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WELCOME TO WRITERS FORUM
Writers Forum presents a variety of speakers sharing information about the craft and business of writing.
These literary workshops take place on the third Thursday of each month, February through November (no workshops in January and December).
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm (we start promptly at 7:00 pm)
$15 at the door
Location: Petaluma Community Center at Lucchesi Park, 320 No. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma, California
"Writers Forum promotes intelligent, focused discussions about writing." Jody Gehrman, www.jodygehrman.com
“The best, most engaged group of writers I’ve met in a long time. It was thrilling, and so fun.” Rachael Herron, yarnagogo.com
Notes about Past Writers Forum Workshops can be read at: http://paper-pencil-pen.blogspot.com
2012 Presenters
February 16 David Pokorny Writing Comedy, What's So Funny?
DAVID POKORNY just finished a successful three week run at The Glaser Center, where he presented his first one-man show, Based On A True Story. “The very funny show nicely demonstrates Pokorny’s skill as a writer… Mashing up hilarious tales of life on the road with outrageously arcane automotive laws — Pokorny is engaging and comfortable on stage, slipping in and out of character as he bounces his narrative back and forth like a rubber ball. Based on a True Story is sweet, cleverly done, and even in its most serious moments, is always honestly, and humanly funny,” says David Templeton, Second Row Center, KRCB radio.
The creator and host of the award winning monthly story telling show, West Side Stories, David was able to quit his “day job” and make his living as a stand-up comic touring the western half of the U.S. for a decade, opening up for such talents as Jim Carrey and Ellen DeGeneres. After becoming the house emcee at San Francisco’s #1 comedy club and a regular on the Vegas strip he gave it all up to pursue a lucrative career as a stay-at-home dad. Seven macaroni & cheese filled years later he returns to the stage.
March 15 Bella Andre Thriving in the new world of digital publishing: Epublishing = empowerment for writers
After 8 years of writing for three NY publishing houses, Bella Andre began to self-publish ebooks in mid-2010. Writing as both Bella Andre and Lucy Kevin, she has sold more than 400,000 self-published ebooks, all of her self-published books have been on Top 50 bestseller lists at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Apple, and she has been profiled in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and on NPR. Come hear her speak about her journey and find out why epublishing = epowerment for writers. www.BellaAndre and www.LucyKevin.com
The Look of Love (Sullivans #1) ~ Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Smashwords
From This Moment On (Sullivans #2) ~ Kindle, Nook, Apple, Smashwords
Can't Help Falling in Love (Sullivans #3) ~ Kindle, Nook, Apple, Smashwords
BELLA ANDRE is known for "sensual, empowered stories enveloped in heady romance" (Publisher's Weekly). All of her self-published ebooks have appeared on top 50 bestseller lists at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple. The Washington Post has called her "One of the top digital writers in America." Her books have been Cosmopolitan Red Hot Reads twice and have been translated into nine languages. Her novel, Never Too Hot, won the Award of Excellence in 2011.
April 19 To be announced
May 17 Ransom Stephens Writer's Toolbox: Clarity is Key
Writing is communication and communication requires clarity. Ransom will discuss point of view, backstory and flashback, dialogue, showing and telling, narrative trust, and tension and suspense.
RANSOM STEPHENS is a popular science writer, speaker, physicist, and novelist. He’s written over 300 articles on impossible subjects like quantum physics and parenting teenagers, produces events for Litquake, and co-produces two literary series. His first novel, The God Patent, is the story of a laid-off, deadbeat-dad engineer trying to rebuild his life who gets caught between science and religion in a battle over the origin of the universe and the existence of the soul. It was “the first debut novel to emerge from the new paradigm of online publishing,” according to the SF Chronicle and has spent over a year on several top ten lists. His second novel, soon to be released, is an enviro-techno thriller set in Silicon Valley. The Sensory Deception takes readers to the horn of Africa, the rainforests of Brazil, and puts them in the firsthand experience of a battle between Earth's two greatest predators.
June 21 Stefanie Freele
STEFANIE FREELE is the Pushcart Prize nominated author of the short story collection Feeding Strays (Lost Horse Press), a finalist in the John Gardner Binghamton University Fiction Award and the Book of the Year Award. She recently won the Glimmer Train Fiction Open. Her published and forthcoming fiction can be found in Glimmer Train, Sou'wester, The Florida Review, American Literary Review, Night Train, Whitefish Review, Necessary Fiction, Pank, and Word Riot. Stefanie is the Fiction Editor of the Los Angeles Review. Stefanie's second collection, Surrounded by Water, will be published by Press 53 in 2012.
July 21 To be announced
August 16 Joan Frank
Joan Frank (www.joanfrank.org) is the author of five books of fiction and one (pending) essay collection. Her newest novel, Make It Stay (April 2012) has been called "first class fiction" by Kirkus Reviews. Joan's book of collected essays, Because You Have To: A Writing Life, will be published in Fall 2012 by the University of Notre Dame Press.
Her recent story collection, In Envy Country, won the Richard Sullivan Prize in Fiction, the ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award, and was named a finalist for the California Book Award.
Joan is a MacDowell Colony Fellow, Pushcart Prize- and Bread Loaf Fellow nominee, winner of the Dana Portfolio Award, Michigan Literary Fiction Award, Emrys Fiction Award and Iowa Writing Award, two-time nominee for the Northern California Book Award in Fiction, a San Francisco Library Laureate, and recipient of grants from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, Barbara Deming Fund, and Sonoma Arts Council.
She has taught creative fiction at San Francisco State University, and continues to teach and edit in private consultation. (If you've interest in working with Joan, please e-mail her through her website!) She lives and writes in Santa Rosa.
September 20 To be announced
October 18 Adair Lara
ADAIR LARA is a writer, teacher and author in San Francisco. A former magazine editor, she wrote a popular, award-winning personal column for the San Francisco Chronicle for 12 years before leaving the paper to write and teach full time. Her most recent book, which has become a cult favorite in the writing blogsphere, is Naked, Drunk and Writing: Shed Your Inhibitions and Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essays (Ten Speed). She holds sold-out workshops in her house on writing essay and memoir and other forms of autobiography, and consults with authors individually, in person or long-distance. Her essays appear in many national magazines, and have been anthologized in dozens of textbooks. She writes a monthly column for Grandparents.Com.
Awards Adair has received:
- 1990: Associated Press, Best Columnist in California.
- 1997: Humor Columns for Newspapers over 100,000, National Society of Newspaper Columnists
- 1998: First place, general interest columns, National Society of Newspaper Columnists.
- 1999: Second place, commentary, American Association of Sunday and Feature editors contest, competing against papers with circulation over 300,000.
- May 17, 2002 was declared Adair Lara Day in San Francisco by proclamation of Mayor Willie Brown
Adair's Published books include:
- Naked, Drunk and Writing: Shed Your Inhibitions and Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay (Ten Speed 2010)
- The Granny Diaries, Chronicle Books (2008) (sales over 12,000 March-May)
- The Bigger the Sign, the Worse the Garage Sale, Chronicle Books (2007)
- You Know You’re A Writer When, Chronicle Books (2007)
- Oopsie! Ouchie!, Chronicle Books (2004) a board book for kids
- Normal is Just a Setting on the Dryer Chronicle Books (2003)
- Hanging out the Wash, Redwheelweiser, (2002) sold 11,043 and Slowing Down in a Speeded-Up World, Redwheelweiser (2002) sold 18,061 copies
- Hold Me Close, Let Me Go (2001) Broadway Books
- The Best of Adair Lara, Scottwall Associates (1999)
- At Adair’s House, Chronicle Books (1995)
- Welcome to Earth, Mom, Chronicle Books (1992)
Anthologies which contain Adair's writing (a sampling):
- Over the Hill and Between the Sheets Springboard (2007)
- The Secret Lives of Lawfully Wedding Wives Inner Ocean (2006)
- Too Young to Be This Damn Old by Inc. Sourcebooks (Paperback - Mar 1, 2006)
November 15 To be announced
For more information about Writers Forum: Marlene Cullen, mcullen@comcast.net
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