Lisa Alvarez’s debut collection of short fiction, Some Final Beauty and other Stories is forthcoming from the University of Nevada Press, as part of their New Oeste series. Her poetry and prose have appeared in journals including Air/Light, Anacapa Review, Huizache, So It Goes, and in anthologies including most recently, Rumors, Secrets and Lies: Poems about Pregnancy, Abortion and Choice (Anhinga Press) and Dear California: The Golden State in Diaries and Letters (Stanford University Press) edited by David Kipen. She has edited three anthologies including Why to These Rocks: 50 years of Poetry from the Community of Writers (Heyday). She teaches at Irvine Valley College where she co-directs the Puente Program. She co-directs the Writers Workshops at the Community of Writers and serves as Assistant to the Poetry Director.
Photo credit: Brett Hall Jones
Sands Hall is the author most recently of the award-winning memoir, Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology (Counterpoint Press). Blackstone Audio produced the audio book, read by the author. Her novel, Catching Heaven (Ballantine), is a Willa Award finalist. Her prize-winning essays and stories have appeared in such journals as Alta Journal, New England Review, Iowa Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Sands co-directs the Nonfiction/Memoir Program at the Community of Writers. [F/NF] sandshall.com
Photo Credit: Tracy Hall
Brenda Hillman’s latest collection from Wesleyan University Press is In a Few Minutes Before Later, published in 2022. A recent recipient of the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement, Hillman has edited and co-translated many books by others, including At Your Feet by Brazilian poet Ana Cristina Cesar. A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Hillman lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is Professor Emerita at Saint Mary’s College of California and directs the Poetry Week at Community of Writers. http://blueflowerarts.com/artist/brenda-hillman/
Photo credit: University of Arizona Poetry Center
Louis B. Jones is the author of five novels, three on the New York Times annual list of Notable Books. A Fellow of the NEA and the MacDowell Colony, he has published stories and essays in ZYZZYVA, Santa Monica Review, and The Threepenny Review. He has served as Writer-in-Residence at Washington University in St. Louis and Wichita State University; and has for many years helped run the Community of Writers. [F]
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
Julia Flynn Siler is a New York Times best-selling author and journalist. Her most recent book, The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown (Knopf, 2019), was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a nonfiction finalist for the California Book Award. Her other books are The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty, a finalist for a James Beard Award and a Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished reporting, and Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure. A graduate of Brown University (American Studies) and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Siler also earned an MBA at night from Northwestern University. A veteran journalist and National Endowment for the Humanities “Public Scholar” fellow, Siler was a foreign correspondent based in London and has been a guest commentator on PBS, the BBC, CNBC, and CNN. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family. She will be a fellow at Stanford University’s Distinguished Careers Institute in 2024-2025. She serves as the co-director of the nonfiction program at the Community of Writers. juliaflynnsiler.com
Photo credit: Stephanie Mohan
Jan BuschoJan Buscho
Max ByrdMax Byrd
Joanne MescheryJoanne Meschery
