Jane Ciabattari is the author of Stealing the Fire (Dzanc Books 2013). Her short stories have been honored with three Pushcart Prize special mentions and an Editor’s Choice award from Hampton Shorts. Her new collection in progress was shortlisted for the 2018 Dzanc Short Story Collection Award. She is a columnist for BBC Culture and The Literary Hub, a former president of the National Book Critics Circle, on the advisory board of The Story Prize, a Pushcart Prize contributing editor, and has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has served as visiting faculty/life in letters lecturer at Bennington’s MFA program, Distinguished Writer in Residence at Knox College, writer in residence at Chautauqua, and at multiple writers’ conferences. She first attended the Community of Writers as a graduate student on fellowship. http://www.janeciabattari.com/
2016 Writers Workshops Special Guests
Rhoda Huffey is the author of two novels, 31 Paradiso and The Hallelujah Side, and her short fiction has appeared in Santa Monica Review, Ploughshares, and Green Mountains Review. She lives in Venice Beach with her husband and their many animals. www.rhodahuffey.com
Photo Credit: Daniel Shapiro
Anne Lamott is the author of seven novels, Hard Laughter, Rosie, Joe Jones, Blue Shoe, All New People, Crooked Little Heart, and Imperfect Birds. She has also written several bestselling books of nonfiction, including, Operating Instructions, an account of life as a single mother during her son’s first year; Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son; and the classic book on writing; Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. She has also authored several collections of autobiographical essays on faith; Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith; Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith; and Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. In addition, she has written, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers; Stitches; A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair; Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace; and Hallelujah Anyway; Rediscovering Mercy. Her most recent book is Almost Everything: Notes on Hope (Riverhead Books). Lamott has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has taught at UC Davis, as well as at writing conferences across the country. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Mock has made a documentary on Lamott, entitled Bird by Bird with Annie (1999). Anne Lamott has also been inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
Photo Credit: Sam Lamott
Michelle Latiolais is the author of the novel, Even Now, which received the Gold Medal for Fiction from the Commonwealth Club of California. Her second novel, A Proper Knowledge, was published by Bellevue Literary Press, as was Widow, a collection of stories, involutions and essays. Her novel She was released in 2016 by W.W. Norton & Company. Recent work is forthcoming in Mississippi Review in 2025.
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
Jordan Fisher Smith spent 21 years as a park ranger in California, the Rocky Mountains, and Alaska. His fear of what climate change and extinction were doing to the places he loved spurred him to start writing for magazines, drawing on his experiences on the edge between civilization and nature. His first book Nature Noir—a cross between true crime, nature writing, and history—was an Audubon Editor’s Choice, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Books of 2005 pick, and a Wall Street Journal, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and American Booksellers Association summer reading selection when it came out in paperback. Jordan’s second book, Engineering Eden, won a California Book Award and was longlisted for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing. Jordan has also written for The New Yorker, Men’s Journal, Orion, Discover, and other outlets. He appeared in and narrated a documentary about Lyme disease, “Under Our Skin,” which was shortlisted for the 2010 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, and three other films. Jordan writes, speaks, and coaches writers from his base in the Gold Rush town of Nevada City, California.
Matt Sumell is the author of Making Nice published by Henry Holt in 2015. He is a graduate of UC Irvine’s MFA Program in Writing, and his short fiction has since appeared in The Paris Review, Esquire, Electric Literature, McSweeney’s, One Story, Noon, and elsewhere.
www.mattsumell.com
Amy Tan’s novels are The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, Saving Fish from Drowning, and Valley of Amazement. She is the author of two memoirs, The Opposite of Fate and Where the Past Begins; and two children’s books, The Moon Lady and Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat. Tan served as co-producer and co-screenwriter for the film adaptation of The Joy Luck Club and creative consultant for the PBS television series, Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat. She wrote the libretto for the opera The Bonesetter’s Daughter and is the subject of the American Masters documentary Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir. Tan is an instructor of a MasterClass on Fiction, Memory, and Imagination. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her most recent book, The Backyard Bird Chronicles (Knopf, April 2024) marks her debut as a nature journalist and bird artist. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Community of Writers.