THE COMMUNITY OF WRITERS 20I6 Summer Workshops...

• Poetry Workshop: June 18-25 • Writers Workshops in Fiction, Nonfiction & Memoir: July 25-August 1

The Community of Writers For 46 summers, the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley has brought together poets and prose writers for separate weeks of workshops, individual conferences, lectures, panels, readings, and discussions of the craft and the business of writing. Our aim is to assist writers to improve their craft and thus, in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual support, move them closer to achieving their goals. The Community of Writers holds its summer writing workshops in Squaw Valley in a ski lodge at the foot of the ski slopes. Panels, talks, staff readings and workshops take place in these venues with the spectacular view up the mountain. ...& Other Projects

• Published Alumni Reading Series: Recently published Writers Workshops alumni are invited • to return to the valley to read from their books and talk about their journeys from • unpublished writers to published authors. • Omnium Gatherum & Alumni News Blog: Chronicling the publishing and other successes of its participants. • Craft Talk Anthology – Writers Workshop in a Book: An anthology of craft talks from the workshops edited by Alan Cheuse and Lisa Alvarez. • Annual Benefit Poetry Reading: An annual event to raise funds for the Poetry Workshop’s Scholarship Fund. • Notable Alumni Webpage: A website devoted to a list of our notable alumni. • Facebook Alumni Groups: • Social media alumni groups keep the community and conversation going. • Annual Poetry Anthology: Each year an anthology of poetry is published featuring poems first • written during the Poetry Workshop in Squaw Valley. SUMMER WRITING WORKSHOPS

The Workshops Squaw Valley • Poetry Workshop: June 18-25 Squaw Valley, a ski resort located in the • Writers Workshops: July 25-August 1 Sierra Nevada close to the north shore of Lake Tahoe, was the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics. Week-long workshops are offered in June and July. Summers are warm and sunny; participants will The following pages include information about have opportunities to hike to the local waterfalls, these programs and the teaching staff as well as take nature walks up the mountain, swim in Lake application procedures. Tahoe, or bike along the Truckee River.

Please note: The Screenwriting Program has been discontinued. Please see new Special Afternoon Adapation Class offered in the Writers Workshops. Travel & Logistics Squaw Valley is located seven miles from Tahoe Admissions City and ten miles from Truckee. It is a four-hour Admissions are competative and based on online drive from the Bay Area, and an hour from the applications with submitted manuscripts. Each Reno/Lake Tahoe International Airport. Shuttle ser- program’s specific requirements for application are vice is available from the airport to Squaw Valley. listed on page 13. Please apply early. Submissions It is not necessary to have a car during the week. must be received by the application deadline to be Upon acceptance, participants will be sent more considered. information about airport shuttles, ride-sharing to the valley, and accommodations. Financial Assistance Limited financial aid is available for those who Housing & Meals request it, from funds donated by generous Most evening meals are included in the tuition, individuals and institutions. Assistance is provided but participants are on their own for breakfast and in the form of partial tuition waivers and scholar- lunch. There are cafes and restaurants and a small ships, and may be requested in the application general store close to the conference headquarters. form. Please see our website for more details. Houses and condominiums in the valley are rented for participant housing. Participants share these Frequently Asked Questions units and may choose single, double, or multiple For more information, visit our website occupancy rooms. Participants may, of course, www.communityofwriters.org. arrange their own accommodations. We will send more information about our housing options, as well as local hotels, upon acceptance. For rates and Dates & Deadlines options visit www.communityofwriters.org/work- shops/housing-meals/

Contact Information Brett Hall Jones, Executive Director (530) 470-8440 (until June 5) (530) 583-5200 (after June 5) [email protected]

*Tuition subject to slight change without notice.

www.communityofwriters.org | [email protected] | (530) 470-8440 | PO Box 1416 • Nevada City, CA 95959

“As a recipient of the Lucille Clifton Memorial Scholarship, I was able to make the long journey from New York to California to encounter an incredible faculty whose Forty-SIX Years poems had already nurtured my poetic life. The workshops were humanizing in a way that’s difficult to explain. I was inspired by COMMUNITY the community and the landscape. I wrote DIRECTORS poems that otherwise may have never been unearthed. It was truly a blessing.” executive director OFWRITERS —Ama Codjoe Brett Hall Jones “[The Community of Writers] is wonderfully ALUMNI RELATIONS & DEVELOPMENT open and free of all that hierarchy business. At Amy Rutten Squaw, we are all writers.” —Adam Scott

SUMMER WORKSHOPS “I felt like I received an intense MFA in one week.” FICTION —Amanda Coggin Lisa Alvarez “Quite simply, it was one of the most inspiring Louis B. Jones BRIEF HISTORY and educational times of my writing life. The The Community of Writers was estab- staff set such a loving, positive tone for the NONFICTION lished in 1969 by the late novelists week, and the entire writing faculty followed Michael Carlisle Blair Fuller and Oakley Hall, who were suit. And to me, this was the central message: Writing is important, vital work. ” both residents of the valley. The first —Ryan Griffith POETRY workshop was held in August 1970 Robert Hass and was originally staffed by a band “I couldn’t have been luckier in finding the of San Francisco writers including Squaw Valley community. The opportunity to BOARD OF DIRECTORS David Perlman, Barnaby Conrad, and work with some of the best poets writing in PRESIDENT John Leggett, the latter two of whom the English language, their guidance, support, went on to found, respectively, the and the uniquely nurturing environment of James Naify this workshop have been a sustaining force in Santa Barbara Writers Conference my work for over two decades.” VICE PRESIDENT and the Napa Writers Conference. The —Meryl Natchez Joanne Meschery Community of Writers continues to be “It was a week that can only be described as directed by Brett Hall Jones. magical! I was inspired every second of every day during my time with the Community of SECRETARY Over the years the Community Writers. The general vibe of this workshop is Jan Buscho has hosted workshops in Fiction, both warm and motivating, full of love and confidence, building both our art and our Nonfiction, Screenwriting, Playwriting, FINANCIAL OFFICER business. When describing my week to my Poetry, and Nature Writing (the Art of family in San Diego the following Tuesday, I Burnett Miller the Wild co-produced by Jack Hicks at said simply ‘it was the best week of my life.’” the University of California at Davis) —Clea Bierman BOARD OF DIRECTORS and Writing the Medical Experience “It was an enormously inspiring and (directed by David Watts.) Lisa Alvarez encouraging week, from which I continue to Lisa D. Alvarez Lester Lennon and Louis B. Jones now direct the Fiction draw energy and insight. Though the word Eddy Ancinas Carlin Naify Program, which was for twenty years ‘community’ gets bandied about a lot, in Squaw directed by Carolyn Doty. Literary agent Valley it felt like more than a word. I could René Ancinas Jason Roberts feel the real bonds of friendship, collegiality, Ruth Blank Julia Flynn Siler Michael Carlisle directs the Nonfiction and affection that both hold this community Program. Galway Kinnell directed the Jan Buscho Christopher Sindt together and attract kindred spirits. ” Poetry Program for seventeen years; —Thomas H. Pruiksma Max Byrd Amy Tan Robert Hass has directed it since 2004. Michael Carlisle Nancy Teichert “I am really grateful for everything that Diana Fuller directed the Screenwriters Squaw Valley does to foster literary commu- Nancy Cushing Evans John C. Walker Workshop, (founded in 1974 by screen- nity and good writing on the West Coast. I’m Diana Fuller Harold Weaver writers Tom Rickman and Gill Dennis) glad for it abstractly and I feel its effects in Louis B. Jones Cora Yang until 2014. my own life and writing.” —Becca Rose Hall Michelle Latiolais Al Young “[...] a single week spent in the company of Edwina Leggett fellow poets has turned out to be one of the most vital and revolutionary experiences in my writing career. Just how Squaw works is -3- a mystery to me, but it does and wonderfully so.” —Katie Kilcup Poetry Workshop June 18-25

he Poetry Program is founded on the belief that when poets gather in a community to write new poems, each poet may well break through old habits and write something stronger and truer than Tbefore. To help this happen we work together to create an atmosphere in which everyone might feel free to try anything. In the mornings we meet in workshops to read to each other the work of the previ- ous twenty-four hours; each participant also has an opportunity to work with each staff poet. In the late afternoons we gather for a conversation about some aspect of craft. On several afternoons staff poets hold brief individual conferences. Director: Robert Hass.

Tuition for the Poetry Program is $1,050 and includes seven evening meals. (Accommodations are extra.) Financial aid is available. See Application Guidelines, page 13.

The week includes:

• Daily morning workshops • Poets have an opportunity to create new work daily • Afternoon craft talks • Individual one-on-one sessions • Poetry Reading event

• 72 poets take part in the Poetry Workshop Robert Hass in conference. • Naturalist-led nature walks

Robert Hass is a poet, translator and essayist. Ecco/HarperCollins recently published his book of prose, What Light Can Do: Essays 1985-2010. His Poetry Teaching Staff other recent books include his selected poems, The Apple Trees at Olema (Ecco/HarperCollins), Time Kazim Ali was born in England and grew up in and Materials (Ecco/ HarperCollins), which was India, Canada and the United States. His most awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book recent book of poetry published in the US, Sky Award, and his edition of Walt Whitman’s Song of Ward, won the 2014 Ohioana Book Award in poetry. Myself and Other Poems (Counterpoint). His other His other books include the poetry collections books of poetry include Sun Under Wood: New The Far Mosque and The Fortieth Day, the novels Poems, Human Wishes, Praise, and Field Guide. He Quinn’s Passage and The Disappearance of Seth and has also co-translated many volumes of the poetry cross-genre texts Bright Felon: Autobiography and of Czeslaw Milosz and is the author or editor of Cities and Wind Instrument. He is also the author several other collections of essays and transla- of three books of essays and translator of books by tions, including The Essential Haiku: Versions of Marguerite Duras, Sohrab Sepehri and Ananda Devi. Basho, Buson, and Issa; Twentieth Century Pleasures: Forthcoming in the fall of 2016 is his first book of Prose on Poetry; and Now & Then: The Poet’s Choice short fiction Uncle Sharif’s Life in Music. His volume Columns 1996-2000. HarperCollins will publish his of new and selected poems All One’s Blue was pub- next book of essays, A Little Book on Form: An lished in India. He is also a teacher of Jivamukti Yoga. Exploration Into the Formal Imagination of Poetry,

-4- Poetry Workshop Staff continued on Page 5 Poetry Teaching Staff continued... in 2016. He served as of the United of America and seven other poetry collections and States from 1995 to 1997. Awarded a MacArthur chapbooks. She is recipient of a Barbara Deming Fund Fellowship and the National Book Critics Circle award as well as awards from the Goethe Institute, the Award twice, he is a professor of English at UC Foundation for Contemporary Art and the New York Berkeley and directs the Poetry Program of the Community Trust and grants from the NEA and NYFA. Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. She has taught at The Poetry Project, Poets House, and at University of Rhode Island, Manhanttanville College, is the 21st Poet Laureate of the and Naropa University summer programs. She is a lec- United States (2015-2016) and is the first Latino to turer at CUNY. hold the position. From 2012-2014, Herrera served as is the author of nine books of poetry. California State Poet Laureate. Herrera’s many col- Sharon Olds The Dead and the Living received the National Book lections of poetry include Notes on the Assemblage; Critics Circle Award; The Unswept Room was a final- Senegal Taxi; Half of the World in Light: New and ist for the National Book Award and the National Selected Poems, a recipient of the PEN/Beyond Book Critics Circle Award, and One Secret Thing Margins Award and the National Book Critics Circle was a finalist for the Forward Prize. She teaches Award; and 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross at New York University’s Graduate Program in The Border: Undocuments 1971-2007. He is also the Creative Writing where she has been involved with author of Crashboomlove: A Novel in Verse, which N.Y.U.’s outreach workshops. ublished by Knopf in received the Americas Award. His books of prose the US and Jonathan Cape in the UK in Fall 2012. for children include: SkateFate, Calling The Doves, Stag’s Leap won the 2012 T.S.Eliot Prize and the 2013 which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award; Upside Pulitzer Prize. Down Boy, which was adapted into a musical for o young audiences in New York City; and Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box. Herrera is also a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth.

Cathy Park Hong’s latest poetry collection, Engine Empire, was published in 2012 by W.W. Norton. Her other collections include Dance Dance Revolution, chosen by Adrienne Rich for the Barnard Women Poets Prize, and Translating Mo’um. Hong is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. Her poems have been published in Poetry, A Public Space, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, Baffler, Boston Review, The Nation, and other journals. She is the poetry editor of The New Republic and is an Associate Professor at Sarah Lawrence College. Patricia Spears Jones is a Brooklyn-based poet and author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems from White Pine Press, which is a 2016 Finalist for the William Carlos Williams Prize from the Poetry Society

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he Writers Workshops in Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir assist serious writers by exploring the art and craft as well as the business of writing. The week offers daily morning workshops, craft lectures, panel discussions on editing and publishing, staff readings, and brief individual conferences.T The morning workshops are led by staff writer-teachers, editors, or agents. There are separate morning workshops for Fiction and Narrative Nonfiction/Memoir. In addition to their workshop man- uscript, each participant will have a second manuscript read by a staff member who meets with them in an individual conference. Nonfiction or memoir submissions should be in a narrative form; travel, self-help, how-to, and scholarly works will not be considered. Directors: Lisa Alvarez, Louis B. Jones & Michael Carlisle

Tuition is $1,100, which includes six evening meals; a limited amount of financial aid is available. Admissions are based on submitted manu- scripts. See Application Guidelines, page 14. Dana Johnson gives a craft talk a craft Dana Johnson gives The week includes:

• Daily morning workshops • Afternoon & evening craft talks, panels on craft • Literary readings by prominent writers • Panel discussions on editing & publishing • Individual one-on-one conferences • “The Art of Revision” workshop led by Mark Childress • Special Afternoon Film-Adapation Class led by Greg Bolotin • Open Workshop led by Sands Hall SHort Story Panel: Tom Barbash, Barbash, Tom SHort Story Panel: Tonkovich & Andrew Romm,, Robin

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Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author Writers of two novels, Ms. Hempel Chronicles, DAILY SCHEDULE Lisa Alvarez’s essays and short stories a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Morning workshops meet from 9-12. have appeared in the American Book Award, and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a final- Afternoons and evenings are quite Review, Los Angeles Times, OC Weekly, ist for the 2004 National Book Award full, with optional lectures, panel Faultline, Santa Monica Review, Green and winner of the Janet Heidinger discussions, staff readings, and Mountains Review and in anthologies, Kafka Prize. Her fiction has appeared other presentations. Participants including Sudden Fiction Latino: Short- in many magazines and anthologies, are encouraged to set aside time for the reading and evaluation of Short Stories from the United States and including The New Yorker, , workshop manuscripts. Latin America. Her poetry has appeared Tin House, the Georgia Review, and the in Codex Journal, Huizache, Truthdig and Best American Short Stories. The recipi- Zocalo Public Square. With Alan Cheuse, ent of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an she edited Writers Workshop in a Book: NEA Fellowship, she was named one of the MORNING workshops The Community of Writers on the Art of “20 Under 40” Fiction Writers by The Fiction. She is a professor of English at New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles. [F] Each workshop consists of roughly Irvine Valley College and co-directs the 12 participants and features a dif- Writers Workshops at the Community of Ron Carlson’s newest novel is Return ferent workshop leader each day. Writers. to Oakpine. He is the author of ten In each session, the group usually books of fiction, including the novel discusses two participant manu- The Signal from Viking. His short sto- scripts. During the course of the Tom Barbash is the author of the award- week, each participant will have a winning novel, The Last Good Chance, and ries have appeared in Esquire, Harpers, manuscript critiqued in workshop. The New York Times Bestselling nonfic- The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Participants are asked to arrive tion book, On Top of the World. His stories and other journals, as well as The Best with copies of the manuscript they and articles have been published in the American Short Stories, The O. Henry would like treated in workshop. Our directors will assign each par- Best American Non-Required Reading, Tin Prize, The Pushcart Prize, The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction and other ticipant to the most appropriate House, McSweeney’s, OneStory, Narrative, staff workshop leader. The Missouri Review, VQR, Men’s Journal, anthologies; they have been performed ESPN the Magazine, the Observer, The on National Public Radio’s This American The Fiction Program accepts New York Times, Bookforum, Salon, The Life and Selected Shorts. Ron Carlson roughly 96 participants, while Believer, and other publications, and Writes a Story, his book on writing, is the Narrative Nonfiction/Memoir Program accepts 24-25. Applicants have been performed on National taught widely. He is the author of a book of poems, Room Service. He has who work across genres may want Public Radio for its Selected Shorts. NPR, to apply to both programs simulta- Amazon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and been awarded a National Endowment neously, but will have to select one The Independent of London selected his for the Arts Fellowship, the Cohen Prize if accepted to both. short story collection, Stay Up With Me, at Ploughshares, the McGinnis Award last year as a Book of the Year. [F/NF] at the Iowa Review, the Aspen Literary Award; his novel Five Skies was selected INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES Craig Bolotin is a screenwriter and film “One Book Rhode Island” in 2009. He director. He has written and rewritten taught at Arizona State University for Each participant is assigned a brief numerous screenplays for such directors twenty years and is now Director of one-on-one conference with a staff the Graduate Program in Fiction at the member appropriate to his or her as Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola and manuscript. These conferences are Michael Apted. His feature film credits University of California, Irvine. [F] scheduled at the mutual conve- include That Night, Light It Up and Black nience of the participant and the Rain. He has adapted the work of sever- Mark Childress is the author of assigned staff member and usually al novelists including Alice McDermott, seven novels, three books for chil- run no longer than twenty min- John Updike and Hilary Mantel, and has dren, and several screenplays. A native utes. In most cases, the manuscript of Monroeville, Alabama, his novels to be discussed will be the one taught at the American Film Institute submitted with the application, and the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. include A World Made of Fire, V For although a different manuscript [Adaptation] Victor, Tender, Crazy in Alabama, Gone may be substituted. For Good, One , and Georgia

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THE ART OF REVISION Bottoms. He lives in Key West, Florida. Janet Heidinger Kafka award, and her MARK CHILDRESS offers his “Art [Art of Revision] work being called an editorial pick by of Revision” workshop which sites including the Los Angeles Times and will meet three days during the Sands Hall is the author of the novel The New York Times. A former director week, 3 - 5 pm, by invitation only. Catching Heaven, a Random House of the MFA at the late New College Participants will submit a story or Reader’s Circle selection, and Tools of California, she is a senior editor chapter of which they have written of the Writer’s Craft, a book of writ- at Conjunctions, teaches in the UMass one complete draft that is ready for revision -- no first-drafts-in- ing essays and exercises. Her short fic- Amherst MFA for Poets and Writers, progress, please. The aim of the tion has appeared in Green Mountains and is serving as a judge for this year’s workshop will be not to give each Review, New England Review, and The PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. [F] writer a systematic evaluation of Iowa Review, and her produced plays www.ediemeidav.com [F] the manuscript, as in the morning include an adaptation of Alcott’s Little workshops, but to use examples Women and the comic drama Fair Use. Joanne Meschery has published short from the works in progress and classic literature to illustrate She teaches creative writing at Franklin stories, essays, and the novels, In A High techniques a writer can use to move & Marshall College, in Lancaster, PA. She Place, A Gentleman’s Guide to the Frontier, the work from first draft to finished recently produced a CD of her songs, which was a PEN/Faulkner finalist, and manuscript. Each day of the Rustler’s Moon. [F] Home and Away. She is also the author workshop will address a different of a book of nonfiction, Truckee. Selwa facet of the job: Story, Character, Dana Johnson is the author of the Press has published two of her novels and Language. Participants will receive the workshop manuscripts short story collection In the Not Quite as ebooks. Her fiction is featured in the in advance, and will be expected Dark forthcoming from Counterpoint in 40th Anniversary Anthology of Cutbank to read and mark the manuscripts 2016. She is also the author of Break Any Magazine, 2013. She teaches in the low- before arriving in Squaw Valley. Woman Down, winner of the Flannery residency MFA program at Sierra Nevada Indicate your interest in the O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and College. [F] application form. This workshop is the novel Elsewhere, California. Both limited to 12 participants. $165 fee. books were nominees for the Hurston/ Victoria Patterson is the author of The FILM ADAPTATION CLASS Wright Legacy Award. Born and raised Little Brother. She is also the author of in and around Los Angeles, she is an the novels The Peerless Four and This Screenwriter GREG BOLOTIN will associate professor of English at the Vacant Paradise, a 2011 New York Times teach a class on Film Adapation, University of Southern California. [F] Book Review Editors’ Choice. Her story (six 90 minute afternoon sessions.) The class will teach a practical collection, Drift, was a finalist for the approach to adapting a novel Louis B. Jones is the author of the California Book Award and The Story into a screenplay. There will be novels Ordinary Money, Particles and Prize and was selected as one of the an overview of the fundamentals Luck, California’s Over, Radiance, and best books of 2009 by The San Francisco of screenwriting as well as an Innocence. His short fiction and essays Chronicle.[F] analysis of the specific skills for have appeared in The Threepenny Review, a successful adaptation. We will examine a handful of adaptations, Open City, The Sun, Santa Monica Review, Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of comparing and contrasting the and The Pushcart Prize Anthology. He Night at the Fiestas, which received a “5 films with the original material. co-directs the Writers Workshops at the Under 35” award from the National Book Indicate your interest in the Community of Writers. [F] Foundation. She is the recipient of the application form. This class is Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award limited to 15 participants. $200 fee. Edie Meidav is the author of three nov- and the 2013 Narrative Prize. Her work els, most recently Lola, California (FSG) has appeared in The New Yorker, The OPEN WORKSHOP and Crawl Space (FSG), and a forthcom- Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Several afternoons during the ing book of both fiction and nonfic- Prize Stories, and elsewhere. She was a week, SANDS HALL leads the Open tion, Kingdom Of The Young (2017). Her Wallace Stegner and a Truman Capote Workshop, which provides anoth- citations include a Lannan Fellowship, Fellow at , where she er opportunity for participants to a Whiting research award, a Fulbright also taught as a Jones Lecturer. She’s share their writing with their con- ference peers. Work is read aloud in Sri Lanka, the Bard Fiction Prize, a been on the faculty in the M.F.A. pro- and discussed in a spontaneous and productive format. There is no extra fee for this workshop. -8- Writers Workshops Staff continued on Page 9 Writers Workshop Faculty continued... grams at and Warren Wilson, and Discover, Life, Omni, and The New Yorker. Bloomsbury has beginning in 2016, she will be an assistant professor at just released a stand-alone edition of her Copernicus play, Princeton University. [F] And the Sun Stood Still, which was be produced in 2014 by the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company in Colorado. She Jason Roberts is the author of two works of narra- was editor of the collection Best American Science Writing tive nonfiction, the national bestseller A Sense of the 2004, published by Ecco Press. Her new book, The Glass World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took (HarperCollins), and the forthcoming Every Living Thing. the Measure of the Stars, will be published by Viking in He is the inaugural winner of the Van Zorn Prize for fic- December. www.davasobel.com [NF] tion, awarded by Michael Chabon, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and The Guardian First Gregory Spatz’s most recent book publications are a Book Award. He also edits the 642 series of guidebooks short story collection, Half as Happy (Washington State (Chronicle Books), most recently 642 Stories To Write and Book Award finalist) and the novel Inukshuk. Recipient 642 First and Last Lines. [NF] of a 2012 NEA literature fellowship, his stories have appeared in The New England Review, Glimmer Train Natalie Serber is the author of Community Chest, a Stories, Santa Monica Review, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, novella-length memoir, and the story collection, Shout ZYZZYVA, The New Yorker and elsewhere. He teaches in Her Lovely Name, a New York Times Notable Book of and directs the creative writing MFA program at Eastern 2012, a summer reading selection from O, the Oprah Washington University; he also plays fiddle in the twice Magazine, and an Oregonian Top 10 Book of the Pacific Juno-nominated bluegrass band John Reischman and the Northwest. Her fiction has appeared in The Bellingham Jaybirds, and bouzouki in the acoustic world music quar- Review, Gulf Coast, Inkwell, and Hunger Mountain. Essays tet Mighty Squirrel. [F] and reviews have appeared in The New York Times; O, the Oprah Magazine; The Huffington Post; The San Elizabeth Tallent is the author of Museum Pieces, a novel, Francisco Chronicle; The Oregonian; The Rumpus; Salon; and the story collections In Constant Flight, Time with and Fourth Genre. She lives in Portland, Oregon. [F] Children, Honey, and most recently, Mendocino Fire. Her work has been included in The Pushcart, The O. Henry Prize Julia Flynn Siler is an author and journalist. She wrote Stories, Best American Short Stories, and Best American The House of Mondavi and Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Essays, and her memoir is forthcoming from Harper. She Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial teaches in Stanford’s Creative Writing Program and lives Adventure and is a former staff writer and foreign cor- on the Mendocino Coast. [F] respondent for The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek. A graduate of Brown and of Columbia’s Graduate Héctor Tobar is the author of four books, including the School of Journalism, her work has also appeared in novel The Barbarian Nurseries and the nonfiction book The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in publications. She is writing a history set in turn-of-the- a Chilean Mine and the Miracle that Set Them Free, both century San Francisco, forthcoming from Knopf. [NF] published by FSG. A veteran journalist and foreign corre- spondent, he is currently an op-ed columnist for The New Dava Sobel, a former New York Times science reporter, is York Times and an Assistant Professor at the University of the author of the New York Times bestseller, Longitude, Oregon. [F/NF] which was the subject of a PBS science program “NOVA,” and Granada Films created a dramatic version starring Jane Vandenburgh is the award-winning author of two Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon for A&E. Her nonfiction novels, Failure to Zigzag and The Physics of Sunset, as book Galileo’s Daughter was a #1 New York Times bestseller well as Architecture of the Novel: A Writer’s Handbook and won a 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Christopher and two memoirs, The Pocket History of Sex in the 20th Award, was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in biog- Century and The Wrong Dog Dream: A True Romance. She raphy and was the subject of a two-hour Emmy Award- has taught writing and literature at UC Davis, The George winning “NOVA” documentary. She is also the author of Washington University, and most recently at Saint Mary’s the books The Planets and A More Perfect Heaven. A long- College in Moraga, CA. She lives with her family in the San time science contributor to Harvard Magazine, Audubon, Francisco Bay Area. [F/NF]

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Mary Volmer is the author of two USA. Writers she has worked with in finding new literary voices, and novels: Crown of Dust and Reliance, include Kate Atkinson, Joshua Ferris, over the course of her career has had Illinois. She earned an MFA at Saint Tina Fey, Elin Hilderbrand, James the joy of representing many bestsell- Mary’s College (CA) and a masters’ Patterson, George Pelecanos, Megan ing and acclaimed authors from the degree from the University of Wales, Abbott, Nina Stibbe, Eleanor Catton, time of their first published work. Aberystwyth, where she was a Rotary and Ian Rankin. Ambassadorial Scholar. She has been Joy Johannessen has been an editor awarded residencies at the Vermont Michael V. Carlisle, a founder of at Chelsea House, Grove Press, and Studio Center and Hedgebrook. InkWell Management, has been Oxford University Press, a senior edi- Her short fiction and essays have involved with the Community of tor at HarperCollins Publishers, and appeared in magazines and journals Writers for many years. His fiction and the executive editor of Delphinium such as the Farallon Review, Mutha nonfiction client list includes prize- Books. She has worked with hun- Magazine and Women’s Basketball winning as well as debut authors. dreds of writers, among them Magazine and featured on Stories on A former director of the Association Rabih Alameddine, Dorothy Allison, Stage (Sacramento). She teaches at of Author’s Representatives, a not- Amy Bloom, Harold Bloom, Michael Saint Mary’s College. [F] for-profit organization of indepen- Cunningham, Larry Kramer, Ursula dent literary and dramatic agents, Le Guin, Arthur Miller, Ralph Nader, Al Young is the author of 25 books Michael is an active member of PEN. and Héctor Tobar. She is the co-editor, (novels, poetry collections, and anthol- He directs the Nonfiction Program of with Roxanne Coady, of The Book That ogies.) He is currently Distinguished the Community of Writers and serves Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Professor in the MFA In Writing on the Board of Directors. Celebrate the Books That Matter Most Program at California College of the to Them. She currently freelances. Arts, San Francisco, where he conducts Erika Goldman is publisher and edi- seminars in creativity and imaginative torial director of Bellevue Literary Calvert D. Morgan Jr. was Senior writing. From 2005-2008, he served as Press (BLP), a nonprofit mission-driven Vice President and Executive Editor California’s first official Poet Laureate. publisher that has been publishing at Harper and Eitorial Director at His honors include two Pushcart Prizes, literary fiction and nonfiction at the Harper Perennial, two imprints of NEA, Guggenheim, Woodrow Wilson, intersection of the arts and the sci- HarperCollins Publishers. His authors Fulbright Fellowships, the Richard ences since 2007. BLP’s books have included Jess Walter, Roxane Gay, Wright Award for Literary Excellence, received major literary prizes: The Tom Piazza, Porochista Khakpour, and the 2011 Thomas Wolfe Award. Sojourn by Andrew Krivak was a 2011 Amber Tamblyn, Elizabeth Tallent, Three titles will appear in 2016: 22 National Book Award finalist and 2012 Christopher Bollen, Kate Zambreno, Moon Poems, October Variations, and winner of the first annual Chautauqua Blake Butler, Stanley Crouch, and Love Offline (City Lights Books). Since Prize and Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Molly Crabapple. A graduate of Yale the early 1980s, Al Young has been a The Jump Artist by Austin Ratner won University, he worked for eleven years Community of Writers stalwart serv- the 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish at St. Martin’s Press before joining ing as teaching staff and a member of Literature, and the New York Times HarperCollins. the Board of Directors. [F/NF] bestseller Tinkers, by Paul Harding, received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize. BJ Robbins established her Los Angeles-based agency in 1992 after a Joy Harris established her own liter- multi-faceted career in book publish- Editors & Agents ary agency in 1990. She works pri- ing in NY, first in publicity at Simon marily with literary fiction, strongly- & Schuster and later as Marketing Reagan Arthur is Senior Vice written commercial fiction, narrative Director and then Senior Editor at President and Publisher of Little, nonfiction across a broad range of Harcourt. Her clients include many Brown, a division of the Hachette topics, memoir and biography, and New York Times bestselling and Book Group. She joined Little, Brown is drawn to a clear, original voice, an award-winning writers in both fiction in 2001 after spending more than ten engaging point of view, and strong and nonfiction, such as J. Maarten years at St. Martin’s Press and Picador characters. She takes great pleasure Troost, James Donovan, Deanne

Writers Workshops Staff continued on Page 11 -10- Stillman, Max Byrd, Mary Volmer, Stephen Graham Jones, Anne Lamott, is the author of seven novels, including Nafisa Haji, and John Hough, Jr. Hard Laughter, Rosie, Joe Jones, Blue Shoe, All New People, Crooked Little Heart, and Imperfect Birds. She has also Jack Shoemaker was born in California and has been a written eight bestselling books of nonfiction, includ- bookseller and publisher for more than fifty years. He was ing Operating Instructions; Some Assembly Required: A the founder and editor of North Point Press in Berkeley. Journal of My Son’s First Son; and a writing guide; Bird After it closed he worked for a few years as the West by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Her collec- Coast Editor of the Knopf Publishing Group, before leav- tions of autobiographical essays on faith are Traveling ing to co-found Counterpoint Press twenty years ago. He Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith; Plan B: Further Thoughts continues his work there serving as the Editorial Director. on Faith; Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith; Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers and most recent- Andrew Tonkovich edits the West Coast literary journal ly Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair. Her Santa Monica Review and hosts Bibliocracy, a weekly liter- last book of essays, Small Victories: Spotting Improbable ary arts show on Pacifica Radio KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern Moments of Grace, was published by Riverhead Books. California. He writes about books, politics and people for the OC Weekly online at OC Bookly. Recent fiction, essays Michelle Latiolais is Professor of English at the University and reviews appear in Free Inquiry, Faultline, Juked, Ecotone, of California at Irvine. She is the author of the novel Los Angeles Review of Books and Best American Nonrequired Even Now which received the Gold Medal for Fiction Reading. He is co-editing with Lisa Alvarez the first-ever from the Commonwealth Club of California. Her second literary anthology of Orange County, The Barricades of novel, A Proper Knowledge, and a collection of stories, Heaven: A Literary Field Guide to Orange County, California involutions and essays, Widow, were both published by for Heyday. He teaches at UC Irvine and works on behalf Bellevue Literary Press. She has published writing in of the labor union representing Librarians and Lecturers. three anthologies, Absolute Disaster, Women On The Edge: Writing From Los Angeles and Woof! Writers on Dogs. Her Oscar Villalon is the managing editor at ZYZZYVA. His stories and essays have appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Antioch work has appeared in Zocalo Public Square, VQR, The Review, Western Humanities Review, Santa Monica Review, Believer, Black Clock, and other publications, and he is a Iowa Review and the Northwest Review. Recent work has contributing editor at LitHub.com. appeared in ZYZZYVA, Santa Monica Review, Juked and The Kenyon Review. She will be released in May 2016 by Norton & Company. Special Guests Matt Sumell is a graduate of UC Irvine’s MFA Program in Writing, and his short fiction has since appeared in The Jane Ciabattari is the author of two critically acclaimed Paris Review, Esquire, Electric Literature, McSweeney’s, One short story collections: California Tales and Stealing the Fire. Story, Noon, and elsewhere. His first novel, Making Nice She was Life of Letters Lecturer at Bennington’s Graduate was published by Henry Holt & Company in 2015. Writing Seminars, and has taught fiction at Chautauqua’s Writers’ Center, at Knox College (as Distinguished Writer Amy Tan’s novels are The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s in Residence.) She contributes regularly to BBC.com, NPR. Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, org, The Literary Hub and other publications, and serves Saving Fish from Drowning, and The Valley of Amazement, as vice president (and a former president) of the National all New York Times bestsellers. She was co-writer and Book Critics Circle. She is a member of the San Francisco co-producer of the film The Joy Luck Club, and was the Writers’ Grotto. librettist for an opera based on The Bonesetter’s Daughter. She has also published a book of essays, The Opposite of Rhoda Huffey is the author of The Hallelujah Side, a Fate; two children’s books, The Moon Lady and Sagwa; novel, and has published stories in Ploughshares, Green and numerous articles for magazines including The New Mountains Review, Santa Monica Review, and Rattling Wall. Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, and National Geographic. Tan’s She has an MFA from the University of California at Irvine work has been widely anthologized and translated into and is a past participant at the Community of Writers. 35 languages. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Community of Writers. She is currently working on a nonfiction book called The Mind of a Writer. o

-11- Writers Workshops continued on Page 12 Published Alumni Reading Series ach summer, recently published alumni are invited to return to Squaw Valley to read from their books and talk about their Ejourney from unpublished writers to published authors. The Community of Writers is delighted to celebrate the success of these writers and to present them to the participants, staff, and the public.

Minh City, and Nepal, where she was a Peace Corps volun- 2016 Published Alumni Readers teer. She has been a teacher, a truck driver and a bartender. Stephanie Kegan is the author of the novel Golden State At one time she was the littlest logger in Lincoln, Montana. published by Simon & Schuster in February, 2015. Her previ- www.marianpalaia.com ous books include The Baby, a novel published by the Berkley Publishing Group and Places to Go with Children in Southern Juan Alvarado Valdivia is a Peruvian American writer California (six editions) published by Chronicle Books. Her who was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. He is the author non-fiction has appeared in Self, Los Angeles Magazine, the of ¡Cancerlandia!: A Memoir. He received his MFA in cre- Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles. ative writing from Saint Mary’s College of California. This She attended the Community of Writers in 2003 and 2005. upcoming winter, he will be a resident at the Brush Creek www.stephaniekegan.com Foundation for the Arts. He lives in Oakland and attended the Community of Writers in 2013. Nayomi Munaweera’s debut novel, Island of a Thousand www.juanalvaradovaldivia.com Mirrors won the Commonwealth Regional Prize for Asia and was short-listed for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature Heather Young’s debut novel, The Lost Girls, will be pub- and the Northern California Book Prize. She lives in Oakland, lished in summer 2016 by William Morrow/HarperCollins. California and her second novel, What Lies Between Us, will She lives in Northern California with her husband and two be released in February 2016. She attended the Community children. After receiving her law degree from the University of Writers in 2011 and 2012. www.nayomimunaweera.com of Virginia, she practiced law in San Francisco for a number of years before beginning her writing career in 2009. She Marian Palaia is the author of The Given World published received an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars by Simon and Schuster in 2015. Born in Riverside, California, in 2011, and continued her education at the Community of she has lived in San Francisco (on and off) since 1985. Other Writers in 2013. www.heatheryoungwriter.com places she has lived include Montana, Hong Kong, Ho Chi

2015 Recent Alumni Readers: 2014 2013

Andrew Roe, Désirée Zamorano, Paulette Livers, Peyton Marshall Kevin Allardice, Monica Wesolowska, Alan Grostephan, Eddy Ancinas, Peggy Hesketh, Eileen Cronin Amy Franklin-Willis, Mark Maynard, Alison Singh Gee, with Alex Espinoza introducing Alumni who have been part of this reading series include Kevin Allardice, Anita Amirrezvani, Eddy Ancinas, Ramona Ausubel, David Bajo, Aimee Bender, David Corbett, Charmaine Craig, Eileen Cronin, Frances Dinkelspiel, Heather Donahue, Cai Emmons, Alex Espinoza, Joshua Ferris, Jamie Ford, Vicki Forman, Amy Franklin-Willis, Alison Singh Gee, Tanya Egan Gibson, Glen David Gold, Alan Grostephan, Judith Hendricks, Susan Henderson, Sara J. Henry, Peggy Hesketh, Rhoda Huffey, Michael Jaime-Becerra, Alma Katsu, Regina Louise, Krys Lee, Paulette Livers, Michael David Lukas, Peyton Marshall, Marisa Matarazzo, Mark Maynard, Christina Meldrum, Janis Cooke Newman, Jessica O’Dwyer, Aline Ohanesian, Victoria Patterson, Frederick Reiken, Andrew Roe, Robin Romm, Ismet Prcic, Elizabeth Rosner, Adrienne Sharp, Alice Sebold, Julia Flynn Siler, Jordan Fisher Smith, Scott Sparling, Ellen Sussman, Lisa Tucker, Brenda Rickman Vantrease, Mary Volmer, Dora Calott Wang, M.D., Monica Wesolowska, Andrew Winer, Alia Yunis and Désirée Zamorano among others. -12- Application Guidelines

To apply, complete our online form by following the appropriate link below. The application manu- script (digital file) can be attached to the online application, or emailed by the deadline. Those without internet may submit through the US Mail. Questions? Visit www.communityofwriters.org for more information. You may also email us at [email protected] or call (530) 470-8440.

POETRY WORKSHOP WRITERS WORKSHOPS o Past Poetry participants: If you wish to attend this year, contact o Past Writers Workshop participants: us for information about the returning poet procedure. Fiction Participants: If you attended the last two years do not o Deadline for receipt of application/submission: April 5, 2016 apply this year. (i.e., attendance is allowed 2 out of every 3 o Submission should consist of four or five pages of recent years.) poems, typed, 12 pt. Submit PDF or Word.doc. Nonfiction Participants: If you attended last year please do not apply this year. i.e., attendance is allowed after you have o Put your name in the upper right-hand corner of each page. taken a year off. o Attach a digital file (PDF or Word.doc) of your submission ms. o Deadline for receipt of application/submission: April 12, 2016 to the online application form. (Manuscripts will not be o returned; they will be recycled. Digital files will be deleted.) Applicants, including past participants, should submit a o To complete the online Application Form, submit Financial sample of their best, unpublished prose. Aid application, and to upload a PDF of your manuscript, o Writing sample submission ms. may consist of a story (or follow this link: https://communityofwriters.org/apply/ stories), essay(s) or chapter(s). Book chapters should be o If any difficulty is encountered uploading your digital accompanied by a one-page synopsis of the whole book’s plot. manuscript contact us for assistance. (Add to the end of ms.) Submission ms. (excluding synopsis) o must be less than 5,000 words. Once you have completed the online form, you will receive an o email confirmation. Submission ms. must be typed, double-spaced and 12 pt., o with your name in the upper right-hand corner of each page. A $35 reading fee will be due with application & submission, o payable by check or credit card, online. Attach a digital file (PDF or Word.doc) of your submission ms. to the online application form. (Manuscripts will not be o To pay reading fee by check:(Payable to Community of returned; digital files will be deleted.) Writers) print application confirmation email, and enclose o with check. To complete the online Application Form, submit Financial Mail to: Aid application, and to upload a PDF of your manuscript, Community of Writers - Poetry follow this link: https://communityofwriters.org/apply/ PO Box 1416 o If any difficulty is encountered uploading your digital Nevada City, CA 95959 manuscript, contact us for assistance. o o Notification of acceptance by May 1. Requests to participate in the “Art of Revision” workshop can be made on the online application form. (See page 8) o Requests to participate in Special Film Adapation Class can be made on the online application form. (See page 8) o If applying in more than one category, (Fiction, Nonfiction, Memoir) please submit separate online applications. o A $40 reading fee will be due with each submission, payable by check (see address below) or via credit card, online. o Once you complete the online form, you will receive an email confirmation. o To pay reading fee by check: (Payable to Community of Writers) print application confirmation email, and enclose with check. Mail to: Community of Writers - WW PO Box 1416 Nevada City, CA 95959 o Notification of acceptance by May 20.

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