigne, who drove up from Glen Ellen, and Frances Stroh, who traveled from the Bay Area. They were joined by regional authors, Nevada City’s Jordan Fisher Smith, and Davis local Naomi Williams. The evening offered a mix of Fiction, Memoir, and Narrative Nonfiction, with subject matters ranging from an 18th century naturalist’s obsessions with parasites while encountering his first woman in two years (Williams’s novel Landfalls); a husband’s wandering mind drifting to particle physics in the shower (Lavigne/Harding’s The Heart of Henry Quantum); a civil trial involving a deadly grizzly attack in Yellowstone Park (Fisher Smith’s Engineering Eden); growing up in a wealthy beer-brewing family to discover your brother is a drug dealer (Stroh’s Beer Money); and a young Chinese-American’s onstage comedy act which becomes an exercise in understanding himself and all that he has lost.
We send our thanks to the participating authors!
Many thanks to our event sponsors: Ruth Blank & Chris Spanos, Carlin & Jim Naify, Fred & Nancy Teichert, Beers Books, Nevada County Arts Council, The Sacramento Library Foundation, Stories on Stage-Sacramento, Verge Center for the Arts. Thanks also to the Sacramento Poetry Center.
Spotlight on Francisco Aragón
We are delighted to announce that Francisco Aragón will be teaching at the Poetry Workshop this summer!
Francisco is the author of Puerta del Sol (Bilingual Press) and Glow of Our Sweat (Scapegoat Press) as well as editor of, The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (University of Arizona Press), these latter two titles winners of International Latino Book Awards, respectively. His poems and translations from the Spanish have appeared in various print and web publications, as well as numerous anthologies. In 2003 he joined the faculty of the Institute for Latino Studies (ILS) at the University of Notre Dame, where he established Letras Latinas—the ILS’ literary initiative. In 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Latino/a Cultural Arts, Literary Arts and Publications Award by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education. In 2015 he received a VIDO Award by VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts. A native of San Francisco and resident of Arlington, Virginia, he divides his year between the Notre Dame campus in Indiana and the ILS office in Washington, D.C. www.franciscoaragon.net
Explore the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop, and learn more about the other poets on our teaching staff. Deadline to Apply: March 28.
Photo credit: Mike Cook
Spotlight on Belle Boggs
We are excited to announce that Belle Boggs will join us this summer.
Belle Boggs will travel all the way from Raleigh, North Carolina, to be a member of our Writers Workshops teaching staff, July 9 – 15, 2017. Mattaponi Queen, her collection of linked stories, is set along Virginia’s Mattaponi River, and won the Bakeless Prize, the Library of Virginia Literary Award, and was a finalist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. We have just learned that her new book, The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood, in addition to being named a Publishers Weekly and O the Oprah Magazine best book of the year, has been nominated for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Learn more about her in this November interview with her in The Rumpus.
Explore the Writers Workshops program, and learn more about the other authors, editors, and agents on our teaching staff. Deadline to Apply: March 28.
In the next few weeks, we will feature authors who, in 2017, are new to our teaching staff.
Writer/Director Christopher Monger to Lead Special Adaption Class
Adaptation: A special afternoon class, taught by Christopher Monger
We are delighted and honored to announce that Writer/Director Christopher Monger will teach a special class on film and television adaptation during the Writers Workshops this July.
Christopher Monger is a writer/director in film and television who has directed eight feature films and written over thirty screenplays. He was born in Wales but has lived in Los Angeles since the mid 80’s. He is best known for his film The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down a Mountain and his screenplay for the Emmy Award-winning HBO film, Temple Grandin, which was also nominated for an Academy Award. For writing and directing, his many awards include, the Christopher Award for the film Seeing Red and the Hollywood Film Festival Award for the Girl From Rio. Currently, he is writing a miniseries for HBO and a feature film for Amazon Films.
This Adaption Class will be made up of five 90-minute afternoon sessions, and will be a practical approach to adapting a novel into a screenplay or miniseries. There will be an overview of the fundamentals of screenwriting as well as an analysis of the specific skills for a successful adaptation. We will explore the crucial differences between the mediums, their respective strengths and weaknesses, and examine a handful of adaptations, comparing and contrasting the films with the original material. Addition enrollment fee: $250.
This class is only open to those enrolled in the Writers Workshops July 9 – 15, 2017.
Spotlight on Natalie Baszile
We are delighted that Natalie Baszile will be joining our teaching staff this July.
Natalie Baszile is the author of the novel Queen Sugar, named one of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of 2014, long-listed for the Crooks Corner Southern Book Prize, and nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Queen Sugar has been adapted for TV by writer/director, Ava DuVernay of “Selma” fame, and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey for OWN, Winfrey’s cable network. Read this September Huffington Post Interview with Natalie.
Explore the Writers Workshops program, and learn more about the other authors, editors, and agents on our teaching staff. Deadline to Apply: March 28.
In the next few weeks, we will feature authors who, in 2017, are new to our teaching staff.
The Annual Campaign a Success!
Thank You!
Now that 2016 has come to a close, we want to express our gratitude to all of those who have participated in this community or supported us financially. We hope that this Community will sustain and invigorate your writing life in 2017, as your participation sustains us.
We are so grateful for the financial support we have received in the past few months from so many of you. Thank you for making our Annual Fund Campaign such a success. You can find a list of supporters here.
All of us at the Community of Writers wish you a happy and productive 2017!
Meet the Authors: A Benefit Reading in Sacramento
Join us in Sacramento on Wednesday, February 15, for an extraordinary evening of readings by Community of Writers’ alumni, emceed by journalist and author Julia Flynn Siler. The authors will be reading from their most recents works, followed by a reception and book signing.
Jade Chang • Michael Lavigne • Jordan Fisher Smith
Frances Stroh • Naomi Williams
More information about the authors below.
7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017
Sierra 2 Center for the Arts & Community
2791 24th St., Sacramento
Doors open at 6:30
$20 Advance/$25 at the Door
PURCHASE TICKETS
Jade Chang is the author of The Wangs vs. The World, an outrageously funny tale about a wealthy Chinese-American family that “loses it all, then takes a healing, uproarious road trip across the United States” (Entertainment Weekly). Their spectacular fall from riches to rags brings the Wangs together in a way money never could. Sharply observed and full of charm, this debut novel is an entirely fresh look at what it means to belong in America.
- A New York Times Editor’s Choice
- An NPR 2016 Great Reads
- One of Amazon’s Best Books of 2016
- A Fall 2016 Barnes & Noble Discover Pick
- An October Indie Next Pick
- A The Millions Most Anticipated Book
- A BuzzFeed Best Books Of 2016
- An Elle.com Best Books of 2016
- Recommended on The Today Show for Great Last-Minute Gift Ideas
- Long-listed for the PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction
Michael Lavigne (writing as Pepper Harding) is the author of The Heart of Henry Quantum.
Henry Quantum has several thoughts going through his head at any given time, so it’s no surprise when he forgets something very important—specifically, a Christmas gift for his wife, which he realizes on the morning of December 23. Henry sets off that day in search of the perfect present for her: a bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume.
“[Harding/Lavigne] has skillfully created a set of interesting, well-developed characters whose lives readers can relate to and care about… with quick, witty dialogue and an expertly crafted stream-of-consciousness style, […] a highly entertaining read that will remind readers of the power of one day to change a life.” —Booklist, Starred Review
“Michael Lavigne wites like an angel. And like a devil. Indeed he writes so well that it isn’t always possible to tell which is which. His ability to give wild imaginings a concrete immediacy, a human warmth and plausibility, is the rarest of writerly gifts.” — Jonathan Rosen
- Winner of the coveted Sami Rohr Choice Award.
Winner of the American Library Association Sophie Brodie Honor Book
Jordan Fisher Smith is the author of the recent nonfiction book Engineering Eden: The True Story of a Violent Death, a Trial, and the Fight Over Controlling Nature.
In the summer of 1972 Harry Eugene Walker hitchhiked away from his Alabama home to see America. Nineteen days later he was killed and partially eaten by an endangered grizzly bear at Yellowstone National Park. When nature has been disrupted by human beings, how do we go about repairing it? How much should we try to control or manipulate it in order to heal it? And what happens when we get it wrong?
“An intensely reported, rousingly readable and ambitiously envisioned book.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Smith’s book will draw you in with his passion, thoughtfulness and first-rate story telling.” —Seattle Times
“Smith pulls it off thanks to his command of the material, his firm grip on the narrative, and his insatiable inquisitiveness. When it comes to natural history, he knows his stuff” –Sierra Magazine
“Stunning”—Entertainment Weekly
- Engineering Eden was long-listed for this year’s PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
In Frances Stroh‘s memoir, Beer Money: A Memior of Privilege and Loss, she reveals the complexities of her childhood and coming of age as a member of Detroit’s Stroh’s Beer family, once in possession of the largest private beer fortune in America. The book is at once a recollection of a city, an industry, and a dynasty in decline, and the story of a young artist who struggles to find her way out of the ruins.
“With an artist’s eye for visual detail… her frank and engrossing memoir captures the long decline of the city of Detroit and her sadly dysfunctional family.” —BBC.com
“Stroh writes candidly and insightfully about…the unsettling truth that unconditional love, much like money, sometimes comes in limited supply. The author’s family might have successfully burned through a massive fortune, but they squandered a lot more than that. A sorrowful, eye-opening examination of familial dysfunction.”
—Kirkus Reviews
- Received the Michigan Notable Book Award
- Selected as a Books-A-Million President’s Pick
Naomi Williams is the author of Landfalls, a fictionalized reimagining of the ill-fated Lapérouse expedition (1785-1788), a voyage of exploration that attempted to circumnavigate the globe for science and the glory of France.
“A dazzling debut novel about a lost expedition… A bona fide masterpiece.” —Seattle Times
“Ms. Williams brilliantly moves across continents and gives each landfall a distinct and evocative voice… Landfalls is intelligent and utterly human. Ms. Williams has written a seductive page-turner that … draws the reader in and doesn’t let go. —Wall Street Journal
“A beautiful tale of adventure, anchored in tragedy.” —Vanity Fair
“The drama in Landfalls is unrelenting … sort of a maritime version of ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.’” —New York Times
- Long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.
- Long-listed the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award.
Emcee Julia Flynn Siler is an author and journalist. She wrote The House of Mondavi and Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure and is a former staff writer and foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek. A graduate of Brown and of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. She is an alumni of the Community of Writers, and a member of the Board of Directors.
More Information and to Purchase Tickets
Announcing our 2017 Summer Writing Workshops!
The Community of Writers is pleased to announce the 2017 Summer Writing Workshops in Poetry and Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir. We are now accepting applications.
THE POETRY WORKSHOP
June 24 – July 1, 2017
Francisco Aragón • Forrest Gander • Robert Hass
Brenda Hillman • Sharon Olds • Gregory Pardlo
Francisco Aragón
Francisco Aragón
Forrest Gander
Forrest Gander
Robert Hass
Robert Hass
Brenda Hillman
Brenda Hillman
Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds
Gregory Pardlo
Gregory Pardlo
The Poetry Workshop 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. The idea is to try to expand the boundaries of what one can write. In the mornings we meet to read to each other the work of the previous twenty-four hours, and in the late afternoons we gather for a conversation about some aspect of craft.On several afternoons staff poets hold brief individual conferences. Guest Director: Brenda Hillman.
Financial Aid Available.
Application Deadline: March 28, 2017.
More program details, bios, logistics, and application form: Visit the Poetry Workshop Page
THE WRITERS WORKSHOPS
in Fiction, Nonfiction & Memoir
July 9 – July 15, 2017
TEACHING STAFF
Natalie Baszile • Belle Boggs • Michael Carlisle • Mark Childress • John Daniel • Alex Espinoza • Janet Fitch • Lynn Freed • Sands Hall • Paul Harding • Rachel Howard • Michael Jaime-Becerra • Louis B. Jones • Dylan Landis • Krys Lee • Tom Lutz • Christopher Monger • Martin J. Smith • Gregory Spatz • Andrew Tonkovich • Josh Weil • Al Young
PLUS
Literary Agents – Book & Literary Magazine Editors and more
SPECIAL GUESTS
Dagoberto Gilb • Michelle Latiolais
Michael Lavigne • Frances Stroh • Amy Tan
INTRODUCING PUBLISHED ALUMS
Mauro Javier Cardenas • Jade Chang • Carole Firstman • Vanessa Hua • Kimball Taylor
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. There are separate morning workshops for Fiction and Narrative Nonfiction/Memoir. In addition to their workshop manuscripts, participants may have a second manuscript read by a staff member who meets with them in individual conferences.
Financial Aid available.
Application Deadline: March 28, 2017
More program details, bios, logistics, and application form: Visit the Writers Workshops Page
More information about the Community of Writers and our programs can be found at www.communityofwriters.org
Reminders of Summer and A Time to Give
November, 2017
Dear Friends,
In this new uncertain world of ours, it becomes clear what is important in our lives. We look upon the world with new eyes, and understand how much is at stake. And so it is I write to you.
Because of you, we gather in this place each summer to put close attention to the written word. Because of you, writers and poets can have this life-changing experience. Because of you, previously isolated poets and writers find friendship and support in their writing lives, and their words may have a lasting influence in this world.
One very simple and powerful way for alumni and friends to support the Community of Writers is to give annually to the Annual Fund. This essential fund underwrites all aspects of our operating budget including financial aid. We are very happy about all that we accomplished in 2016. Planning for 2017 is in the works, and it promises to be another wonderful summer of writing, respect, camaraderie and craft. Please visit our photo gallery and revisit your time in the Valley.
We want to thank all of you who have given in the past, and hope we can count on you again in 2016. Because of you, we are able to provide a rich environment where poets and writers can find their community, and their voice.
We can’t do what we do without you. Please give today.
With gratitude,
Brett Hall Jones, Executive Director
Donate online or send a check to:
Community of Writers
PO Box 1416
Nevada City, CA 95959
Published Alumni Return to the Valley with their Newly Published Books
In 2016, we continued our tradition of inviting recently published alums 
back to the Community of Writers to read from their new books. On Thursday, July 28 we presented The Published Alumni Reading Series preceded by a reception in the honor of these writers. This year’s alums were Stephanie Kegan, Nayomi Munaweera, Marian Palaia, Juan Alvarado Valdivia, Heather Young, all introduced by Matt Sumell. The Community of Writers was delighted to celebrate the success of these writers and to present them to the participants, staff, and the public.
We are grateful to Noel Corngold and Emily Adelsohn Corngold for their support of this program.
Thanks Abound For A Wonderful Summer!
Now that the summer is over, we need to acknowledge all of those writers and poets who helped make the summer workshops what they are. As they have for the past 46 years, the Summer Workshops came together with the help and guidance of many friends. Summer 2016 was no exception.
The 2016 Benefit Poetry Reading:
The Benefit took place in Berkeley in June, and was in the honor of our late good friend CD Wright 
who died in January. Many thanks are in order, especially to the participating poets: Kazim Ali, Brenda Hillman, Robert Hass, Patricia Spears Jones, Sharon Olds, and Emcee Kevin Simmonds. Huge thanks also go to Allison deLauer, the Event Coordinator. We couldn’t have done it without our sponsors: The Entrekin Foundation, Berkeleyside.com, the Berkeley Art Center and especially Deborah Dashow Ruth. Thanks to BOA Editions, University of Arizona Press, W.W. Norton, Wesleyan University Press, and White Pine Press for donating books, and to Lisa Rappoport at Littoral Press. Thanks to Larry Rafferty for creating and donating the C.D. Wright broadsides. Enormous thanks to Sheila Davies, Christina Hutchins, Meryl Natchez, Julia Flynn Siler, Deborah Ruth, and Larry Ruth for their help with publicity. Thanks to our enthusiastic volunteers: Shannon Bright, Jeremy Cantor, Marsha Cantor, Megan Coss, Ilana Cripsi, Fran Culp, Kevin Fitchett, Emily Knight, Tereza Joy Kramer, Tanya Macedo, Joan A. Monheit, Julie Prentice, Caroline Smadja, Sarah Taft, Elizabeth Weaver, and Tinsley Zhu.
Funds from this Benefit go toward Scholarships and financial aid for talented poets to attend in 2017.
The Summer Workshops
As they have for the past 46 years, the Workshops came together with the help and guidance of many friends, and this year the P
oetry Workshop and Writers Workshops were just terrific. First and foremost, I want to acknowledge our teaching staff. Their generosity, wisdom, and warmth help create this atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect. I also want to thank our Directors Lisa Alvarez, Michael Carlisle, Diana Fuller, Robert Hass, and Louis B. Jones, who steer this boat.
Many thanks to Kaitlin Klaussen, who coordinated housing and ran a lovely popup bookstore; to Amy Rutten, who joined us in the office last year and has been an extraordinary member of the team making everything work better; to Tracy Hall for documenting the goings-on with her camera; and to Tracy, Jim Chumbley, Hunter Jones and Lindsey Gordon for creating our all important, though humble, snack bar.
Our Elves (and all-around helpers) were Naomi Barnett, Jesse Bedayn, Emma Fisher Smith, Lindsey Gordon, Dashiell Jones, Hunter Jones, Livia Keene, Audrey Rose Rawson, Eva Melas, Delia Pepper, Romain Telles and Louis Tonkovich. We couldn’t do it without them! Thanks to the yeoman’s efforts of Angus Weisenburger, who managed the sound system 
and recorded our events and will put them on our website as podcasts.
We had some heroes in our midst during the Poetry Workshop when an experienced hiker nevertheless got lost on the mountain after dark. As Husayn Carnegie, Eliot Schain and Larry Ruth set off in the gloaming, we were reassured that our missing poet would be found.
Immense thanks to Ben Preston who –with great cheer– helped us move out of and then back into the storage locker at the beginning and the end of our workshops season. He made it all so much easier!
Alum and Writers Workshop staff member Mary Volmer arrived early and, along with Andrew Tonkovich, helped with manuscripts at
registration. Speaking of Andrew, we are indebted to him for all his help: from the management of all the manuscripts during registration to moderating panels and editing work! And thanks to Sands Hall for the inimitable Follies and for hosting Poetry’s final dinner. Liz Thiem and Storey Rafter graced our Poetry party with delicious food and good humor. I am also very grateful to Michelle Latiolais for her wisdom and support. Thanks also to Rachel Howard for helping out with the July picnic. We would like to acknowledge our friends who have been tremendously generous with their time and support over the years: Eddy & Osvaldo Ancinas, Mimi & Burnett Miller and Amy Tan & Lou Demattei. And of course I’d like to express my gratitude to our Board of Directors.
We want to express our thanks for the two Special Workshops we offered this summer during the Writers Workshops: “The Art of Revision,” led by Mark Childress; and “Adaptation: From Story to Screen,” taught by Craig Bolotin.
Many thanks to the family of Alan Cheuse who traveled across the country to be here for our “A Writers Tribute to Alan Cheuse,” arranged by Lisa Alvarez. We were so honored and moved to have Alan’s wife, Kris O’Shea along with Alan’s daughters Emma and Sonya join us for the tribute. During the event, friends of Alan’s performed music and read short excerpts from Alan’s lifetime of writing. Thanks to 2017 participant Melissa Dodd for sending the cellphone recording (below) of “The Water is Wide,” performed by Sands Hall, Louis B. Jones, Jason Roberts, Amy Rutten, Caridwen Spatz, Greg Spatz, and Naomi Barnett.
And of course, I’d like to express my sincere appreciation to all of you who have given to the Community of Writers.
—Brett Hall Jones, Executive Director
Listen to “The Water is Wide” (click to play)
Sharon Olds Awarded the Wallace Stevens Award for Lifetime Achievement!
Our own Sharon Olds is the recipient of The Academy of American Poets highest honor, the Wallace Stevens Award. Sharon, whose collection, Stag’s Leap (Knopf) won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the TS Eliot prize, is a regular teaching staff Poet at the Community of Writers and is the author of many books of poetry.
The Wallace Stevens award has also been awarded to Galway Kinnell and Robert Hass.
About Sharon Olds, Mark Doty,Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets wrote: “With unfailing courage and a profound moral intelligence, with an unshakable faith in the necessity of inquiry into experience, Sharon Olds has crafted a life’s work of remarkable power. The driving rhythms and artful structures of her poems are in service of a rigorous examination of her own life, and the lives of those around her.
By writing with such candor and clarity, Olds has granted younger poets – especially women – permission to speak. Her poems, in their evocation of trauma or desire, in their grief and joy and comedy, have opened new possibilities for poetry in our time. She is an American master, and a national treasure.”
We all send our congratulations and love to her!
Join Us in Squaw Valley for These Literary Events
The Community of Writers 46th Annual Writers Workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and memoir, will take place in Squaw Valley the week of July 25- August 1st. You are invited to join us for public craft talks, panels, and readings by the teaching staff, agents and editors, and published alumni. You can find a printable schedule and make a reservation for the two evening Special Events (see below) here.
TUESDAY, JULY 26
1:00 Craft Talk: “The Germs (of stories, that is): From Where Do Stories Emerge?” by Tom Barbash
2:00 Panel: “Telling Truth through Fiction: Transmuting ‘Real’ Events into Imaginative Fiction” with Rhoda Huffey, Joanne Meschery, Victoria Patterson and Amy Tan – moderated by Jane Ciabattari
3:00 Panel: “The Historical Novel” with Sands Hall, Edie Meidav, Gregory Spatz, and Mary Volmer – moderated by Jason Roberts
4:00 “The Writing Community, Prizes and the Life of the Writer: Jane Ciabattari in conversation with Oscar Villalon”
5:30 Short Takes Staff Readings: Mark Childress, Natalie Serber, Andrew Tonkovich, and Mary Volmer
7:30 Panel: “The Big Nonfiction Book:Conquering Research to Find the Story” with Jason Roberts, Héctor Tobar, Jordan Fisher Smith and Dava Sobel – moderated by Julia Flynn Siler
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27
1:00 Craft Talk: “The Construction of a Nonfiction Narrative” by Dava Sobel
2:00 Panel: “Humor, Voice, Character and Subtext” with Mark Childress, Dana Johnson, Anne Lamott, Matt Sumell – moderated by Andrew Tonkovich
3:00 Panel: “The Heart of Memoir” with Anne Lamott, Natalie Serber, Jane Vandenburgh – moderated by Sands Hall
5:30 Short Takes Staff Readings with Edie Meidav, Jason Roberts, Julia Flynn Siler, Gregory Spatz
7:30* Staff read & talk about their work: Dana Johnson, Anne Lamott, Matt Sumell, Héctor Tobar.
* This event has an admittance fee, and reservations are appreciated. Reserve your seat for this event.
THURSDAY, JULY 28
1:00 Panel: “Book Editors” with Reagan Arthur, Erika Goldman, Joy Johannessen, Calvert Morgan, Jack Shoemaker – moderated by Michael Carlisle
2:00 Panel: “Literary Agents” with Noah Ballard, Joy Harris, and BJ Robbins – moderated by Joy Johannessen
3:00 “Journals We Edit, Journals We Read,” with Oscar Villalon and Andrew Tonkovich
5:30 Published Alumni Reading: Stephanie Kegan, Nayomi Munaweera, Marian Palaia, Juan Alvarado Valdivia, Heather Young – Introduced by Matt Sumell
7:30 A Writers’ Tribute to Alan Cheuse: Various readings, music and tributes by staff. All are welcome!
FRIDAY, JULY 28
No events scheduled
SATURDAY, JULY 30
1:00 “You Must Read This: The Narrative Technique Which Stopped You In Your Tracks,” various staff will read excerpts and discuss
2:00 Panel: “Adaptation” with Craig Bolotin, Héctor Tobar, Mark Childress, Nancy Kelly, Amy Tan – moderated by: Louis B. Jones
3:00 Panel: “Silence, Cunning, Exile: The Risks and Rewards of Untraditional Narratives” with Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Louis B. Jones, Michelle Latiolais, and Al Young – moderated by Andrew Tonkovich
5:30 Short Takes Staff Readings with Lisa Alvarez, Rhoda Huffey, Victoria Patterson and Al Young
7:30* Staff read and talk about their work: Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Michelle Latiolais, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Elizabeth Tallent.
* This event has an admittance fee, and reservations are appreciated. Reserve your seat for this event.
SUNDAY, JULY 31
1:00 Craft Talk: “The Knowing Character and Other Craft Notes” by Ron Carlson
2:00 Panel: “The Craft of Writing the Short Story” with Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Ron Carlson, Kirstin Valdez Quade and Elizabeth Tallent – moderated by Thomas Barbash
3:00 Panel: “Writing Beyond The Conference” with Victoria Patterson, Rhoda Huffey, Julia Flynn Siler – moderated by Lisa Alvarez
MONDAY, AUGUST 1
9:30 The Closing Talk by Amy Tan
All Events are in the Olympic House in Squaw Valley. Most afternoon events will take place in Bar One. 5:30 readings and evening events will take place in Plaza Bar. For more information, see the Public Events listing on our website.
Announcing the 2015 Annual Poetry Anthology
Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Anthology 2015, a collection of poems first written in Squaw Valley at the 2015 Poetry Workshop, is now available.
Written Here continues the tradition of publishing poems that first emerged during that summer’s Poetry Workshop. Student and staff poets write a new poem each day to be read aloud and discussed in the morning session. The gathering of these talented poets in a climate of mutual support and encouragement makes possible this daily act of courage and trust.
The poems appearing in these pages were selected by a group of editors—themselves workshop participants—from the work submitted by their fellow poets.
Proceeds from the sales of this anthology benefit the Poetry Workshop Scholarship Fund.
This edition of Written Here was edited by Emily Wolahan, Jules Wood, Michelle Meyers, KB Ballentine, Carolyne Whelan, and Jon Riccio. Typsetting by Caitlin Neely.
Contributors: Doha Aboul-Fotouh, Heather Altfeld, Amy Antongiovanni, KB Ballentine, Mallory Bass, Ross Belot, Toby Bielawski, Judy Brackett, Tim Carrier, Elizabeth Chapman, Jolie Clark, Christine Holland Cummings, Deborah Friedman, Forrest Gander, Kirk Glaser, Laurie Glover, D. M.Gordon, Brenda Hillman, Bethanie Humphreys, Troy Jollimore, Bonnie S. Kaplan, Muriel Karr, Tehmina Khan, Kayla Krut, Lester Graves Lennon, Maya Marshall, Liz Meley, Jeanne Morel, M.D. Myers, Jess Nathan, Angela Peñaredondo, Mark Price, Jon Riccio, Magali Roy-Fequiere, Lindsey Royce, Debra Dashow Ruth, Rachel Sahaidachny, Gini Savage, Evan Schnair, S. Shaw, Evie Shockley, Monica Sok, Laura Swearingen-Steadwall, Ann Tweedy, Vicky Vertiz, Carolyne Whelan, Bakar Wilson, Mary Winegarden, Emily Wolahan, Aliesa Zoecklein, and Stan Zumbiel.
Buy Now
Other issues of the Review, as well as copies of Writers Workshop in a Book, are available on our Books & Anthologies page.
There is Still Time to Give – Big Day of Giving Extended to May 4th!
The BIG Days of Giving deadline has been extended!
On May 3rd, the Big Day of Giving organizers had technical difficulties with their web
site which was beyond their control. This was a national problem affecting thousands of nonprofits. And it persists.
Although this was a tremendous headache for our donors, we had lots of phone calls and emails and managed to have a wonderful day taking donations over the phone from our friends and supporters. We want you to know, all donations received over the phone, via paypal, through the BigDog website as well as our own will be counted if received between May 3 until May 4 at 3:00 pm.
We thank all those that donated, and tried to donate. If you tried to donate and couldn’t get through, we hope you will try again! Donations will be counted that arrive on Mary 3rd and 4th for all incentives and matches.
We are now asking our friends to donate directly to us using our secure website. It isn’t too late! Please join the big give now.
Donate Now!
Your support will make a BIG difference to us. Thank you!
Join Us in Berkeley for the 2016 Poetry Benefit Reading!
On Friday, June 17th, the Community of Writers welcomes six fabulous poets to the stage at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley for an incredible evening of poetry.
Please join us at 7:00 as Kazim Ali, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Cathy Park Hong, Patricia Spears Jones, and Sharon Olds read their from their work, as well as the work of the C. D. Wright, a longtime staff member and beloved poet who died this winter.
This gathering of the tribe—including staff poets from this year’s Community of Writers’ Summer Poetry Workshop in Squaw Valley—will raise scholarship funds for the Poetry Workshop. Books by the poets will be available for purchase and signing.
7:00 p.m. (doors open at 6:00)
First Congregational Church of Berkeley
2345 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA 94704
Tickets are $25 advance/$30 at the door for general admission and $15 advance/$20 at the door for students (with current student ID). Group discounts are available.
Buy Tickets
Just 7 Days until The Big Day!
Next Tuesday, May 3rd, is a Big Day!
Because we are based in Northern California, the Community of Writers has the extraordinary opportunity to participate in the 3rd BIG Day of Giving, which benefits our region’s nonprofits. If you already plan on making a gift to the Scholarship Fund, donating on Tuesday, May 3rd will leverage your donation even further.
Last year, because of the many generous friends and alumni who donated during the Big Day of Giving, we raised over $13,000. Those funds helped us bring in new teaching staff, sustain our remarkable alumni community with many events and opportunities, and offer financial aid to talented writers who would not have been able to attend the workshops without it. We’d love to be able to better that number this year.
How you can help on May 3rd:
1) Make a donation (starting as small as $25) on May 3rd to The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley at www.bigdayofgiving.org/npo/community-of-writers-at-squaw-valley. If you can, donate between 11:00 a.m. and noon, Pacific Standard Time. The non-profit with the most unique donations of $25 or more during that time period wins an additional $1,000!
2) Spread the word. Tell your friends, post on Facebook, and tweet about it. This is an opportunity to be part of something really big. Help us get there!
Thank you in advance for your generosity to our community; together, we can make a BIG impact!
Facebook: BIG Day of Giving, SRCF, PlacerCF, YoloCF
Twitter: @Bigdayofgiving @sacregcf, @placercf
Hashtag: #BIGDoG2016
The Community of Writers at AWP – Reunion News
The Community of Writers made an appearance at the 2016 AWP Conference in Los Angeles March 30 – April 2.
On Wednesday evening, we hosted a casual reunion at a private home in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Writers and poets got to know each other on a blustery spring evening. One highlight was that 5 members of Fiction Workshop 6 from 2007 were in attendance.
Prizes were awarded to the alums who had traveled the furthest (Patricia Spears Jones, who will join the Poetry teaching staff this summer); the alum who had attended the most times over the years (Joan Baranow); and the newest alum (shared between the several alums of the 2015 Workshops that attended). New board member, alum, and teaching staff member Alex Espinoza gave a generous speech to the assembled.
Many thanks to Board Members Ruth Blank, Carlin Naify and Jim Naify for making this evening possible.
During the three day conference, regular teaching staff members, as well as alums in Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry, appeared on dozens of panels. We were delighted that there was a tribute in the honor of long-time staff member and Board member Al Young. And of course, Poetry alum Claudia Rankine (’93) gave the brilliant Keynote speech.
Photos by Amy Rutten
Support Our Scholarship Fund
There is a long tradition at the Community of Writers of scholarship recipients turning around and helping another writer attend the workshops. This continuum is one of the most meaningful ways in which we support each other. Whether you received a scholarship in the past or just had a remarkable experience at a summer workshop, we are asking you to help the next crop of writers access the same transformative week of writing, camaraderie, and community. These scholarships ensure that talented writers from all backgrounds and means are able to attend, and that new and diverse writers continue to benefit from this opportunity.
Donations in any amount are welcome. You can give to our General Scholarship Fund, or to an established named scholarship that honors alumni, staff, and family members; or reaches out to a specific population.
Named scholarships already established by generous donors include:
- The Henry Carlisle Memorial Scholarship
- The Alan Cheuse Memorial Scholarship
- The Lucille Clifton Memorial Scholarship for Poets
- The Gill Dennis Memorial Scholarship
- The Blair Fuller Memorial Scholarship
- The Hillary Gravendyk Memorial Scholarship The Oakley Hall Memorial Scholarship
- The James D. Houston Memorial Scholarship
- The Maat Scholarship for Writers of Color
- The Galway Kinnell Memorial Scholarship for Poets
Please visit our Financial Aid & Scholarships page for more information about these, and other, scholarships.
In the next few weeks, we will be making admissions decisions. Those decisions include grants of financial aid for our most talented and needy writers. All gifts received before May 5th will go directly to our 2016 Scholarship Fund. If you would like to help, but cannot donate before the May 5th, please email us and pledge the amount you would like to give.
If you are interested in creating an honorary scholarship, email amy@communityofwriters.org.
You can donate online here:
Donate Now
You may also mail a check to:
Community of Writers – Scholarship Fund
PO Box 1416
Nevada City, CA 95959
Thank you for changing the life of writer!
Juan Felipe Herrera to join the Poetry Workshop in June!
We couldn’t be more excited to report the new that Juan Felipe Herrera, the current Poet Laureate of the United States, will be teaching at the Poetry Workshop in Squaw Valley this summer. He will join staff poets Kazim Ali, Robert Hass, Cathy Park Hong, Patricia Spears Jones, and Sharon Olds. The application deadline has been extended to April 8th.
Juan Felipe Herrera is the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States (2015-2016) and is the first Latino to hold the position. From 2012-2014, Herrera served as California State Poet Laureate. Herrera’s many collections of poetry include Notes on the Assemblage; Senegal Taxi; Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, a recipient of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross The Border: Undocuments 1971-2007. He is also the author of Crashboomlove: A Novel in Verse, which received the Americas Award. His books of prose for children include: SkateFate, Calling The Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award; Upside Down Boy, which was adapted into a musical for young audiences in New York City; and Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box. Herrera is also a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth.
For more information about the poetry program, please visit the Poetry Workshop page.
New Poet on Board for Summer Workshop!
We are delighted to announce that Patricia Spears Jones will be joining us on staff this summer for the Poetry Workshop!
Patricia Spears Jones is a Brooklyn-based poet and author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems from White Pine Press, which is a 2016 Finalist for the William Carlos Williams Prize from the Poetry Society of America and seven other poetry collections and chapbooks. Her works are anthologized widely including Of Poetry & Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin, broken land: Poems of Brooklyn, Best American Poetry and Black Nature: Four Hundred Years of African American Nature Poetry. She curates WORDS SUNDAY, a literary salon in Brooklyn and is a former Program Coordinator for The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church and served as a Mentor for the Project’s first year of Emerge Surface Be. Her plays have been commissioned and produced by Mabou Mines. She has collaborated with musicians and artists such as Jason Hwang, Carolee Schneemann, Lenora Champagne and Danny Tisdale. She edited THINK: Poems for Aretha Franklin’s Inauguration Day Hat and is contributing editor to BOMB Magazine. She is a senior fellow at Black Earth Institute, where she edited a recent issue of About Place Journal. She is recipient of a Barbara Deming Fund award as well as awards from the Goethe Institute, the Foundation for Contemporary Art and the New York Community Trust and grants from the NEA and NYFA. She has taught at The Poetry Project, Poets House, and at University of Rhode Island, Manhanttanville College, Naropa University summer programs. She is a lecturer at CUNY.
For more information of the Poetry Workshop, including a full staff roster, see the Poetry Workshop page. Application deadline has been extended to April 8th.
Photo Credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Writers Workshop – New Additions to Our Program!
We are thrilled to announced that we will be joined at the Writers Workshop this summer by both Anne Lamott and Dava Sobel!
Anne Lamott, who will be joining us as a special guest, is the author of seven novels, including Hard Laughter, Rosie, Joe Jones, Blue Shoe, All New People, Crooked Little Heart, and Imperfect Birds. She has also written eight bestselling books of nonfiction, including Operating Instructions; Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son; and a writing guide; Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Her collections of autobiographical essays on faith are Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith; Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith; Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith; Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers and most recently Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair. Her last book of essays, Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace, was published by Riverhead Books.
Dava Sobel, joining us as a nonfiction teaching staff member, a former New York Times science reporter, is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Longitude, which was the subject of a PBS science program “NOVA,” and Granada Films created a dramatic version starring Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon for A&E. Her nonfiction book, Galileo’s Daughter, was a #1 New York Times bestseller and won a 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Christopher Award, was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in biography and was the subject of a two-hour Emmy Award-winning “NOVA” documentary. She is also the author of the books The Planets and A More Perfect Heaven. Dava is a long-time science contributor to Harvard Magazine, Audubon, Discover, Life, Omni, and The New Yorker. Bloomsbury has just released a stand-alone edition of her Copernicus play, And the Sun Stood Still, which was produced in 2014 by the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company in Colorado.The editor of the collection Best American Science Writing 2004, published by Ecco Press, Ms. Sobel has served as a judge for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction, the PEN / E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and the Lewis Thomas Prize awarded by Rockefeller University to scientists who distinguish themselves as authors. Her new book, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars, will be published by Viking in December. www.davasobel.com
For a complete roster of 2016 Teaching Staff, Special Guests, as well as Agents and Editors, visit the Writers Workshop page. Applications are due April 12th.
Sacramento Benefit A Grand Success!
Natalie Baszile, Meg Waite Clayton, Frances Dinkelspiel, Marian Palaia, and Josh Weil joined us for the Community of Writers Benefit Reading in Sacramento last week.
These authors — alums and staff — read from new work, and and introduced the Sacramento area to the Writers Workshops and the Community of Writers.
The event was in good hands with our emcee, Capital Public Radio’s Beth Ruyak. Her perspective on each of writer’s work effectively framed each reading for the audience.
After the readings, with roughly 170 people in attendance, Executive Director Brett Hall Jones auctioned off a complete set of signed books (the winning bid was $325,) followed by a wine and cookie reception along with book sales and signings.
Many thanks to the authors and Beth Ruyak for participating in this event. We are also grateful to our volunteers and Board members, who helped out tremendously.
Special thanks to our sponsors: Beers Books, Stories on Stage – Sacramento, and Verge Center for the Arts.
Our own Brenda Hillman Named Academy of American Poets Chancellor
We are delighted to report that in January the Academy of American Poets has named Brenda Hillman, a regular Community of Writers staff poet, as its newest Chancellor. Other distinguished poets who have held this honorary position include W. H. Auden, John Ashbery, Elizabeth Bishop, Lucille Clifton, Robert Hass, Galway Kinnell, Yusef Komunyakaa, Adrienne Rich, Mark Strand and C.D. Wright.
According to the Academy, “as a member of the Board of Chancellors, Hillman will consult with the organization on matters of artistic programming, serve as a judge for the organization’s largest prizes for poets, and act as ambassador of poetry in the world at large. Hillman was selected by the fifteen members of the Academy’s Board of Chancellors, which includes U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. She will serve for a period of six years, filling the seat vacated by Naomi Shihab Nye, whose term as Chancellor has concluded.”
For more than three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; an ongoing series of poetry readings; and the annual award of its American Poets Prize.
Brenda, who is the Olivia C. Filippi Professor of Poetry at St. Mary’s, is the author of nine collections from Wesleyan University Press, the most recent of which is Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, which received the International Griffin Poetry Prize and Practical Water which was the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Book Award. Other collections from Wesleyan include Pieces of Air in the Epic, Cascadia, Loose Sugar, and Bright Existence which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Brenda has been an essential staff poet at the Community of Writers since 1988, and has served as guest director on several occasions.
For more information, visit Poets.org.
C.D. Wright: 1949-2016
C.D. Wright was born in January 1949 in a small town in Arkansas and, as most of you probably know, she died in her home in Barrington, Rhode Island this January between the night of the 12th of the month and the morning of the 13th. She and her husband Forrest had just returned on a long flight from Santiago, Chile, where they had spent New Years and visited with the Chilean poets Raul Zurita and Nicanor Parra. C.D. went to bed that night and never woke up. She was in good spirits and, we all thought, good health. A new book of her essays, thoughtfully entitled The Poet, the Lion, Talking Pictures, El Farolito, A Wedding in St. Roche, The Big Box Store, The Warp in Time, Spring, Midnights, Fire and All, was just out, and a new book of poems, Shall Cross, and a prose book, Copper Beech, are forthcoming.
So she was working in the full force of her very considerable gifts, but she had from the beginning of her life as a poet worked at full force. Anyone who doubts it can pick up her fourth book and second full-length collection, Further Adventures With You, published thirty years ago, and read the first few pages. There she is: fierce, spiky, unexpected and incandescent. She had been a member of the Community of Writers for almost twenty years. Many of you will have worked with her and will remember her stunning craft lectures, some of which were gathered in Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil, and her readings from the astonishing set of books she produced in those years: Just Whistle, Tremble, Deepstep Come Shining, Steal Away, One Big Self, Rising Falling Hovering, and One With Others. She was an original, a description I notice that has showed up in the many tributes written about her in the past week, which I take to be an acknowledgement of the fact that she made herself up on her own terms out of the possibilities that existed for poetry in the English language in the last decades of the twentieth century as completely as anybody who has been writing in those years. Her death was a shock and an awful loss. She is—in the present tense–a gift to everyone who knew her and who has read and will read her.
Two powerful tributes have appeared since her death that you may want to take a look at, a blog by Ben Lerner in The New Yorker and an essay by Stephen Burt in The Los Angeles Times. The Community of Writers will be celebrating her work and her time among us this June in the annual Benefit Reading of the poetry program.
—Robert Hass
Director, Poetry Workshop
2015 – The Year in Review and Thank You
We had an eventful year in 2015. There are so many friends and colleagues who helped make it happen.
The Summer Workshops:
The Workshops came together with the participation of many friends. We are grateful to our talented, magnanimous and generous staff that makes the conference what it is. It simply wouldn’t be what it is without Lisa Alvarez, Michael Carlisle, 
Diana Fuller, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman and Louis B. Jones, who steer this boat.
Many thanks to Kaitlin Klaussen, who coordinated housing and, with the help of Amy 
Rutten, the bookstore; to Amy, who joined us in the office this year and 
was an extraordinary member of the team making everything work better.
Thanks also to Tracy Hall for documenting the goings-on with her camera. And thanks to Tracy,
Jim Chumb
ley, and Lucy Sandoe (with her muffins) for creating a bit of home in our humble snack bar.
Our Poetry Elves (and all-around helpers) were Dashiell Jones, Natasha Boyd, Eva Melas, Delia Pepper, Hunter Jones and Lindsey Gordon. (Lindsey is pictured here dumping rainwater out of the workshop tent.) Hunter helped us record events and later put them on our website. With high energy and good spirits, they made things happen. David Womack helped with manuscripts at registra
tion and was indispensible, as he solved problems no one else could. We are indebted to An
drew Tonkovich for all his help: from the management of all the manuscripts during registration to moderating panels and for (trying to) rid me of my gerunds and passive voice! Our brilliant participant Work Waiver poets were essential for the Poetry Picnic at Meeks Bay:
Heather Altfeld and Troy Jollimore. And thanks to Sands Hall for the inimitable Follies and her for hosting Poetry’s final dinner. Liz Thiem and Storey Rafter graced our staff picnic and Poetry party with delicious food and good humor. I am also very grateful to Michelle Latiolais for her wisdom and support, and to Anne Lamott and Alex 
Espinoza for believing in this thing we do.We would like to acknowledge our local friends who have been tremendously generous with their time and support over the years: Eddy & Osvaldo Ancinas, Mimi & Burnett Miller and Amy Tan & Lou Demattei.
The Benefit Poetry Reading:
The Benefit took place in Sacramento last June and many thanks are in order, especially to Forrest Gander, Brenda Hillman, Robert Hass, J. Michael Martinez, Sharon Olds, Evie Shockley, Emcee Bob Stanley and Jen Siraganian, the Event Coordinator. We are grateful to our event sponsors: Deborah Dashow Ruth, The Sacramento Poetry Center, Beers Books, Verge Center for the Arts, and Stories on Stage Sacramento. This event was also supported by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a 
grant it received from The James Irvine Foundation. Thanks to Counterpoint Press, New Directions Publishing, University of Arizona Press, Bellevue Literary Press, and Carolina Wren Press for donating books and to Lisa Rappoport of Littoral Press. Enormous thanks to Beth Kelley Gillogly, Molly Fisk, and Alice Anderson for their help getting the word out. We could have done it without our enthusiastic volunteers: Shannon Bright, Jeremy Cantor, Marsha Fabian, Francesca Foglia, Frank Dixon Graham, Bethanie Humphreys, Tim Kahl, Irene Lipshin, Caitlin Pegar, Alex Russell, Bob Stanley, Wendy Patrice Williams, and Elizabeth Weaver. Additionally, Burnett and Mimi Miller and Jim and Carlin Naify continue to act as our Sacramento hosts and guides. Funds from this Benefit go toward Scholarships and financial aid for talented poets to attend in 2016.
Newsletter:
Thanks also to Laura Cerruti, who edited and designed our last paper Omnium Gatherum & Newsletter published early in 2015. We have now moved online. This blog will function as the newsletter and our new Omnium Gatherum & Alumni blog will keep alum and staff news reports fresh and current.
Bay Area Book Festival:
In 2015, we went to the Bay Area Book Festival. We are grateful to our alums and friends for stopping by and helping talk about the conference with passersby: Ruth Blank, Michael Carlisle, Frances Dinkelspiel, Andy Roe, Elizabeth Rosner, Edan Lepucki, Nayomi Munaweera, Aline Ohanesian, Monica Wesolowska and Cora Yang.
New Website:
Many thanks to the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation for providing support for our website update. Their grant was the catalyst we needed to get this done. We have to also thank Winter Street Design for their lovely and innovative website design, training, and support with the steep learning curve involved with mastering all the functions of the site.
LitQuake’s Barbara Coast Award:
As you know, San Francisco’s Litquake honored the Community of Writers with The 2015 Barbary Coast Award. We were humbled and grateful for the honor and the participation of Nayomi Munaweera, Heather Altfeld, Anita Amirrezvani, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Troy Jollimore, David Perlman, Elizabeth Rosner, Amy Tan and Christopher Upham. The Emcee was Matthew Zapruder. The band that evening was Los Train Wreck. Many thanks to the folks at LitQuake: Jan Ganahl, Jack Boulware and Jen Siraganian. I am particularly grateful to Julia Flynn Siler for her guidance and support.
Special Thanks:
I would like to a moment to praise our new Director of Alumni Relations and Development, Amy Rutten. It is hard to express how important she has become our operations. How did I manage before?
Our Board of Directors is one of the best an Executive Director could hope for, and I am very grateful our Board members who have been such active participants in steering this organization.
Our Friends:
Thank you to all our individual and institutional donors. What a community this is! Your support is essential to this thing we do.
And finally:
… A fond farewell to our dear friends Alan Cheuse and Gill Dennis who left us suddenly in 2015. We will always be grateful for all your gave to writing and to this gathering of writers.
—Brett Hall Jones
Executive Director
News about the Screenwriting Program & Our New Adaptation Class
For thirty-eight years, our unique Screenwriting program founded by Tom Rickman and Gill Dennis, and directed by Diana Fuller, has been a separate program within the Community emphasizing all aspects of the craft including narrative point of view, character analysis, and scene structure. The Screenwriting Program as originally conceived has been suspended in order for the program’s director, Diana Fuller, to reconsider the program’s changing needs. We will, however, continue a version of the program folded into the Writers Workshops as a special class, with a focus on adaptation – that is, adapting fiction to the screen.
Adaptation: From Story to Screen, an intensive afternoon class, will be offered during the summer week of the Writers Workshops. This class is open to those enrolled in the Writers Workshops in fiction, nonfiction or memoir. Fiction writers – and the writers of nonfiction, too – sometimes encounter the opportunity to adapt their own work for film or television; this class is aimed at writers who want to discover this new craft as the methods and techniques of dramatic writing are very different from those of prose. The class comprises six lectures focused on a practical approach to adapting prose into a screenplay. An overview of the fundamentals of screenwriting as well as an analysis of the specific skills for a successful adaptation, this class will examine a handful of adaptations, comparing and contrasting the films with the original material.
We are pleased to bring screenwriter and film director Craig Bolotin to Squaw Valley to lead this class. He has taught at the American Film Institute and the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and has written and rewritten numerous screenplays for such directors as Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Apted. His feature film credits include That Night, Light It Up and Black Rain. He has adapted the work of several novelists including Alice McDermott, John Updike and Hilary Mantel.
This class is open to those enrolled in the 2016 Writers Workshops in fiction, nonfiction or memoir. Applicants who would like to participate should indicate this in the application form. This class is limited to 15 participants; there is a $200 fee for this class.
Announcing Our Annual Poetry Review!
Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Anthology is now available in time for holidays. This anthology is a collection of poems first written in Squaw Valley at the 2013 Poetry Workshop. This anthology makes a great gift, and all proceeds from sales of Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review 2013 benefit the Community of Writers Poetry Scholarship Fund.
The Poetry Workshop of the Community of Writers is held each summer in Squaw Valley. At the workshop, student and staff poets write a new poem each day to be read aloud in the morning session. This gathering of poets, all striving to express ideas, emotions, and conceptions, engenders a climate of mutual support, trust, and encouragement. which makes possible this daily act of courage and trust.
Written Here continues the tradition of publishing poems that first emerged during the summer’s Workshop. The poems appearing in these pages were selected by a team of editors, themselves workshop participants, from the work submitted by their fellow poets.
Proceeds from the sales of this anthology benefit the Poetry Workshop Scholarship Fund.
Edited by William Clark, Jennifer C. Humbert, and Lori Singer Meyer.
Contributors: Cynthia Arrieu-King, Conor Bracken, John Briscoe, Marte Broehm, Will Clark, Flower Conroy, Heather Dobbins, Timothy Dyke, Emma Estrella, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Forrest Gander, Todd Germain, Kathy Gilbert, Christine Gosnay, Ken Haas, Amy Haddad, Robert Hass, Pamela Sue Hitchcock, Jennifer Humbert, Cameron Jackson, Hillary Katz, Curt Last, Lester Graves Lennon, Annie Mascorro, Lori Singer Meyer, Monica Minott, Lisa L. Moore, Sawnie Morris, Meryl Natchez, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Amy Pence, Anna Ross, Larry Ruth, Peter Schireson, Meara Sharma, Evie Shockley, Jacqueline Hughes Simon, Kathi Stafford, Carl Steen, Sheila Davies Sumner, Paul Watsky, David Watts, and Martha Yates.
Please note that it takes a few days to print and ship your order, so order soon!
Buy Now
Other issues of the Review, as well as copies of Writers Workshop in a Book, are available on our Books & Anthologies page.
An Evening of Readings with Alumni & Faculty Authors
Join us in February for a Literary Reading,
Reception & Book Signing in Sacramento!
Please join us for an extraordinary evening of readings by Community of Writers’ alumni and staff, emceed by Beth Ruyak. These authors each have new and noteworthy books which will be available for purchase. There will be a reception and book signing immediately following the event. Spread the word and enjoy an evening of great new literature!
Natalie Baszile
Natalie Baszile
Meg Waite Clayton
Meg Waite Clayton
Frances Dinkelspiel
Frances Dinkelspiel
Marian Palaia
Marian Palaia
Josh Weil
Josh Weil
Natalie Baszile · Meg Waite Clayton
Frances Dinkelspiel · Marian Palaia · Josh Weil
Emceed by Capital Public Radio’s
Beth Ruyak
7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016
Sierra 2 Center for the Arts & Community
2791 24th St., Sacramento
Doors open at 6:30
$20 Advance/$25 at the Door
View More Information & Author Bios
Tickets Available at Brown Paper Tickets
All proceeds benefit the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley summer Writers Workshops.
Our New Website Is Up!
Our new website is up! The change has been coming since summer, but we are finally able to say it is up! And we love it and hope you do too.
We have many new features on our website you might explore:
Alumni & Staff News Blog: Visit our Omnium Gatherum & Alumni News blog, where alums and teaching staff can post current news. This newsfeed moves quickly. Viewers can choose to view by program if they wish. Visit it often! We want to congratulate our alums who have published this year! We are so happy for you. We hope you will support your fellow alums by buying their books or journals. If you are an alum or teaching staff member and have news you’d like to share about yourself, please do!
Notable Alumni – A listing of the accomplishment Notable Alums. Please let us know if you would like to nominate yourself or another alum.
Podcasts: Listen to Podcasts from our afternoon and evening events from the summer writing workshops.
Blog: Visit this Blog for monthly or bi-monthly updates on all things Community of Writers. Posts might include program announcements, reunions, events, important dates and deadlines, all-community bulletins, etc.
Books & Journals: Visit our Books & Journals page. This year we have two brand-new poetry anthologies of poems written during the Poetry Workshop in Squaw Valley (2013 and 2014.)
New URL: Along with the new website, please note that we have a new URL. We can now be found at www.communityofwriters.org.
Update Your Email Preferences: Along with the new site, we have also changed our email service. Please complete this form to update your email preferences and receive only the updates you request. You may tell us what region you are from, for updates about events in your area (such as the Los Angeles reunion during AWP in March;) you may tell us you are interested in the Public Literary Events held in Squaw Valley during the workshops; you may tell us you just want information on how to apply.
Tell Us What You Think! We are eager to hear from you about the new website.
Thank you!
Many thanks to the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation for providing support for this website update. Their grant was the catalyst we needed to get this done.
We have to also thank Winter Street Design for their lovely and innovative website design. They were able to echo the original look created by Elevation 49 and update it with more dynamic functions. We heartily recommend them for any individual or organization who needs a new website. I have never worked with folks who are so good at listening and who knew what we needed even before we did. We have learned a tremendous amount in the process and have a beautiful, functional new site as well!
Join Us for A Reunion Party in Los Angeles During AWP!
Join Us For A Reunion Party
for the Alumni & Teaching Staff of the
Community of Writers
during the A.W.P. Conference in Los Angeles
5:30 – 8:30 pm
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Please RSVP by noon on Thursday, March 24 to receive location and directions
The party will be in a home in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Early Winter Thoughts of Summer
This year, more than ever, we realize that what we do together each summer can never be repeated, that things will always change. It is those who attend — as teaching staff or as participants— who make each season uncommon.
We need your help this time of year, to help us balance our budget and be ready for the coming year.
We are an independent nonprofit. We have no college or other institution underwriting our operations or providing a venue. Despite our very low overhead, we remain vital and reliable, with a do-it-ourselves ethos that has served us well.
The Annual Fund underwrites essential parts of our operating budget, such as teaching staff honoraria, housing and travel; administrative staff, alumni services, advertising, website development and our tuition waiver program. This important fund helps us bridge the gap between what tuition covers and the actual expense of sending a participant to our summer workshops.
We continue to rely on you to make all this possible. Donations to our Annual Fund may come in all sizes. Large and small, all go to help ensure that others in need have the experience you had, the experience that we hope inspires you to give back, and perhaps has inspired you to return again.
Your contribution can help us continue the living, breathing legacy of this seasonal summer miracle that we work on yearlong.
Please donate to our Annual Fund today.
Alan Cheuse on the Community of Writers
This video of Alan Cheuse was taken by LitQuake’s Jack Boulware in his preparations for the Barbary Coast Award. So wonderful to have this video, though we would rather we had Alan himself.
A Sonnet for LitQuake’s Barbary Coast Award
A Sonnet for LitQuake’s Barbary Coast Award
to the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley
by Al Young
Jim Houston, Oakley Hall and Alan Cheuse,
Gill Dennis – just the latest loves we’ve lost
up in this true community, win or lose.
Carolyn Doty, too, gave up the ghost.
She loved to sing “Lush Life” real late at night,
wee hours really; crazed, a Follies fan.
Her guitar-playing husband Gardner might
call Jim, who’d then call me, to test a tune
in winter, one we might consider for August.
Just writers, crazed, creative and ready
to spring back into action as much as just
plot or rhyme a way (slowed-down or breathy)
through anything! My well-tuned heart sings out
to all our stories – lyric or devout.
October 14, 2015
With Louis B. Jones, Tom Rickman, Al Young & Jim Houston
Images from the Barbary Coast Award & Tribute
Go Tell It on the Mountain:Litquake’s Barbary Coast Award tribute to the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley
Here are some images from the Litquake’s 2015 Barbary Coast Award tribute which took place in San Francisco on October 14th. It was a wonderful evening which honored the Community of Writers, its people and its history. The show featured Nayomi Munaweera (pictured,) Heather Altfeld, Anita Amirrezvani, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Troy Jollimore, David Perlman, Elizabeth Rosner, Amy Tan & Christopher Upham. The Emcee was Matthew Zapruder.
The band that evening was Los Train Wreck who were joined on stage by Ben Fong Torres, and later by Louis B. Jones, Nion McEvoy, Sands Hall, and Jason Roberts.
Many thanks to Jan Ganahl, Jack Boulware and Jen Siraganian at LitQuake! And to those who appeared on stage that night on our behalf.
Event photos by Cynthia E. Wood (Courtesy of LitQuake)
Additional photos courtesy of Enmei Tan
LitQuake Honors the Community of Writers with the Barbary Coast Award
We are delighted to announce that the Community of Writers will be recognized by San Francisco’s Litquake with its annual Barbary Coast Award! Join us on October 14, as Litquake hosts a tribute event for the Community of Writers during its nine-day literary festival.
According to Litquake, the award is presented each year to “a dynamic Bay Area author or literary organization for a lifetime of literary achievement.” We are very honored, and we hope you will join us for the celebration!
The tribute, “Go Tell it On the Mountain,” takes place October 14 at 8:00 p.m., and will be held at Z Space, at 450 Florida St. in San Francisco (see map). Tickets are $15, and you can purchase them in advance here or take your chances at the door. The event will include Community of Writers alums, teaching staff, live music by Los Train Wreck, and other shenanigans.
Anita Amirrezvani
Anita Amirrezvani
Ramona Ausubel
Ramona Ausubel
Sands Hall
Sands Hall
Robert Hass
Robert Hass
Brenda Hillman
Brenda Hillman
Troy Jollimore
Troy Jollimore
Nayomi Munaweera
Nayomi Munaweera
David Perlman
David Perlman
Elizabeth Rosner
Elizabeth Rosner
Amy Tan
Amy Tan
Christopher Upham
Christopher Upham
Al Young (1939-2021)
Al Young (1939-2021)
Matthew Zapruder
Matthew Zapruder
Los Train Wreck
Los Train Wreck
Alums: Join your friends from the workshops and come together! If you are in the area, we’d love to see you!
Announcing the Benefit Poetry Reading in Sacramento June 16th
Forrest Gander • Robert Hass • Brenda Hillman • J. Michael Martinez • Sharon Olds • Evie Shockley
7:00 p.m. Friday, June 19th, Sacramento
Join us for a reading honoring Galway Kinnell with Forrest Gander, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, J. Michael Martinez, Sharon Olds, and Evie Shockley at the Setzer Auditorium of the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, with emcee Bob Stanley.
All proceeds will benefit the Poetry Workshop Scholarship Fund, enabling talented writers to attend the week-long poetry writing workshop held each year in Squaw Valley, California. It is the goal of this program to support both established and emerging writers of talent who would benefit from working with their peers at the Poetry Week at Squaw Valley.
Books donated by the poets and their publishers will be available for purchase (cash or check only) before and after the reading. The poets will be available to sign books after the reading.
Tickets
General Admission tickets are $20/advance, $25/door
Students tickets are $12/advance, $15/door (with current student ID)
PLEASE NOTE: This event is sponsored by the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. The Crocker Art Museum will NOT be selling tickets to the event. Tickets are ONLY available online at BrownPaperTickets.
For more information, call: 877-298-3799 or email squawpoet@ureach.com. Please do not contact the Crocker Art Museum directly.
Venue Information
The Crocker Art Museum is located at 216 “O” Street in Sacramento.
Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. and seating is unassigned. The venue is wheelchair accessible. For more information on the venue, its location, and directions, visit: www.crockerartmuseum.org/location. For more informaiton, please go visit the Poetry Benefit Reading website, or contact the Community of Writers at 877-298-3799 or email squawpoet@ureach.com. Please do not phone or email the Crocker Art Museum directly.
Sponsor
This Event is Underwritten by Deborah Dashow Ruth — Deborah is a poet, playwright, alum and long-time supporter of the Community of Writers. She is sponsoring the event to help poets who, without the financial aid this even provides, would be unable to attend the summer program.
Co-Sponsors
The Community of Writers would like to thank our sponsors for their support!
Sacramento Poetry Center—Since 1979, the Sacramento Poetry Center has been a major force for literary artists in Northern California. Though primarily serving as the literary center for the greater Sacramento metropolitan area, SPC’s publications are recognized nationally for their quality and literary content and its annual writers’ conference has featured some of the most important poets of our time. sacramentopoetrycenter.org
Beers Books — For over seventy years, Beers Book has served Sacramento and Northern California. beersbooks.com
Stories on Stage — Sacramento’s award-winning reading series features short fiction by established and emerging writers from Sacramento and surrounding areas, introduced by their authors and read by actors. The series runs on the Final Friday of every month at the Sacramento Poetry Center. storiesonstagesacramento.wordpress.com
Verge Center for the Arts — Verge Center for the Arts seeks to expose the Sacramento art region to internationally recognized contemporary art, while providing vital resources to local career and emerging artists. vergeart.com
Thanks also to The Sterling Hotel for providing discounted accommodations for our readers.
Special thanks to the following publishers for donating books for the benefit:
- Counterpoint Press
- New Directions Publishing
- University of Arizona Press
- Bellevue Literary Press