A resident of Berkeley, California, Chris is the founder of National Novel Writing Month and the Executive Director of its parent nonprofit, the Office of Letters and Light. With his startlingly mediocre prose style and complete inability to write credible dialogue, Chris has set a reassuringly low bar for budding novelists everywhere. Chris is an …
Celebrate the many talented writers in the area with Tri-Valley members reading from their own published work. A variety of genres will be represented by a diverse group of authors. Members’ work ranges from literary fiction, memoir, travel, essays, poetry, children’s literature and genre fiction. Our featured readers are Beth Aaland, Jamna Advani, Annette Langer, …
A contributor to numerous journals, newspapers, magazines and anthologies, Linda Watanabe McFerrin is a poet, travel writer, novelist and workshop leader. She has served as a literary arts panelist for the National Endowment of the Arts, and was a winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. Her novel, Namako: Sea Cucumber was named …
Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Bringing Sensuality to the Page Read More »
Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, will provide an information–packed primer on ebook publishing. Attendees will learn best practices to easily produce, publish, distribute and market an ebook. The presentation draws upon Mark’s experience helping over 11,000 Smashwords authors publish and distribute over 25,000 ebooks. Smashwords is based in Los Gatos. The company operates the world’s …
Mark Coker, Smashwords – The Seven Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success Read More »
Becky Levine is the author of The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide (Writer’s Digest, 2010) and a freelance writer and editor, living in the Santa Cruz mountains. She has almost 20 years of experience with critique groups and knows both the challenges and benefits of making the critique process work. Becky is also working …
Award-winning magazine writer, children’s book author and travel memoirist Brad Herzog contends that the secret to good writing begins before the first line is ever written. It all starts with a good idea — subject matter that generates enthusiasm among students, concepts that capture readers’ attention, stories and angles that are simply too clever for …
Ransom Stephens, PhD, will discuss his journey with The God Patent. A professor of particle physics turned writer and speaker, Stephens first published his novel on Scribd.com, but it has since been released in print by Numina Press. The SF Chronicle called The God Patent “a milestone not only for Ransom but for the book industry as well, as the first debut novel to emerge from the new paradigm of online publishing.”
Mahbod Seraji’s critically acclaimed debut novel, Rooftops of Tehran, paints a vivid portrait of growing up, discovering love, and awakening to the realities of life in a nation on the verge of revolution in the 1970’s. How did an Iranian immigrant, writing in a second language, come to craft a critically acclaimed work of such …
The CWC Tri-Valley Branch will not have a monthly meeting in April to encourage members to attend the 9th Annual Pleasanton Poetry, Prose and Arts Festival, April 17-18, 2010. Writers of all levels are invited to participate in a variety of free activities on Saturday afternoon, April 17. Activities that are open to the public …
From her experience in breaking back into the poetic tribe as Dublin’s first poet laureate, Ronnie Holland will share how she taps into the poetic, universal time of her Muse and organizes functional time to complete chapbooks, contest entries and host or attend events. Join us on February 20 when Ronnie presents Kairos and Chronos: …
