May 17, 2014: Poetry The Long and Short of It

Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Linda Watanabe McFerrin will be the guest speaker at the next monthly meeting of the California Writers Club Tri-Valley Branch on Saturday, May 17. Learn how poetry surrounds our everyday lives. Join us for a few short exercises that will help develop your creativity.  

Linda Watanabe McFerrin is a poet, travel writer, novelist and contributor to numerous newspapers, magazines and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry collections, past editor of a popular Northern California guidebook and a winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. Her novel, Namako: Sea Cucumber, was named Best Book for the Teen-Age by the New York Public Library. In addition to authoring an award-winning short story collection, The Hand of Buddha, she has co-edited several anthologies, including the Hot Flashes: sexy little stories & poems series. Her latest novel, Dead Love (Stone Bridge Press, 2009), was short-listed as a finalist in the 2007 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Competition and was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a Novel in 2009.

Linda has judged the San Francisco Literary Awards, the Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence and the Kiriyama Prize, served as a visiting mentor for the Loft Mentor Series and been guest faculty at the Oklahoma Arts Institute. A past NEA Panelist and juror for the Marin Literary Arts Council and the founder of Left Coast Writers®, she has led workshops in Greece, France, Italy, Ireland, Central America, Indonesia and the United States and has mentored a long list of accomplished writers and best-selling authors toward publication.

Find out more at her website www.lwmcferrin.com

The CWC Tri-Valley Branch invites writers of all genres and experience levels to learn about their craft at its monthly meetings. The meeting will be Saturday, April 19, 2014, 2:00-4:00 p.m. (registration at 1:30).The cost for CWC Members is $10, nonmembers, $15. Anyone interested in the program or the organization may attend with no obligation to join. Reservations requested by contacting George Cramer at reservations@trivalleywriters.org no later than Wednesday, April 16, 2014.