omnium gatherum & newsletter

2 0 1 0 - 2 0 1 1 i s s u e 1 5 Community of Writers at Squaw Valley Our Supporters Omnium Gatherum & Newsletter Table 2010-2011, Issue 15 The Community of Writers gratefully acknowledges the financial support that of Community of Writers at Squaw Valley makes our programs possible: A Non-Profit Corporation #629182 Academy Foundation of The Academy of P .O . Box 1416, Nevada City, CA 95959 Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Contents E-mail: brett@squawvalleywriters .org The Bookshelf Bookstores www .squawvalleywriters .org Depot Bookstore Newsletter edited and designed by Entrekin Foundation Maxima Kahn Anne & Gordon Getty Foundation with support and advice from Hotel Rex Brett Hall Jones LEF Foundation National Endowment for the Arts Announcing Our 2011 Summer Programs...... 4 Board of Directors San Francisco Foundation Note from the Editor...... 5 President Max Byrd Squaw Valley Ski Corporation Remembering Lucille Clifton ...... 6 Vice President Joanne Meschery Squaw Valley Institute Secretary Eddy Ancinas University of California, Irvine Poetry Staff News...... 7 Financial OfficerBurnett Miller University of California, Riverside Osvaldo Ancinas Dean Young Needs Our Help...... 8 and our many individual donors and friends, Jan Buscho Participant Profile: Keetje Kuipers...... 10 Alan Cheuse as well as Lou DeMattei, Amy Tan, Lucinda Mark Childress Watson and an anonymous donor for their PoetWatch: Poetry Participant News ...... 11 Nancy Cushing major contributions to the Community of Sounds of Summer 2009: Music Heard in the Office...... 17 Richard Ford Writers Endowment . Blair Fuller Summer 2010 Special Thanks and Gallery of Photos...... 18 Diana Fuller Screenwriting Staff News...... 21 Barbara Hall Edwina Leggett About Our Advertisers Screenwriting Participant News...... 22 James Naify The ads which appear in this issue represent Participant Profile: Felicia Lowe...... 25 Michael Pietsch the work of Community of Writers staff and Christopher Sindt participants . These ads help to defray the Published Alumni Reading Series...... 26 Amy Tan cost of the newsletter . If you have a recent John C. Walker Writers Workshop Staff News...... 30 or forthcoming book, please contact us Harold Weaver The Pleasures and Necessity of Browsing by Alan Cheuse...... 33 Al Young about advertising in our next annual issue . Contact Maxima Kahn for a Rate Sheet Writers Workshop Participant News...... 37 The Workshops and more information: (530) 273-3566 The Community of Writers Goes Social!...... 50 Executive Director Brett Hall Jones or maxima@squawvalleywriters .org Writers Workshops: or visit: www .squawvalleywriters .org Participant Profile: Jennifer Egan...... 51 Lisa Alvarez All But Dissertation: A Short Short Story by Janet Fitch...... 52 Louis B. Jones Michael Carlisle A Letter from Brett...... 53 Poetry Robert Hass Please note: We are not able to fact-check Remembering Tad...... 54 Screenwriting Diana Fuller the submitted news. We apologize if any You Might Want To Consider...... 55 incorrect information is published. Contributors This Issue...... 55

~ ~ 20ii A Note from the Editor Community elcome to the Omnium Gatherum & Newsletter! POETRY WORKSHOPS: July 16 - 23 Jack Kerouac in his “Belief Robert Hass · Brenda Hillman W and Technique for Modern Prose: List of of Writers Cathy Park Hong · Major Jackson · Sharon Olds Essentials” gives as number 19: “Accept & Special Guest Galway Kinnell Loss Forever.” Number 20 is “Believe in the holy contour of life .” We’ve had to Send WRITERS WORKSHOPS: August 6 - 13 weather some very heavy losses in the Us David Bajo · Elise Blackwell · Max Byrd Community of Writers in recent years: Your Michael Carlise · Ron Carlson · Alan Cheuse first our co-founder Oakley Hall II, Mark Childress · Leslie Daniels · Gill Dennis then beloved staff members James D. News! Alex Espinosa · Janet Fitch · Karen Joy Fowler Houston and Lucille Clifton, and now Lynn Freed · Dagoberto Gilb · Sands Hall suddently Oakley “Tad” Hall III, as well PAST PARTICIPANT OR STAFF? as Pokey, mascot for so many years . It’s Gerald Haslam · Rhoda Huffey · Louis B. Jones Do you have news you would like us Squaw Valley not so easy to accept that loss is woven to include in the next newsletter? The Michelle Latiolais · Frederick Reiken · Jason Roberts into the fabric of our lives, and from Omnium is published once a year . We Robin Romm · Jervey Tervalon that acceptance to find our renewed print publishing credits, awards and Literary Agents · Book & Literary Magazine Editors belief in the holy contour of those California similar new writing-related achieve- and more lives . But that is precisely part of the ments, and also include births . News PUBLISHED ALUMNI: enduring work of great writing . One of the earliest and longest-standing should be from the past year only. SUMMER Sara J. Henry · Alma Katsu Please compose it in third person, us- Michael David Lukas · Jessica O’Dwyer · Alia Yunis tasks of our poets and writers has been to help us grieve, acknowledge ing complete sentences . Include titles, WRITING PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS: and celebrate what we’ve lost and periodicals, publisher, and publication Sam Barry · Kathi Kamen Goldmark help us find the holy contour in it all, dates, as needed . Deadline: Septem- WORKSHOPS Diane Johson · Anne Lamott · David Lukas the beauty and mystery, the thread of ber 1, 2011 for next issue. Malcolm Margolin · Amy Tan sense, the story . Financial Aid available We dedicate this issue of the Thank you to each of you who Application Deadlines SCREENWRITING: August 6 - 13 Omnium Gatherum & Newsletter Production commitments will determine the continues this grand tradition of to the memories of long-time availability of staff members and guests. meaning-making, story-weaving and May 10 for Poetry staff member and friend Lucille Eugene Corr · Pamela Gray · Toney Merritt bringing out the sometimes-obscured Clifton and our own beloved May 10 Writers Workshop Patricia Meyer · Christopher Monger · Judith Rascoe holy contour . I hope this issue inspires Oakley Hall III. May 1 for Screenwriting Tom Rickman · Lisa Rosenberg · Tom Schlesinger and helps you to continue through Camille Thomasson · Michael Urban the inevitable losses and gains, the [email protected] celebrations and tragedies, and to PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS: (530) 470-8440 remember that community is essential Sarah Ryan Black · Debbie Brubaker · Graham Leggat to our well-being . www.squawvalleywriters.org Danielle Refrew · Scott Rosenfelt · George Rush —Maxima Kahn Gail Silva · Ron Yerxa maxima@squawvalleywriters .org

~ ~ ~ ~ Lucille Clifton: 1936-2010 Beloved and admired friend and staff member, Lucille Clifton Poetry died Saturday, February 13, 2010. She had been invited back again to Squaw Valley for the summer of 2010 as a Special Guest . We had so looked forward to seeing her again . She had been a regular staff member since 1991 and continued to return almost every other year Staff News since then .

Lucille was a major figure in American letters. She was an award-winning poet, fiction writer and author of children’s books . BOA Editions published her most recent collection, Kazim Ali: Orange Alert: Essays on Evie Shockley: Her second poetry book, Mercy, as well as Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1969-1999, which won the Poetry, Art and the Architecture of the new black, was just released from 2000 National Book Award for Poetry . Two of Clifton’s BOA poetry collections, Good Woman: Silence was published by the University of Wesleyan University Press in March 2011. Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 and Next: New Poems, were chosen as finalists for the Michigan Press in the fall, and Fasting for She also has a book of poetry criticism, Pulitzer Prize in 1988, while Clifton’s The Terrible Stories (BOA) was a finalist for the 1996 Ramadan: Essays on Spiritual Practice Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and National Book Award . Clifton served as Distinguished Professor of Humanities and holder of will be published in April 2011 by Tupelo Formal Innovation in African American the Hilda C. Landers Endowed Chair in the Liberal Arts at St. Mary’s College of Maryland until Press . www .kazimali .com Poetry, forthcoming in the University her retirement in the fall of 2005. She continued to serve St. Mary’s as Professor Emeritus Cornelius Eady: He received an honorary of Iowa Press’s Contemporary North and Friend to the College. She was appointed a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts Doctor of Fine Arts Degree from the American Poetry Series later in the year . and Sciences, and elected as Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 1999 . In 2007 University of Rochester . C.D. Wright: Her collection One With she was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, which honors a living U .S . poet whose lifetime Forrest Gander: He has a book of poems Others (Copper Canyon Press) was a accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition . This year, 2010, she was awarded the finalist for the National Book Awards. Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America to honor “distinguished lifetime service to and two books of translations coming out American poetry ”. in Spring 2011: Core Samples from the Robert Hass: His most recent volume, World (poetry, photos, haibun) from New The Apple Trees at Olema: New and At the Poetry Workshop in Squaw Valley, she was a warm and wise presence, a listener Directions; Watchword, Poems of Pura Selected Poems, was published by Ecco in Lopez Colome from Wesleyan; Spectacle spring 2010 . He selected the poems, wrote as well as a storyteller . She wrote new poems each day along with the other staff poets and & Pigsty, Poems of Kiwao Nomura from the introduction, and with Paul Ebenkamp participants, and even her rough drafts were fine examples of her work. Lucille composed her OmniDawn. His poem “Witness” was set provided annotations for “Song of Myself” daily poems on a typewriter, working on one of Oakley Hall’s shabby IBM Selectrics. to “PoemFlow,” available as an Itunes app: for a new edition of Song of Myself: And www.poemflow.com/776 Other Poems by Walt Whitman, published We still remember her final poem of the 2008 week, how it achieved what Lucille’s work in February by Counterpoint. did so well – three spare lines that captured the spirit of the Galway Kinnell: The Chancellors of previous night’s party at the Hall House, the week itself – and the Academy of American Poets selected Brenda Hillman: Practical Water (2009) much more . That poem, the last, as it turned out, that we would Galway Kinnell as the recipient of the won the Los Angeles Times Book Award see from our old friend, went something like this: 2010 Wallace Stevens Award, recognizing for Poetry . outstanding and proven mastery in the art Yusef Komunyakaa: The Chameleon over the mountains of poetry . Couch: Poems will be released by and under the stars it is Harryette Mullen: She was the recipient Farrar, Straus and Giroux in March 2011. one hell of a ride of Poets & Writers’ fourth annual Jackson Conversations with Yusef Komunyakaa Poetry Prize. Poets & Writers says of the (published in April 2010 by University There is an empty place where once there was Lucille, but $50,000 prize that it “honors an American Press of Mississippi) brings together over we are fortunate to have her words to help us fill it. poet of exceptional talent who deserves two decades of interviews and profiles wider recognition .” with the poet . photo by Tracy Hall ~ ~ ~ ~ Dean Young: A new collection of poems, Manzanita Fall Higher, is scheduled for release from Writers Press Copper Canyon in April . His book on invites your poetics, The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as delectable Assertive Force and Contradiction, was poetry, prose, the new black published by Graywolf in 2010 . art/photography submissions for Evie Shockley Gerald Stern: His Early Collected Poems: a new collection: “In these remarkable new poems Evie Shockley 1965-1992 was published by W . W . Norton A Taste of Literary Elegance seems to step to us wearing an alluring silk gown & Company in July. with Wine, Cheese, and and steel-toe guerilla boots! She possesses that rare combination of grace and subversiveness. Kevin Young: He won the Graywolf Chocolate Her synthesis of poetic styles (the sonnet, the Nonfiction Prize for The Grey Album: epistle, the tarot, the diagram) produces a poetry New and previously published that is recognizable and strange, engaging and Music, Lying, & the Blackness of Being, a poetry, prose, photography and art revolutionary. the new black is a book of stunning collection of essays . He edited an anthology desired. urgency and invention.”—Terrance Hayes of contemporary elegies, The Art of Losing: Complete Submission Guidelines at $22.95 jacketed cloth www.manzapress.com. Poems of Grief & Healing, which was Email editor for questions: Bright Felon published by Bloomsbury in March 2010 [email protected]. Autobiography and Cities and was chosen as one of the IndieNext Contest Entry fee $10.00. Deadline: March 31, 2011 top ten poetry books for 2010 . Kazim Ali “Bright Felon will steal your heart and outrage your poetics. Part memoir, part trip book, part literary discourse, there is in it an urgent sense of a life lived Dean Young Needs Our Help in words. The tale is one of both innocence and experience. Rigorous, romantic, experimental, true, Our brilliant Dean Young came very near to complete car- and yet mysterious, it is a book for the ages.” diac failure this fall. Dean’s heart condition is congenital —Laura Moriarty $22.95 jacketed cloth and he’d been living with it for a while. His doctors were in the process of preparing him for a heart transplant when his heart began to fail. So they implanted external heart pumps Practical Water as a temporary expedient. Dean is now out of intensive care and awaiting a heart transplant. That’s the good news. Brenda Hillman “Brenda Hillman’s Practical Water doubles as a ecological treatise, in which the imagination The difficult news is that, though insurance covers most of the costs of a heart holds a wellspring of alternatives to our society’s transplant operation, there are typically between $100,000 and $250,000 in environmentally damaging practices. … a remarkable expenses before and after surgery not covered by insurance. In response to addition to this accomplished poet’s body of work.” this, there exists a National Foundation for Transplants through which friends —Kristin Marie Darling, The Kenyon Review of transplant patients can make tax-deductible donations to help cover their $22.95 jacketed cloth uncovered medical expenses. Dean’s friends have signed him up for the NFT website and want you to know that they are grateful for help in any amount. These projects supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Go to: www.transplants.org/donate/deanyoung. Click on “Donate Today” and Order from your favorite bookseller or call 800-421-1561 make sure to put in Dean’s name where it says, “My gift is in honor of the fol- www.wesleyan.edu/wespress lowing patient.” Save 30% when you use discount code W301 on your web order

~ ~ ~ ~ Participant Profile: Keetje Kuipers PoetWatch eetje Kuipers was born in Pullman, WA to a fishing guide and a Ksociologist . Though she’s pursued all manner of careers--from midnight baker to Google desk jockey, publisher’s assistant to Off-Off-Broadway actress--poetry poetry has been her passion for many years . She earned her B .A . at Swarthmore College, starting out as a theater major. The experience influenced her poetry: “I believe that poetry is best when participants recited . Therefore, I believe it should be written to be read aloud . It needs drama, music, and character—all performative elements. It also needs a story. Poems are tiny plays: they have individual personas, voices, monologues.” She went on to earn an MFA at the University of Lauren Alleyne (08): Her poetry won first Susan Browne (10,88): Her second Oregon . prize in the Small Axe Literary Competition book of poetry, Zephyr, recently won the In 2007 Keetje was the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident. and will be published in Small Axe next Editor’s Prize at Steel Toe Books (www . She spent seven months in the wilderness in a cabin two miles down a dirt July. Poems of hers were also published in steeltoebooks .com) and was published in road, working on her book Beautiful in the Mouth. Perhaps not surprisingly, The Caribbean Review of Books and are June 2010. A poem from that collection, given the circumstances, the book explores themes of loneliness, loss and forthcoming in Connotation Press. “The Nose on Your Face,” is on Writer’s Almanac, a daily e-newsletter and podcast longing, as well as geography, but it also contains, in the words of Daisy Stella Beratlis (07): Her poem “The from Garrison Keillor. Fried, ““Brooklyn parties and Montana creeks. Merle Haggard and girls’ Place That Inhabits Us” was included in soccer teams . Hurricanes and gullies, eviction notices and women’s shoes .” The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the Elizabeth Chapman (09,07,04,00): Her The isolation not only helped Kuipers develop confidence in her own San Francisco Bay Watershed, released daughter, Maggie, gave birth to a baby girl process and judgment of her work, the book was awarded the prestigious last spring by Sixteen Rivers Press . on April 6. Her ensuing poem, “Stella”, A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and was published in 2010 by BOA Editions. Poet was accepted by Rattle magazine for their Thomas Lux wrote of the collection, ““I was immediately struck by the Bruce Bond (97): His recent collections Winter issue . boldness of imagination, the strange cadences, and wild music of these poems .” of poetry include The Visible (LSU, forthcoming) and Peal (Etruscan Press) . Sharon Charde (07,03,00): This year, she has been published in PMS Kuipers attended the Community of Writers in 2005. She says, “I went looking for community, Alexander Booth (03): Translations of (poememoirstory), The Poet’s Touchstone, and that’s exactly what I found there . Never before or since have I shared poems with such poems by the Italian poet Sandro Penna Poet Lore, Cadeuceus, CT River Review, a positive, celebratory, and enthusiastic group of writers . There are plenty of summer writing appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of The Homestead Review, The Naugatuck conferences, but none of them places such marvelous emphasis on the role of a loving FreeVerse as well as in the Winter 2009/2010 River Review and Rattle . In addition, she community in a writer’s life .” issue of The Journal of Italian Translation . won third prize in the New Hampshire Translations of the Nobel prize winning Poetry Society 2010 contest, Honorable She started writing poems in high school when she “fortuitously stumbled upon Dorianne German poet Nelly Sachs were used in the Mention in contests sponsored by CT Laux’s first book, Awake, and completely fell in love with her poems, and poetry in general .” exhibit Flucht und Verwandlung in Berlin. River Review and Naugatuck River She says, “I like to think of my poems as equations that I’m working out…it’s a puzzle that An article, “In whose shadow? Pasolini, Review, Special Merit in The Comstock in some alternate reality already has a solution, I just need to work it out. If that’s struggling, Gramsci & Shelley in the Non-Catholic Review’s annual contest, and first prize in then I welcome it, the same way I welcome a hike up a very steep hillside — what a feeling of Cemetery,” appeared in the Spring 2010 the Matt Clark Poetry Contest sponsored accomplishment (not to mention a rewarding view) waits at the top .” issue of the newsletter of the Friends of by the New Delta Review. A review of the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome . He her collection, Branch in Hs Hand, was Still obsessed with restlessness and isolation, Kuipers is currently at work on a manuscript also keeps a blog on things Rome, literary published in Calyx. She was awarded a full entitled The Keys to the Jail, and this past summer started a non-fiction project about the and otherwise at: miseraestupendacitta. fellowship to the Virginia Center For The cabin in the wilderness where she lived and the woman, Margery Davis Boyden, for whom that wordpress .com Creative Arts . fellowship is named. Kuipers teaches writing at the University of Montana and is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She divides her time between San Francisco and Visit our new Notable Alumni page and learn how to nominate yourself or a friend: http://squawvalleywriters.org/NotableAlumniPoets.html Missoula. www.keetjekuipers.com ~ 10~ ~ 11~ Amanda Chiado (Poetry 07; WW 06): Poet,” and has been nominated for a Judy Halebsky (06,03): She is the Artist- of the MSR Editor’s Select Poetry Series in She was most recently published in Eleven Pushcart Prize . in-Residence for Theatre of Yugen in San December 2010. www.mainstreetrag.com/ Eleven and has work forthcoming in Mark Fitzgerald (09,06): His debut Francisco. She has poems forthcoming in NHerd .html Forklift, Ohio. Poetry Kanto and Yomimono . Her book, collection of poems, By Way of Dust Maxima Kahn (Poetry 07;WW 10,06): Sky=Empty, was published in April by New Catharine Clark-Sayles (09,03): Her and Rain, was published in May 2010 by She had poems published in Spillway, Issues . second book, Lifeboat, is due out from Cinnamon Press . Untitled Country Review (edited by Squaw Tebot Bach Press in January 2011. CB (‘Lyn) Follett (04,00,95): She Quinton Hallett (91): Her third Valley alum Scot Siegel) and Sacred Fire Claudette Cohen (00): Her poem “The has been named Poet Laureate of Marin chapbook, Refuge from Flux, was published Magazine. Lightning Rod Salesman” appeared in the County for a two year term which started in 2010 by Finishing Line Press. She also has work in The Medulla Review, Tiger’s Keetje Kuipers (05): See Profile on page Spring 2010 issue of storySouth (www . in April of 2010 . Her chapbook And So, 10 . storysouth .com) under the pen name of Through the Years She Builds Her Houses, Eye, and forthcoming in the anthology Claude Limoges . Her novel, The Seasoning an Editor’s Choice from Tebot Bach Press, Collecting Life: Poets on Objects Known Nadine Lockhart (05): She was one of of Rebecca, is now available through is forthcoming . In 2011, Time Being Books and Imagined. five finalists in last winter’sSonoran Review claudelimoges .blogspot .com . will publish her collection of poetry One Christine Hemp (06): Her debut Poetry Contest . She was also one of three poets published in Blue Mountain Review, Shira Dentz (05): Her book of poetry, Bird Falling . collection of poems, That Fall, was vol. 3, an anthology series . Her work has black seeds on a white dish, was published Shirley Gaines (04,01): She was chosen for publication in Finishing Line in November by Shearsman Books . published in Love Over 60: an anthology Press’ New Women’s Voices series . www . also appeared in Sin Fronteras 2008, 2009, christinehemp .com 2010, and in the upcoming 2011 . Charles Douthat (09,04): His first of women’s poems (Mayapple Press, 2010). collection of poems, Blue for Oceans, was She was also selected by Nils Peterson, Niki Herd (02): Main Street Rag Margaret Mackinnon (09): She has new published by NHR Press in November . Santa Clara County Poet Laureate, as the published her debut collection of poems, work in Poet Lore, the Valparaiso Poetry www .charlesdouthat .com thirtieth poet of Thirty Poems in 30 Days. The Language of Shedding Skin, as part Review, and the South Carolina Review. Sharon Fain (04): She received the 2009 Sandra Giedeman (95,93): Her work Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize, as well was included in a British anthology of Unfurl, Kite, and Veer as a Paumonak Visiting Writer’s Prize from summer-themed poetry, Crab Lines Off Farmingdale State College in New York. the Pier, and her poem “On Reading She had one-month residencies at the Lorca” was published by Paris/Atlantic, Anderson Center and at I-Park in 2010 . Her the journal of the American University in work is forthcoming in Arts & Letters and Paris . A collaborative poem was published Best New Poets 2010 from the University of in Poemeleon. Poems by Virginia Press . Daniela Gitlin (05,02): She launched a Bill Yake Rebecca Farivar (formerly Guyon) humor blog: shrinkunwrapped.com (08): Her chapbook American Lit was Veronica Golos (09): Her new poetry The second collection from this North- released by Dancing Girl Press . book, Vocabulary of Silence, is due for west ecologist, traveler, and story-singer is a feast of “meditation and laughter, Molly Fisk (04,99,95,92): She read a release this February by Red Hen Press. veronicagolos .wordpress .com learning offered up by a generous spirit, poem from her new collection The science made to sing—these poems feel More Difficult Beauty as part of Lara Gularte (WW 06,03; 05 Poetry): like a true gift inviting us to live and love TEDxSanFrancisco. Her poem “Hunter’s She was nominated by Bitter Oleander between the stars and the mites.” Moon” from the Sixteen Rivers Press Press for Best New Poets 2010 . One of her —Derek Sheffield anthology The Place That Inhabits Us poems was published by the Canadian was featured on Ted Kooser’s American Centre for Azorean Studies and Research . New from RadiolaRian PRess 92673 John Day River Road Life in Poetry . She won a Corporation for Her poetry is included in a book of essays Astoria, Oregon 97103 Available February 2011 Public Broadcasting grant for her radio called Imaginarios Luso-Americanos e [email protected] from David Robert Books commentary “Observations of a Working Acorianos by Vamberto Freitas. $15.00 + $3.00 postage and handling www.davidrobertbooks.com/otoole.html

~ 12~ ~ 13~ In February, she was invited to read at the America’s George Bogin Memorial Award. the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poems Library of Congress as part of the Poetry at She had poems published in the Denver in Defense of Global Human Rights, edited Noon series . She was awarded a residency Quarterly, and her manuscript of poems by Melissa Kwasny and M.L. Smoker, and at the Vermont Studio Center . was one of four runners-up for the Marsh published by Lost Horse Press last year . Hawk Press Prize . Matt Mauch (08): His first full-length Curtis Perdue (10): His poems can poetry collection, Prayer Book, was William Notter (95): His collection be seen in the Fall/Winter 2010 issues released in January of 2011 by Lowbrow. Holding Everything Down (Southern of Cloudbank, The Common Ground Yiskah Rosenfeld (03,01): She won the His first chapbook, The Book of Modern Illinois University Press, 2009) won the Review, and H_NGM_N. 2009 Anna Davidson Rosenberg prize for Prayer, came out in late 2010 (Palimpsest) . 2010 High Plains Book Award for Poetry poetry . New poems have appeared in Lilith He is the editor of Poetry City, USA, vol. 1 Emily Perez (10): She gave birth to Wylan and was a finalist for the 2010 Colorado Magazine, Maggid and Kerem. She gave (Lowbrow), an anthology of poems (plus Alado McFadden on September 17. Book Award . birth to a baby boy, Noam, on August 19 . essays) read at the inaugural Great Twin Kathleen O’Toole (09,05,03,01): Her Zara Raab (10): Her chapbook, Book of Cities Poetry Read, which will be available Elizabeth Rosner (Poetry 99; WW first full-length book of poetry,Meanwhile, Gretel, was published in spring 2010 by in April of 2011 . Finishing Line Press. Swimming the Eel 87,83,82): See Writers Workshop Staff will be published in February 2010 by David News . Theresa McCourt (08): She co-edited Robert Books . will come out in 2011 from David Robert (with Linda Collins) the Summer 2010 Tule Books . She has new work forthcoming Deborah Ruth (08,01,00,98,95,93,92 Coco Owen (05): She had poems appear Review, funded by the Sacramento Poetry in Common Ground Review, Cafe ,91): In June, her short play True Colors in two new journals this year, Cirque and Center . She is also co-editor of the Winter Review, Poetica, Meadowlands Review, was produced as part of the Foothill Tidal Basin Review . issue of Tule Review, due out January Borderlands Press, Critical Flame and College 2010 New Works Festival, her 2011. www.sacramentopoetrycenter.org/ Melinda Palacio (09): Her novel Ocotillo Poet Lore. zararaab .com short play Aptitudes was included in a tulereview .htm . Dreams will be published by ASU Bilingual showcase of staged readings called New Press in Spring 2011 . An excerpt appears in Douglas Ray (05): He received an Writers, New Works, and five of her short Judy Michaels (01,92,91): Her new M.F.A. in poetry from The University of plays were given a staged reading as part poetry collection, Reviewing the Skull, the anthology Strange Cargo: An Emerging Mississippi in May 2010. He was a 2010 of a monthly series called Friday Night was published by WordTech Editions in Voices Anthology, 1997-2010, PEN USA . Her Lambda Literary Foundation Poetry Fellow. Footlights, sponsored by The Dramatists’ January 2010. Her poems appeared or are poem “El South-Central Cucuy” appears He now teaches literature and writing at Guild . She was also invited to write the forthcoming in Nimrod, Lips, The Literary in New Poets of the American West: An Anthology of Eleven Western States, Many Indian Springs School, a boarding and day theatre column for The East Bay Monthly. Review and Thatchwork: Delaware school in Birmingham, Alabama . Valley Poets. Her women’s critique Voices Press 2010 . She also had new poems Larry Ruth (08,06,04,00): His poems and performance group, Cool Women, published in Quercus Review, Askew Renato Rosaldo (02,00): He won the were published in Everyone’s Sense Of published an anthology, Cool Women, vol. Poetry Journal, El Tecolote, San Pedro Many Mountains Moving Poetry Book The World Is Invaluable (Guardian News 4, and issued a new CD . River Review and in Pilgrimage Magazine . contest . His collection, Diego Luna’s & Media, UK) and are forthcoming in The Pilgrimage will also reprint, “Names and Insider Tips, will be released by Many Healing Art of Writing, Vol. One, edited by Sara Michas-Martin (08,03): She was a Numbers,” a poem from her chapbook finalist for the Gulf Coast Prize in Poetry, Mountains Moving Press in the fall of 2011 Joan Baranow, Brian Dolan & David Watts. Folsom Lockdown, winner of Kulupi Press’ and will be available through Small Press and her work has recently appeared or is Sense of Place competition . Marjorie Saiser (00): She has a new soon forthcoming in The American Poetry Distribution . chapbook, Rooms (Pudding House Review, The Believer, Denver Quarterly, Natalie Peeterse (06): Her poem Monika Rose (WW00; Poetry 97): Publications), and a full-length collection, “Mercado Oriental” was included in I Go to Harvard Review, Indiana Review, Jubilat, Her new volume of poems, River By Beside You at the Stoplight (The Backwaters Mare Nostrum, Word For/Word and the the Glass, was published by GlenHill Press) . Harp & Alter Anthology. She also received Publishing in November . The sixth volume Eliot Schain (Poetry 07,02,98; WW 99): full residency fellowships from Ragdale of Manzanita: Poetry and Prose of the He was published in the anthology The and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts . Mother Lode and Sierra books, which she Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Sawnie Morris (07): A selection of her edited, was released this past Fall. This Francisco Bay Watershed from Sixteen poems won the 2010 Poetry Society of volume is called Wild Edges. Rivers Press .

~ 14~ ~ 15~ David Scronce (08,05,03): Red Berry Review with Copper Canyon Press . Her The Sounds of Summer 2010 Editions published his chapbook Letters poems appeared in Harvard Review, Best Music Heard in the Office to Liam . Over the last year, his poems New Poets 2009, North American Review, —Lisa Alvarez have appeared in The Chaffin Journal, Alaska Quarterly Review, 32 Poems and CONFRONTATION, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Spoon River Quarterly Review . www . The Portland Review, The Queen City melissastein .com Review, RHINO, Salamander, Sanskrit, Jeanine Stevens (10,07): She won the Sierra Nevada Review and Tweets, and 2009 Ekphrasis Prize for “Frida in a White online at www Softblow. org. and www . Dress,” which also received a Pushcart thestraddler com. . Nomination. Her poem “Salt Lick” received Dave Seter (03): His debut chapbook, first place in the Maggie Meyer Poetry Night Duty, was published by Main Street Contest . Her chapbook Caught in Clouds was published in November by Finishing San Patricio: the Chieftains K.D. Lang: Recollection Rag Publishing Company . His poem featuring Ry Cooder “Windows,” which appeared in Raven Line Press . She had poems in Pearl, These two CDs span the singer’s career from Chronicles (Vol. 14 No. 2), was nominated PMS poem-memoir-story, Quercus and An inspired collection of old and new songs county (“Western Stars”) to nightclub (“Love for Sale”) and presents longed for highlights: for a Pushcart Prize in 2009 . Cosumnes River Review. about the oft-overlooked connection between Mexico and Ireland – the battalion of soldiers “Crying” with Roy Orbison, “Calling All Angels” Catherine Strisik (00,92): Her collection Gary Short (Poetry 91; WW 81): He was (The San Patricios) who left America and joined with Jane Siberry and two—count ‘em two — awarded a Fellowship in Creative Writing of poems Thousand-Cricket Song was General Santa Ana to fight in the Mexican- versions of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” for 2011 from the National Endowment for published by Plain View Press . Poems will American War . Guest artists include Lila the Arts . be included in Studio and Canteen. Downs, Los Tigres del Norte, Los Folkoristas, Love is Strange: En Vivo con Scot Siegel (07): His new chapbook, Francine Toff (02): Her first full-length Linda Ronstadt – and Liam Neeson . Tinto: Jackson Browne and Skeleton Says, was published by Finishing collection of poems, Rain, Lilies, Luck, David Lindley was published in 2010 by North Star Press . John Prine: In Person and On Stage Line Press . Salmon Poetry will publish his Recorded live in Spain, this two CD collection second full-length collection in 2012 . New North Star also published her memoir, A lively live collection of this singer- Joliet Girl . She received an Elizabeth showcases Browne and Lindley’s solo and poems appeared in High Desert Journal, songwriter’s greatest hits – plus a few new collaborative work . Spanish colleagues appear George Grant this year as well as a MiPOesias, Naugatuck River Review, tunes . Guest musicians include Emmylou throughout . Check out Luz Casal’s exquisite fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation. Press 1, Right Hand Pointing and The Harris, Iris DeMent and Josh Ritter. rendition of “These Days.” Oregonian. “Tonight and other poems”, a selection of ten poems, was awarded an Honorable Genuine Negro Jig: Carolina Kevin Simmonds (10): His first poetry Mention in the 2010 Pablo Neruda Poetry Creedance Clearwater Revival: collection, Mad for Meat, from Salmon Prize Competition . Chocolate Drops 20 Greatest Hits Poetry in 2011. He received a San Francisco Old time music—banjos, fiddle and guitars Sholeh Wolpe (04): She recently won the We forgot how good they were . How is that Arts Commission grant for Orient, a —and more. The trio of Dom Flemons, Lois Roth Persian Translation Prize for her possible? multimedia theater work about Asian-Black Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson revive translation of Sin: The Selected Poems of relations in America . and reinterpret the African-American roots of Van Morrison: Moondance Forugh Farrokhzad (University of Arkansas string band music . Minton Sparks (06): She released a new Press, 2007) . www sholehwolpe. com. Once again, Van Morrison’s album got a recording of spoken word, Minton Sparks Bill Yake (96): His second full-length workout last summer . This classic collection Live, in October 2010. The Fellowship of collection, Unfurl, Kite, and Veer, was served our needs . We never got tired Southern Writers awarded her the 2011 released this year by Radiolarian Press . of it and we hope you didn’t either . Award for Spoken Word . His poem “Aging…” was chosen as one Melissa Stein (99): Her poetry collection of four to kick off a one-man play at the Rough Honey won the 2010 APR/ Washington Center for the Performing Honickman First Book Prize, selected by Arts, and a poem of his was printed in the Mark Doty, published by American Poetry Capitol Land Trust newsletter .

~ 16~ ~ 17~ Summer 2010 Special Thanks and Photo Gallery

irst of all, we thank our magnificent staff that makes the conference Horvath, Cynthia Braga, Fwhat it is, and our many donors who make it possible. Many thanks Linda Law and the Security to Lisa Alvarez, Diana Fuller, Andrew Tonkovich and Louis B. Team (who are superb Lisa Alvarez, Brett Hall Jones, Tracy Hall Jones, who despite their roles as directors and/or teaching staff are to ambassadors) . be seen in the days before the conference moving tables and chairs; to Kaitlin Klaussen, who coordinated housing for us with Audrey Rose nd of course we couldn’t do it without our donors . As we are a fully (6) helping out, providing witty commentary all the way; to Stacey Knapp for running the Aindependent organization, your support makes it happen . bookshop with warmth and style . Thanks also to Tracy Hall, Nicolas and Aleksandra Bailey for coordinating our snack bar . Thanks also to David Womack for bartending, driving, and n a final note, I would like to acknowledge my brother, helping with manuscripts at registration . OOakley Hall III, known to many as Tad. He died February 2011 . Tad was a brilliant writer-playwright-director who founded any thanks to members of the Board and Squaw Valley locals his own critically acclaimed summer-stock theatre company in Mwho have been tremendously generous with their time over upstate New York, before his the years: Eddy & Osvaldo Ancinas, Amy Tan & Lou Demattei; accident in 1979, which left him Joan & Peter Klaussen; Barbara Hall; Mimi & Burnett Miller; with traumatic brain injury. His Geri Thayer; and Max Byrd . story is long and full of tragedy and, especially recently, triumph . ur work waiver crews make each conference run smoothly . Most of you know him as the guy OFor their labor during Poetry we thank Claire Blotter, Molly Glen David Gold who gruffly (and simultaneously, Damm, Kat Factor, Lisa Jones, Sara Michas-Martin, Curtis sweetly) drove you to your Perdue, Katie Quarles, and David Spataro; for their work houses on registration day, or the one who helped to move Stacey Knapp during the Writers Workshops, our gratitude goes to Andrea tables and chairs, anything, really that needed to be done during Avery, Emily Curtin-Phillips, Patrick Holian, Maxima Kahn, the conference . He was a tremendous asset, and for that we are Oakley “Tad” Hall III Kim Palchikoff, Benton Sen, and Kenny Tanemura . grateful . Of course, the irony never escaped any of us, especially him, that but for that fall in 1979, he very well might have been a successful writer or playwright hanks also to our friends Adam Haight, Hunter Jones, Zoey Walls, Margot Miller, who might have had my role at the Community of Writers, if it had been his wish . Instead, his TTom Taylor and especially to Steve Susoyev for his unflagging energy. Thanks also to the little sister would ask him to do this, and fetch that. It was with great joy that we celebrated the Screenwriting surround staff: Fiona Burgess, Jason Wolos, Jason Boyce, and Christopher publication of his novel, Jarry and Me (Absintheur Press, 2010) and he was to finally return Upham . Thanks to Chelsea Snell for childcare . And thanks to Sands Hall for the inimitable to Squaw this summer as an author! And he was to going to read from his novel to his fellow Follies. Thanks also to Maxima Kahn for writers and friends . I can’t begin to express my regret that we weren’t able to see that moment, editing and designing the Omnium Gatherum and congratulate him after . & Newsletter. —Brett Hall Jones, Executive Director he Board and Staff of the Community of TWriters would especially like to thank Nancy Cushing, former President of the Squaw Valley Ski Corp . who has continued to create an environment where a conference such as ours is possible; and to their wonderful Kaitlin Klaussen & Michelle Latiolais staff: Ernst Hager, Tom Kelly, Christine ~ 18~ 2010 Poetry Staff ~ 19~ Ann Close & BJ Robbins Screenwriting Staff News

Jason Boyce: He is back in the Bay area and three Satellite Awards, and Monger “One of the best hotels in San Francisco.” after a year in England, working on a variety received a Humanitas Prize and was of social documentaries as well as creating nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award . an original film and music album entitled, National Geographic’s “10 Best of Everything, 2008” Tom Rickman: He is currently writing Believe or Die Trying, due out by 2012 . the Miles Davis story for producer Rudy Other projects include a documentary Langrich (Hotel Rwanda). For individual reservations, call 800.433.4434 shot for Jim Kerns, Destination: Rossport, or visit www.thehotelrex.com Ireland, which opened at the Boston Lisa Rosenberg: She is writing an Ameri- Film Festival and recently screened at the can historical drama work-for-hire and mar- Globians Doc Fest in Stuttgart, Germany. keting her adapted psychological drama, 562 Sutter Street, San Francisco 94102 Eugene Corr: He is producing a docu- Crawl Space, for European producers . mentary feature, From Ghost Town to Camille Thomasson: Her latest film, Havana . Stacey Bess, will air in April in a Hallmark Diana Fuller: She is developing a docu- Hall of Fame production for CBS. She is mentary feature, TRASH24, with Debbie working with producer Bryan Gambogi on Brubbaker, Eli Noyes and Banker White . a feature film about Shirley Chisholm. Pamela Gray: She wrote the screenplay Christopher Upham: His feature -length for Conviction, starring Hilary Swank, Sam documentary, War Within, was awarded Rockwell, Minnie Driver, Melissa Leo, and grants from Pacific Pioneer and the Juliette Lewis. The film was released by Fox Fleishhacker Foundation, and is in fine-cut Searchlight in the fall, had gala premieres stage. Current writing projects include a at the Toronto and London Film Festivals, feature narrative for Cambodian-American was the opening night film at the Mill Valley director Daron Ker, and story consulting Film Festival, and was named Best Picture for arms trafficking expert Kathi Austin’s at the Boston Film Festival. African memoir for Paramount Pictures . Patricia Meyer: Her family comedy, The Michael Urban: He is currently working Ex-Boy, will star young Jae Head (Blind on a dark comedy, produced by Then Side, Hancock) and is slated for production Production and Bold Pictures, with David in 2011. Packaging for her noir/thriller Duchovny attached to star . He is in post Waikiki is in progress, and she has a new production on his first feature as director, one-hour drama series in development . Longer Lasts Longer. He has a television series with Warner Brothers that was slated Christopher Monger: He wrote the to go to the networks at the end of 2010 . screenplay for Temple Grandin, which aired in February on HBO, starring Clare Jason Wolos: He is in post-production Danes as Temple Grandin. The film for his feature debut, Trattoria, produced garnered seven Emmys, a Voice Award, in partnership with Jeremiah Birnbaum of the Monte Carlo TV Festival Amade Prize Fog City Pictures.

Three of our screenwriting mentors penned stories that earned their leading actors SAG nominations this year: Claire Danes in Christopher Monger’s Temple Grandin, Winona Ryder in Camille Thomasson’s Lois Wilson, and Hilary Swank in Pamela Gray’s Conviction. ~ 21~ ~ 20~ Day was a 2010 Finalist in The Movie Script/Golden Brad Awards. Screenwriting Felicia Lowe (09): See Profile on page 25. Carmen Madden (07): She wrote, directed and produced Everyday Black Participant Man, now making the festival route . It has won numerous awards, including News Best Narrative at the Tallahassee and Lisa Gold: Her short film, The Death of PanAfrican Film Festivals, and Best Feature Toys, which she made as a participant in at the Peachtree Village International Film the AFI Directing Workshop for Women, Festival, and it was an official selection at Massoud Alemi (09): He was selected as a contemporary romantic comedy and recently premiered at the Anchorage the San Francisco Women’s and Oakland for the second round for the 2011 January a sci-fi film noir. She also optioned the Film Festival. She just received her first International Film Festivals and the San Screenwriters Lab at Sundance for his remake rights to Sidney Poitier’s A Warm writing assignment; she will be writing a Diego Black Film Festival. script, Dear, Dirty D.C. December. www.theroxburyprojects.com documentary on Muhummad Yunus and Nevada McPherson (09): Her screenplay Pamela S. Beason (07,04): She signed a William Farley (08): Currently he is his Nobel Peace Prize-winning microcredit Piano Lessons was the first place winner of 3-book deal for her Summer “Sam” Westin directing a documentary about one of San lending program in Bangladesh . the Honolulu Film Festival Screenwriting mysteries from Berkley Prime Crime . The Francisco’s own luminaries, Jerry Barrish, Marjory Kaptanoglu (07): She won Competition . She recently completed her first book in the series, currently titled filmmaker, artist and bale-bondsman, the 2010 Slamdance short screenplay first graphic novel, Uptowners, which is Wild, is scheduled to come out in autumn produced by Janis Plotkin. competition for her script Dead in the based on one of her screenplays . of 2011; the sequels in 2012 . Her romantic Megan Feldman(10): She is co-writer Room. Slamdance will produce the film and Amanda Micheli (09): She is developing suspense novel, On Shaky Ground, will be with Stacy Keane of Tesoro, a Latin premiere it at their 2011 film festival. Her a short documentary film for ESPN in published by The Wild Rose Press (www . American action thriller which made the short script Dearly Departed was a finalist conjunction with the women’s soccer thewildrosepress .com) in ebook and POD second round at the Austin film festival in the Page Awards contest . It was produced world cup in 2011, as well as a project for forms in August 2011 . and was a semi-finalist in Write Movies by So Rare Productions of Oakland, CA, HBO called One Nation Under Dog . Eva Benedikt (10,09): She has written a International. She was named a finalist for and is currently under consideration for Erica Milsom (10): She is heading off to trilogy of comedy features set in Italy, which the PEN Literary Award in Los Angeles, for a major U.S. film festival premiere. Aces her cover story “Gimme Shelter.” Over Eights, based on her award-winning Cambodia to do research on the principal was selected for a MEDIA development character in her film Best Intentions. She workshop in Europe last May and is now in Noelle Foster (09): Martha and Dee screenplay, Raise You One Dead Body, premiered in June at the Seattle True will be visiting with young women who preproduction . Visit the Fifth Dimension, which she wrote have escaped from sex-trafficking and are and directed, won Best Short Film at the Independent Film Festival. Her suspense Sheri Davenport (08): Her screenplay thriller, Graves Light, was a top five finalist working with local non-profits to redefine San Francisco New Media Festival. their lives . Additionally, she has started a Furies Rising was the Grand Prize Winner in the Santa Fe Writers Project and made new project, Maria, Lucia and the White in Cynosure’s National Screenwriting Christina Ferguson (08): Her original the second round in the Austin screenplay Lions, the story of a returning Iraqi war Competition in the Female Category. screenplay The Last Trip was a Sundance competition . Her comic thriller, Just Kill Me veteran Maria Chacon. Lucky Christmas, was just picked up by finalist in 2009, and a Nicholl semi-finalist Now, was a top five finalist in the ThrillSpy the Hallmark Channel . and Austin finalist in 2010. Her new script film festival screenplay competition. Kari Nevil (09): She has just accepted an is Sensitive New Age Guys. offer to direct Santa’s Dog in conjunction Skye Dent (94): Her newly-created Stacy Keane (10): She is co-writer with Animal Planet’s Pit Boss reality TV production company, The Roxbury Ellen Furman (08): She has written eight with Megan Feldman, of Tesoro, a Latin show, to be filmed in the Bay Area in Projects, is in development on a romantic screenplays since attending Squaw, one of American action thriller which made the 2011 . war epic starring Dennis Haysbert, as well which, Manuel, was optioned by HBO . second round at the Austin film festival and was a semi-finalist in Write Movies Nicole Oliver (10): Her film Chicken Visit our new Notable Alumni page and learn how to nominate yourself or a friend: http://squawvalleywriters.org/NotableAlumniScreen.html International . Her script Sadie Hawkins Dreams was a finalist in the 2010 Sundance

~ 22~ ~ 23~ Screenwriting Competition . She completed Stephanie Storey (09): She is a Participant Profile: Felicia Lowe a short script, The Life of a Writer, which Consulting Producer for Tavis Smiley on she plans to direct . PBS . elicia Lowe is an award-winning indepen- Eagle and American C. J Palmisano (10): Her screenplay Kaherawaks Thomason (06): She dent television producer, director, Film Festival Red The Grand View received third place was selected as one of four 2010 Ford F and writer with more than 30 years of Ribbon Award in in Cynosure’s National Screenwriting Foundation Fellows by the Sundance production experience . When asked what 1980 . Competition in the Female Category. Institute . This is a two stage development drew her to attend the Community of Holly Payne (07): She had a baby girl on program of participation in the Sundance Writers screenwriting program in 2009, she She went on to make Carved in April 2 . Her novel Kingdom of Simplicity Institute Lab, which includes year replied, “Writing can be isolating and when Silence, a documentary partially funded by won the Benjamin Franklin Award for round support, financial assistance and you’ve worked on a project for a long time, the National Endowment for the Humanities Best First Book from Skywriter Books. It mentoring . Her original feature is entitled one can get tunnel vision, so I welcomed about the experiences of Chinese immigrants was sold to publishers in the Netherlands Close to Death. the opportunity to get honest feedback in a detained on Angel Island Immigration Station, and Taiwan . Holly is currently at work on Mabel Valdiviezo (08-05): She has supportive environment .” Her documentary, where her father was held for three weeks . In a new novel set in medieval Bulgaria and joined forces with Spain-based producer Chinese Couplet, is now in post production . the film Lowe looks at the Chinese Exclusion continues to teach screenwriting at the Julia Steinweg to develop her feature She worked with Lisa Rosenberg on revising a Act and the way Chinese immigrants were California College of the Arts MFA writing narrative Soledad’s Awakening. She is also treatment for the film, which was inspired by treated “almost like criminals” upon entering program in San Francisco. in late development with her documentary the revelation of a family secret that led her to this country. Lowe says, “We have the most search for answers about the circumstances diverse population in America, and we have Prodigal Daughter, which is being shot in Kimberly Reed (06): Her much-awarded surrounding her mother’s illegal emigration the most beautifully crafted ideals in terms of Peru, Japan and the U.S.A. film, Prodigal Sons, is now distributed by from China to America . equality for all . And it’s a story and a goal we First Run and opened in New York City Gretchen Hayduk Wroblewski (09): chase after all the time . But it’s not without in February 2010. She plans to shoot her She wrote, directed and edited a short Giving voice to the Chinese-American its pimples . Those blemishes that defy some narrative feature, Please Check One, late narrative, Red, in August, co-produced experience has been Lowe’s consistent passion of our ideals are the very things we need to in 2011 . with a production company in Colorado . in filmmaking. Growing up in Oakland’s look at .” Chinatown with two immigrant parents, Lowe Tamuira Reid (09): Her screenplay, Yun Suh (08): City of Borders, a feature says, “I had this profound sense of having to Carved in Silence won numerous Luna’s Highway, placed as a semi- documentary, had its world premiere tell the stories to a world that never heard awards, was broadcast on PBS and used in finalist (top thirty) in the 2010 Nicholl at the Berlin International Film Festival Fellowship and as a finalist in the Zoetrope them before . As a culture, we were taught classrooms nationwide. The film helped raise and won the Teddy Audience Award . to have a low profile, to become invisible. awareness and funding for the preservation Screenwriting Competition. Frances Fisher The film has now screened in over 90 (Titanic, Law of Attraction) has agreed to Something was lost to us because of that .” and restoration of Angel Island Immigration festivals worldwide, has won 7 awards and She created a documentary, Chinatown, for Station . In 2009 Lowe created multi-source star as Luna . Presently in development, continues to tour . It was broadcast on PBS Luna’s Highway is being produced by KQED’s series Neighborhoods: the Hidden audio track installations that are now played for Pride Month in June. Currently Yun Cities of San Francisco, to tell the stories as part of the interpretative tour of the rooms Squaw Valley alumi Cynthia Phillips and Suh is developing her next documentary . of the Chinatown behind the tourist façade . where immigrants were detained . Carved in SF Film Commission member Debbie Derek Zavala (06): He has a key investor It premiered in 1996 to critical acclaim Silence will screen at the Chinese American Brubaker . Discussions are underway with and producer for his screenplay The Long and received an EMMY for Best Cultural Museum in Los Angeles on May 26, 2011. A several Los Angeles-based production Walk and is currently determining a Documentary . discussion with Felicia Lowe will follow the companies . budget and shoot schedule . He hopes to screening . Erich Stonestreet (06): His latest satire be in production later this year with a 2012 Lowe studied journalism at San Jose with co-author Gan Golan, The Adventures release . State and broadcast journalism at Columbia Lowe is in the process of working on of Unemployed Man, was published by University before becoming a reporter and Barefoot Historian, which tells the story of Little, Brown in October 2010 . He writes field producer in commercial and educational Him Mark Lai, the “dean of Chinese-American under the pen name Erich Origen . www . television . Her documentary China: Land of history.” Jason Boyce edited the trailer for the unemployedman com. My Father was broadcast on PBS, received film which can be seen on her website: www. an EMMY nomination, and the CINE Golden lowedownproductions .com ~ 24~ ~ 25~ Stanford Continuing Studies

Published Alumni Reading Series ...... ach year, the Community of Writers has welcomed some remarkable writers back to Squaw Valley for the Published Alumni Reading Series to read from their books and Etalk about their journey from unpublished writers to published authors. In 2010 we featured these Published Alumni: . Marisa Matarazzo (06) is the author of Drenched: Stories of Love and Other Deliriums (Soft Skull Press, 2010) . Her stories have been published in Faultline and Hobart . www .marisamatarazzo .com Photo by Aaron Lucy Victoria Patterson’s (06) interlinked story collection, Drift (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), was selected as one of the best books of Bringing Stanford to you. 2009 by the San Francisco Chronicle and was a finalist for the California Book Award in First Fiction. Her novel, This Vacant Paradise, will be Introducing a NEW online published in March 2011 by Counterpoint Press. www.victoriapatterson. Photo by Chris Patterson net creative writing certificate.

Dora Wang (05, 04, 02, 01, 00) is the author of a memoir, The Kitchen Shrink: A Psychiatrist’s Reflections on Healing in a Changing Develop the tools to write your book. World (Riverhead). She has been the recipient of a Lannan Foundation Photo by Jim Roberts writer’s residency . www .doracalottwang .com Work closely with Stanford instructors. Participate anytime, anywhere, online. This coming summer 2011, we are pleased to feature: Alia Yunis’ (04) novel The Night Counter (Random House, 2009) was chosen as a top summer read by the Chicago Tribune and Boston Phoenix . www .aliayunis .com Choose your path: Jessica O’Dwyer (07,06) is the author of the book, Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir, Creative Nonfiction or Novel. published by Seal Press in 2010 . www .mamalitathebook .com Alma Katsu (03) is the author of the debut novel, The Taker (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster, June 2011). www.almakatsu.com Now Accepting Applications for Summer. Sara J. Henry’s (07,06) novel, Learning to Swim, will be published by Crown Books in February 2011. www.sarajhenry.com Michael David Lukas’ first novel, The Oracle of Stamboul, was published by Harper- Collins in February. www.michaeldavidlukas.com continuingstudies.stanford.edu

~ 26~ ~ 27~ GREAT FICTION FROM SQUAW VALLEY WRITERS GREAT FICTION FROM SQUAW VALLEY WRITERS  MARK ERIC CHILDRESS ORIGEN Author of GEORGIA BOTTOMS Co-author of ADVENTURES OF UNEMPLOYED MAN “Georgia Bottoms is one of my favorite characters in “Surely the funniest economic primer ever written.” recent years….Childress’s best book yet.” —Salon.com —Anne Lamott

JOSHUA ALICE FERRIS SEBOLD Author of THE UNNAMED Author of THE LOVELY BONES

“Ferris’s prose is brash, extravagant, and, near the end, “A stunning achievement.” —The New Yorker chillingly beautiful.” —The New Yorker

FREDERICK LUIS ALBERTO REIKEN Author of DAY FOR NIGHT, URREA coming in trade paperback, April 2011 Author of INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH “A fascinating, emotionally acute and, at times, “Magical.” —Vanity Fair mind-bogglingly complex story to which we surrender with delight.” —Washington Post

Proudly published by Little, Brown and Company Proudly published by Little, Brown and Company

~ 28~ ~ 29~ Carol Edgarian: Her new novel, Three Beginning, will be be published this fall by Stages of Amazement, just came out from Grove Press. He had short fiction published Scribner . The novel has been seleted for in The New Yorker (May 10—story and the Indie booksellers “Great Reads” list for interview available online) and in Harper’s March. (June) and a long essay in the Spring issue Karen Joy Fowler: A new collection of Callaloo, which was reprinted abroad Writers Workshop Staff News of stories, What I Didn’t See and Other by the Barcelona Review . He also had an Stories, was published by Small Beer Press article about the poet Ai in the Fall issue of in September. Her story “The Pelican Bar” Cimarron Review. won the 2010 World Fantasy Award for Molly Giles: She won this year’s Arkansas Will Allison: A second paperback edition again, this time by producer Jude Prest of short story . Arts Council Award for an essay titled of his first novel,What You Have Left (Free Los Angeles. He is Director of the M.F.A. “Nobody’s Friend” which was based on a Press/Simon & Schuster, 2007), is being Program in Creative Writing at Cal State Lynn Freed: Her short story “Sunshine,” originally published in Narrative craft talk she gave at Squaw in 2009 . The published in April 2011 . His second novel, San Bernardino . essay has just been published in Gulf Long Drive Home, also from Free Press, is Magazine, has been selected for the 2011 Alan Cheuse: His newest novel, Song of PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories and is the first Coast . due out in May. www.willallison.com Slaves in the Desert: A Novel of Slavery and story from an online magazine ever to win DeWitt Henry: His memoir, Sweet Bill Barich: Long Way Home: On the Trail the Southern Wild, has just been published an O . Henry Prize . www .narrativemagazine . Dreams: A Family History, was published of Steinbeck’s America was published by by Sourcebooks this March. com/node/75289 in December 2010 by Hidden River Press . Walker and Co . in October . Mark Childress: His latest novel, Georgia Dagoberto Gilb: His latest collection Louis B. Jones: His new novel, Radiance, Michael Jaime-Becerra: His novel This Bottoms, as just released by Little Brown. of short fiction, Before the End, After the will be published in May by Counterpoint Time Tomorrow was released by Thomas Dunne Books in February 2010. John Daniel: His essay “East to the West” appeared in the March issue of High Greg Bills: His story “Before The Red” Country News (www.hcn.org/issues/42.5/ was published in Fairy Tale Review. east-to-the-west) and will be included Elise Blackwell: Unbridled Books in the anthology In the Manner of the From critically acclaimed author Louis B. published her fourth novel, An Unfinished Country: Living and Writing the American Jones comes the story of a once-brilliant Score in 2010, and she had essays in The West (University of Texas Press, Fall 2011). astrophysicist, his teenage daughter, and Atlantic and The Chronicle of Higher The paperback edition of The Far Corner: one very confusing night in LA… Education . The Portuguese translation of Northwestern Views on Land, Life, and her novel Hunger (Fome, Livros de Areia) Literature was released by Counterpoint in “Louis B. Jones is a skillful satirist, who was chosen by Ler as a book of the year . April 2010. One of the essays, “The Mother sees all, knows all, but who is never cruel.” Clark Blaise: His 25th book, The Meagre of Beauty,” has been published in Open —Newsweek Tarmac, stories of the India diaspora, Spaces (www.open-spaces.com/article- will appear in April 2011 (Biblioasis) . In v10n3-jdaniel.php). Another, “Wavewash,” “In Louis B. Jones, as in no other writer September 2010 he was inducted as an appears in ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies working today, a sense of moral outrage, Officer of the Order of Canada, his nation’s in Literature and the Environment). that rare thing, is yoked, oddly and with highest civilian honor . Leslie Daniels: Her novel, Cleaning extraordinary power, to a thrilling gift for lyrical prose.” —Michael Chabon James Brown: His new memoir, This Nabokov’s House, was just published River, was just released by Counterpoint by Touchstone (an imprint of Simon & Cloth | 978-1-58243-736-1 | $24.00 Press in March 2011. Counterpoint also Schuster) . The book has been seleted for reissued Brown’s earlier memoir, The Los the Indie booksellers “Great Reads” list for Available in May wherever books are sold! Angeles Diaries, which has been optioned March. www.counterpointpress.com ~ 30~ ~ 31~ The Pleasures—and Necessity—of Browsing Press. He has been publishing fiction and nonfiction book about the strange and nonfiction in Open City, The Threepenny wonderful world of competitive duck Alan Cheuse Review and various anthologies . painting will be published by Bloomsbury Originally published in the Land’s End catalog Teresa Jordan: She is well along with her in the fall of 2012 . year-long blog project, The Year of Living Gregory Spatz: He received a grant or as long as I can remember, I’ve been a browser . But it didn’t begin for me with Virtuously (Weekends Off), a meditation from Artist Trust to continue work on a Fbooks. My maternal grandparents owned a series of cigar and cigarette shops— on the search for meaning in an ordinary new novel, Ice Masters. He has a story candy stores, we called them in the family—and from an early age I’d find myself standing in life, inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s list of forthcoming in Epoch. front of the candy counter trying to decide among various bars of chocolate and commercial 13 virtues and the 7 deadly sins . She blogs Andrew Tonkovich: Lately he is book candy bars and malt balls and licorices, the decision especially difficult not because I could at www.yearoflivingvirtuously.com. reviewer for Riviera magazine, with recent buy only one but because I could have any one that I choose without paying . Nancy Kelly: Trust: second acts in young profiles of authors Peter Heller(Kook) and The same went for the comic books. My grandparents didn’t allow me more than one lives, a documentary on the Albany Park Leslie Brody (Irrepressible: The Life and or two free comics a week, though when it came time for garnering an allowance by doing Theater Project in Chicago, premiered at Times of Jessica Mitford) and a “Best of” extra chores around the house or running errands for my parents, both of whom worked a the Mill Valley Film Festival in October. survey of Orange County literature . Nancy directed, wrote and co-produced forty hour week and—the case of my father—more, I’d save and purchase more and more (with Kenji Yamamoto) the film. Susan Trott: Her new book, Flamingo comics. Archie, The Heap, Superman—these were some of the “books” I chose. Thief, is available at Amazon .com . Her Adair Lara: Naked, Drunk and Writing: And when it came upon me, like a slow-mastering fever, that it was books—mainly novel Sightings is still under option with fiction—that I really cared about, I increased my browsing to an exponential level. In junior Shed Your Inhibitions and Craft a Vox3 Films. Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay was high school I found my way to the only book store—more a narrow hole in the wall, on our re-released by Ten Speed Press (Random Luis Alberto Urrea: He won an Edgar Jersey town’s main street—and discovered my true addiction. My first? A paperback reprint House) in August 2010 as a paperback . Award, sponsored by the Mystery Writers of D .H . Lawrence’s novel The Plumed Serpent in the old Vintage paperback—one of the first of America, for his short story “Amapola,” trade paperbacks—series . I treated this, and all subsequent purchases of these new trade Michelle Latiolais: Her collection of published in the book Phoenix Noir. He stories, Widow, was published by Bellevue was also given an award from the National reprints—made with cash from an after school job as a stock boy at a womens’ sportswear Literary Press in February 2011. Hispanic Cultural Center for the breadth shop a few blocks west—as old wine in new bottles. First I held the pages up to my nose, to Bharati Mukherjee: Her new novel, of his work in non-fiction, poetry, novel, take in the bouquet of the paper . And then I lavished my attention on the covers, front and Miss New India, will appear in May 2011 short fiction, essay and memoir. His back, all this before I even attempted to read a word. And when I finally did begin to read (Houghton-Mifflin/Harcourt). graphic novel, Mr. Mendoza’s Paintbrush, such work as this, alone in my room or sprawled on the front stoop of our row house a block Alison Owings: Her latest oral history- with illustrator Christopher C . Vardinale from the Raritan River where it flowed into Raritan Bay, I savored the sentences, even as I based book, Indian Voices: Listening came out from Cinco Puntos Press in rushed forward into the story . to Native Americans, was published by June. The paperback of his novel Into the When I saved enough money I bought new fiction, too, particularly horror and science Beautiful North was also released by Back Rutgers University Press in April, 2011 . fiction. How did I know what I liked? I browsed the shelves of our local store, reading opening www .alisonowings .com Bay Books in June. In 2011, the University of Arizona will re-reissue of his first novel, pages, and snippets here and there from the rest of these books. Richard Matheson became Frederick Reiken: His third novel, Day In Search of Snow, and his story “The one of my favorites, along with Alfred Bester, and Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac For Night, was published this year by Reagan Soutshide Raza Image Federation Corps Asimov . I worked harder and put in for longer hours so I could buy a book a week . Arthur Books of Little, Brown . It was also of Discovery” was published in the January I browsed the library shelves as well . That’s how I found, much too early in my life as published in the U.K. and Australia, and issue of Orion. You can listen to him read an unsophisticated reader, a copy of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, a novel that took me a translations are forthcoming in French, it at orionmagazine .org . Spanish, Dutch, and Hebrew . number of false starts to catch up with, though I finally did, and have since reread it a few Al Young: He is included in the anthology times for emphasis . Elizabeth Rosner: The paperback edition Working Words: Punching the Clock Thus I became a browser, and yes, browsing did it all . Remember the stacks of a university of her novel Blue Nude was released by and Kicking Out the Jams, edited and library, the row upon row of unanticipated pleasures you find there if you drift among them, Simon & Schuster in September. introduced by M.L. Liebler (Coffee House dreamy and a little delirious with browsing? Imagine a world without bookstores, so that Martin J. Smith: His as-yet-untitled Press, Fall 2010). continued on next page ~ 32~ ~ 33~ you could not find your attention pulled away from one cover by the enticing design of another wholly unfamiliar work 2 0 1 1 of fiction by a writer about whom you’ve s p r i n g never heard . Some of our greatest scientific available now discoveries occurred by accident . Think presents of Madame Curie! SS re

A world of only on-line purchases p Review is a world without serendipity, a world without accident, a world without spice and flavor. Think of all the good accidents Ten Speed we know in life, from our parents to our siblings to our choices—and how sorry “A few months ago, my father gave me a we are that we can only be one traveler copy of Naked, Drunk, and Writing, which in certain circumstances—of friends and is the first book about writing that has truly lovers and spouses . helped me.” —Cindy nooney Browsing is a form of dreaming . Adair Lara states the process so simply in It’s the way of the old world and new . I Naked, Drunk, and Writing that I think, “Oh urge you—browse, browse! yeah, I get it. I can do that.” —Trish Tomer

Fictions & Essays Erik Kongshaug / Lorene Sun / Rich Ives Ryan Shoemaker / Cai Emmons / Cathy Jacobowitz Olga Zilberbourg / Dwight Yates / Chera King Kris Saknussemm / Timothy Dyke / Robley Wilson

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~ 34~ ~ 35~ Unforgettable Fiction from Squaw Valley Writers! ChriStina MeldrUM amaryllis in Blueberry In the stirring tradition of The Secret Life of Bees and The Poisonwood Bible, Amaryllis in Writers Workshop Participant News Blueberry weaves together the past and the CoMing in MarCh 2011 present of a family harmed—and healed— Richard Barlow Adams (93): He Michael Jaime-Becerra (02,99): See by buried secrets. published The Parting: A Story of West Writers Workshop Staff News . Point on the Eve of the Civil War in July. “ a perfect melding of family saga, Greg Bills (94): See Writers Workshops murder mystery and a meditation on Emily Adelsohn Corngold (04): The Staff News . faith, loyalty and love, this novel will Music Lover, was a runner-up in the 2009 both haunt and entertain you.” Miami University Press Novella Contest. Elise Blackwell (90,88): See Writers Workshop Staff News . —New York Times bestselling Andrea Alban (04): Anya’s War, her author Susan Wiggs debut novel, which she brought to Squaw Debra Borchert (05): An essay she wrote Valley in 2004, was just released by Feiwel about her experience in the South of CoMing in JUly 2011 & Friends/Macmillan in February 2011. France was published in the San Francisco Kate Amatruda (09,08): “Suburbia” won Chronicle on May 9 as “Spirit of Resistance an honorable mention in the 2010 Lorian lives on in French village,” and also in The Hemingway Short Story Competition, Writer magazine’s October 2010 Off-the- and three of her non-fiction articles were cuff column as “Not so picture-perfect.” published: “Disaster in Haiti: A Personal Journey” in The Therapist, July/August, Denise Bostrom (WW 07; Screen 93,89): “Want to go to exotic (and sometimes not She was one of the screenwriters for the so exotic) places? Become a Disaster Mental alMa KatSU award-winning documentary, Children of Health Volunteer with the Red Cross!” in the Amazon (www .childrenoftheamazon . the taker Play Therapy Magazine, September and com), which was broadcast on PBS on “May the Force Be With You—Oh...You are Immortality comes at a price…. Earth Day this past April . The premiere the Force!” in the San Francisco Disaster In the tradition of Anne Rice and Medical Assistance Team CA-6 Chronicles. was featured on over 100 PBS stations Elizabeth Kostova comes a hauntingly nationwide and also carried by Link TV . atmospheric tale spanning several Eddy Ancinas: She won first place in the One of her poems, “Meditation on the 2010 Nevada Magazine Writers’ Contest for lifetimes—a love story featuring her essay “Back in the Saddle.” Breath,” was published in the City College alchemy, lust, and betrayal. of San Francisco’s literary journal, City Lit Frederick R. Andresen (03): His novella, Journal, in May 2010. Dos Gringos (workshopped at Squaw Valley), was released through Outskirts James Brown (94): See Writers Workshop Press in April . Staff News .

Visit our new Notable Alumni page and learn how to nominate yourself or a friend: www.simonandschuster.com http://squawvalleywriters.org/NotableAlumniWriters.html ~ 37~ ~ 36~ “Harrowing, moving... “Soulful and poetic . . . ” Colleen Morton Busch (04): Penguin Category at the 2009 New York Book —Bookpage Press will publish Fire Monks, a non-fiction Festival and was a finalist in the Women’s deftly handled” book in July 2011. Issues Category of The National Best Books —Publishers Weekly “Powerful . . . ambitious . . . Kate Campbell (08): Her story “The Tao 2009 Awards . audacious.” of Do-it-Yourself” won an Editors’ Choice Myfanwy Collins (05,04): She won —Publishers Weekly (starred review) Award from the Fiction Writers’ Platform. the Flatmancrooked Fiction Prize www.fictionwritersplatform.net (judged by Benjamin Percy) and has Mauro Javier Cardenas (02): An excerpt been published most recently in from The Revolutionaries Try Again, Mississippi Review, Potomac Review, his novel-in-progress, was published by Quick Fiction and other venues . She is a Guernica Magazine in their May issue. consulting editor at Narrative Magazine. www .myfanwycollins .com Julie Chibbaro (01,99): Her second novel, Deadly, came out from David Corbett (WW 99,91,89,88; “An utterly absorbing and Atheneum/Simon & Schuster in February. Screen 2001): Do They Know I’m profound novel.” juliechibbaro.com Running was published in March by Ballantine (Mortalis imprint). —Margot Livesey, Terence Clarke: He published his newest author of The House on Fortune Street novel, A Kiss for Señor Guevara, through Eileen Cronin (09,06,05): She had four Booklocker.com in June. stories published this year in Slice, The Literary Review, Third Coast, and Coe Meg Waite Clayton (00): Her third novel, Review. The Four Ms. Bradwells, will be released by Ballantine in March. Ballantine will Debra A. Daniel (01): Her poetry also release her first novel, The Language chapbook, As Is, was published by Main of Light, in paperback in June. She’s Street Rag in 2009 . She was the kick-off working on a fourth, tentatively titled The poet for the Sundown Poetry Series of Wednesday Daughters, to be published by readings at this summer’s Piccolo Spoleto by Jessica O’Dwyer Ballantine in 2013 . in Charleston, SC . Denise Emanuel Clemen (10,06): Terry DeHart (96): His first novel, The Her essay “Holding Him Softly” was Unit, was published in July, as part of a included in the anthology Saying Goodbye two-book deal with Orbit Books . (Dream of Things, October 2010). http:// Jeanne Dickey (99): Two of her poems, goodbyebook .com “An Elegy for Susan Atkins,” and “The Mark Coggins (WW 96; Screen 01): Shadow Man Visits a Babysitter” will appear in the April 2011 edition of The Lineup. Two mysterious His fifth novel, The Big Wake-Up, won deaths unlock one man’s the Independent Publishers Book Award Frank DiPalermo (09,05,04): His short (IPPY) in the crime fiction category. www. story “Body of Christ” was published in past and another’s future markcoggins .com the on-line journal Slow Trains . www . in this moving tale of Jody Cohan (94): Her What If Your slowtrains .com art, love, and history. Prince Falls Off His Horse?—The Married Heather Donahue (08): Her book Woman’s Primer on Financial Planning Growgirl: The Blossoming of an Unlikely Henry Holt won the Business Category at the 2009 San Outlaw was bought by Gotham/Penguin www.henryholt.com Francisco Book Festival. The book was also and will be released in 2012 . www . www.mamalitathebook.com the runner up in the General Non-Fiction heatherdonahue .com

~ 38~ ~ 39~ Laurie Ann Doyle (09): She won the Aleta George (10,05): Her essay “Poetic bought foreign rights to the book . She has OakTara PresenTs 2010 Alligator Juniper national fiction Gesture: A California Crown for Lord a weekly column at thenervousbreakdown . contest. Her winning story “Wings Raised Byron” was published in the Summer issue com called “The Evolution of the Book,” An inspirational trilogy by Up” appears in AJ’s summer issue . Other of California . Her work also appeared in chronicling the ups and downs of writing recent publications include “Comfort” in High Country News, Bay Nature and the and selling her first novel. Christine Sunderland We Still Like journal, “Voices” in Dogwood San Francisco Chronicle . She was the Sara J. Henry (07,06): She has a two- Journal, and “As If” in Stone’s Throw. inaugural recipient of an Early California book deal with Shaye Areheart. The first i Fellowship from New Pacific Studio for Merridawn Duckler (07): She was given novel, Learning to Swim, was published in her book-in-progress about Ina Coolbrith, Travel through Europe in a National Endowment of the Arts Award February. sarainvermont.blogspot.com these poignant, powerful for her performance piece “Guide to An California’s first poet laureate. Ann Hillesland (02): In the past year, Exhibitionist,” which will appear at Los Jeff Gillenkirk (76): He published novels of healing and her fiction has appeared inThe Los Angeles Angeles County Museum of Art, and her his first novel, Home, Away, this year history, food and wine. Review, NANO Fiction, SmokeLong play The Relatives was accepted into the with Chin Music Press in Seattle (www. Quarterly and in the anthology A la Carte: Emerging Female Voices Playwright Fest chinmusicpress .com) . He has previously Short Stories that Stir the Foodie in All of with the Manhattan Shakespeare Project. published the non-fiction book Bitter Melon: Inside America’s Last Rural Us from Main Street Rag Press. Katherine Easer (08): Her first novel, Chinese Town (Heyday Books) . Vanessa Hua (08): Her short story Vicious Little Darlings, will be published “The Deal” was published by the Atlantic by Bloomsbury in June 2011. Lev Grossman (95): He was married in May to the Australian novelist Sophie Gee. Monthly/Kindle in September 2010 . An Jennifer Egan (89): See Profile page 51. Their daughter, Halcyon Grossman, was essay of hers appeared in the New York Joshua Ferris (03): His novel, The born in June. His next novel, The Magician Times Magazine in April, and her short Unnamed, was published by Reagan Arthur King, will be published by Viking in 2011 . fiction was published in the Hopkins Books (an imprint of Little, Brown) . http://themagiciansbook.com/ Review in October . www .vanessahua .com Sarah Flood (09): The story she http://levgrossman.com/blog/ Buzzy Jackson (WW 01; Screen workshopped at Squaw in 2009 was Lise Haines (99): Her third novel, Girl 97,94,): Her book Shaking the Family accepted for publication in the Santa in the Arena (a young adult novel), was Tree: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Monica Review. published by Bloomsbury in August . www . American Genealogy was published by Touchstone in July 2010. Jamie Ford (06): His debut novel, Hotel lisehaines .com on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, won Jane Hammons (08): “All Bones,” a Cindy Jones (07): Her novel My Jane the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award prose poem, was published in Poetry Austen Summer will be published by for Literature and has been published in Quarterly, Winter 2010, and she had short William Morrow/Harper Collins in March 23 languages . His follow-up, Whispers stories published in decomP (May 2010), 2011. www.cindysjones.wordpress.com of a Thunder God, was recently sold to JMWW (Summer 2010), A Twist of Noir Louis B. Jones (89): See Writers Ballantine for release in Fall 2011. www. (August 2010), and Crimespree Magazine Workshop Staff News . jamieford.com (July/August 2010). Len Joy (09,08): He has had short fiction Vicki Forman (94): She won the 2010 Michael Harris (08): His novel The Chieu pieces published in Right Hand Pointing PEN USA Literary Award for creative Hoi Saloon was published last fall by PM (August 2009), Pindeldyboz (September nonfiction for This Lovely Life (published Press of Oakland . 2009), LITnIMAGE (October 2009), by Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Susan Henderson (09): Her debut Dogzplot (October 2009), Bartleby & Harcourt in 2009) . novel, Up From the Blue, was published Stokes (January 2010) and The Foundling Amy Franklin-Willis (09,07,06): The by Harper Collins in September 2010 and Review (October 2010) . His short story Lost Saints of Tennessee will be published has been chosen as a 2010 Great Group “Casualties,” which was published by by Grove Atlantic in January 2012 under Reads selection by Publishers Marketplace. the Short Story Library in October 2009, the name A . E . Willis . Holland, Australia, and New Zealand have was nominated for Dzanc Books “Best www.ChristineSunderland.com OakTara.com ~ 40~ ~ 41~ The Parting Richard barlow adams A Story of West Point on the Eve of the Civil War of the Web 2010 .” An excerpt from his Paulette Livers (07): She completed an novel-in-progress, American Jukebox, MFA at the University of Colorado in May. Confederate Lt. John Pelham is about was published in November 2009 by After moving from Boulder to Chicago this to confront his former West Point Annalemma Magazine as the short story, summer, she visited the residency program Classmates at Bull Run “Letting Go.” at Artcroft, Kentucky, and was a contributor at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference . Alma Katsu (03): Her first novel, The “Profound…riveting…truth we can all Taker, was sold at auction to Simon & Laura Glen Louis (WW 88; Screen 87): benefit from. A great read.” Schuster, who will publish it in September A chapbook of her elegiac poetry, Some, —Hal Moore, We Were Soldiers Once 2011 under the Gallery imprint . Italian like elephants, was published by El León rights were also sold . Literary Arts in May 2010. “(A) very fine achievement!” —Max Byrd Dylan Landis (01): She was awarded Li Miao Lovett (06): Her novel In the fellowships from the National Endowment Lap of the Gods was published by Leapfrog “Powerful and poignant…a ‘must read.’ for the Arts and the Virginia Center for Press in November 2010 . Her essay about Brilliant. Stunning.” the Creative Arts . Her debut novel-in- soul searching in Japan was a top-ten —Tom Carhart, Lost Triumph stories, Normal People Don’t Live Like finalist in inspirational essay in the 79th This (Persea Books), made Newsday’s Top annual Writer’s Digest contest . Order from your local bookseller Books of 2009 and More magazine’s Top or preferred on-line retailer. Krista Lukas (03): (formerly Krista 100 Books Every Woman Should Read . Benjamin) She has new poems in Margie www.RichardBarlowAdams.com Jackson Lassiter (06): He won the 26th and the Jewish Women’s Literary Annual . Annual Larry Neal Writers’ Award in the Her poem “Letter from My Ancestors” was Fiction Category, sponsored by the DC Arts translated into Russian by Aleksey Porvin Council, PEN/Faulkner Foundation and and published in Polutuna Magazine. the National Endowment for the Arts . His Michael Lukas (09): His novel The A VISION FOR THE FUTURE OF TIBET work has appeared this past year in Spirits Oracle of Stamboul is due out in February Literary Arts Magazine, Sin Fronteras, 2011 from HarperCollins . Poppyseed Kolache, Front Range Review, Dale Madison (07): His second book, “No one summarizes the historical backdrop Tidal Basin Review, Gay City Volume 3, Sissy Sammy in the Land of WEHO 90069, to current events for the general reader like DuPage Valley Review, Yalobusha Review, which he workshopped (and performed at Diane Wolff. Even when the history is complex Boiling River and elsewhere . Squaw during the Follies) was published in as it is for China and Tibet, Wolff does it with Michelle Latiolais (89): See Writers September . style and economy.” Workshop Staff News . Annam Manthiram (10): Her novel, After —Peter A. Brown, columnist, Wall Street Journal Online Krystn Lee (09): Her collection of linked the Tsunami, is forthcoming from Stephen stories, Drifting House, and a novel called F. Austin State University Press (2011). Her “Diane Wolff has written an important book . . . How I Became a North Korean were short story collection, Dysfunction: Stories, a must-read for anyone who wants to bought by Viking in an 8-bidder auction . was a Finalist in the 2010 Elixir Press Fiction Award and received Honorable Mention in understand the issues and the possibilities.” Laurel Leigh (09): The Sun accepted the the 2010 Leapfrog Press Fiction Contest. story she workshopped at Squaw in 2009 . —Robert Thurman, Her fiction has recently been published Professor of Tibetan Buddhist studies, Edan Lepucki (07): She was featured in (or is forthcoming) in Sierra Nevada Columbia University and President, Tibet House U.S. Narrative Magazine’s “30 Below 30,” a Review, Monday Night, The First Line, list of writers under 30 years old who have Monkeybicycle, > kill author, Bananafish published exceptional work on its site . Magazine, Fantastique Unfettered, Word NOW AVAILABLE WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD Her novella, If You’re Not Yet Like Me, was Riot, decomP, Jersey Devil Press, Moon ?I8D0/-.#&#()&#,((-)#/š(-$&&^Yšmmm$fWb]hWl[$Yec published by Flatmancrooked Press. Milk Review, Pank, Smokelong Quarterly,

~ 42~ ~ 43~ Named One of the Five Hottest Grey Sparrow Journal, Camroc Press Pearl 44 in 2011. His short story “Back Review, and three anthologies, and was Then We Knew” appeared in The Talon Writing Books by Writers Digest nominated for the PEN/O’Henry Prize Magazine (http://talonmag.com/) in July. and inclusion in the Best American Short His short story “Poor William” appeared Stories anthology last year . Her short story in Schuylkill Valley Journal, Fall 2009. “This book dances around the imagination “Why Won’t You” also took first place in www.jwmmorgan.com. Bartleby Snopes’ dialogue-only contest . and makes you take out your pens and Lisa Braver Moss (03): Her novel The www .annammanthiram .com Measure of His Grief was published notebook to play.” Robin Martin (99,97-95): Her short story in November 2010 by Notim Press . — SARK, artist/author of “On the Ocean Boulevard” won the Sanibel lisabravermoss .com Glad No Matter What Island Writers Conference Contest and will Nami Mun (02): Her story “The be published in the Spring 2011 issue of Anniversary” was published in Granta 114. Mangrove Review. “Same Initials as Jesse James” won First Prize in the 2010 Alabama Jessica O’Dwyer (07,06): Her first book, Writers Conclave Short-Short category Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir, was and received an honorable mention in published by Seal Press in November 2010 . the New Millennium contest. Her short www .mamalitathebook .com story “1969” was honored at the 2010 Lucia Orth (95): “Departure,” an excerpt San Francisco PEN Women Nob Hill John from her second novel, was published in Keats Soul Awakening Competition and the Asia Literary Review, vol. 10 (Hong www.newworldlibrary.com was published in the 2010 New Orleans Kong). She also received an artist’s grant Review . A 55-page segment of Old Scores, from the Kansas Arts Commission and won Honorable Mention in the 2010 Long the National Endowment for the Arts, in T h e T r u e M e m o i r s o f L i ttl e K Story International Contest . Old Scores was support of her work on her second novel . also short-listed in the Cinnamon Press Mary Otis (01): She accepted a position A d r i e n n e S h a r p 2010 contest . She was awarded a residency with PEN USA as a literary advisor in The from the Eastern Frontier Foundation. A Mark Program. This past year she was “Brilliant . . . If only we’d had history short co-written screenplay, My Happy invited by the NEA to attend the Guadalajara teachers this knowledgeable—and this Faces, screened at The 2010 Los Angeles Book Festival as a fiction writer. much fun.” International Women’s Film Festival and —Sara Nelson, O: The Oprah Magazine the 2010 Charlotte Film Festival. Kim Palchikoff (04): She received an National Endowment for the Humanities Christina Meldrum (05): Her second “The rich and fantastic memoirs of grant to do a large oral history on Russian novel, Amaryllis in Blueberry, was 99-year-old Mathilde Kschessinska, circus performers in Nevada . published by Simon & Schuster’s Gallery ballerina with the Russian Imperial Books in February 2011. Her first novel, Victoria Patterson (06): Her novel, Ballet, mistress to tsars and grand Madapple, was a finalist for the PEN USA This Vacant Paradise, was just released dukes . . . The reader dissolves into Literary Award and the William C. Morris in March 2011 by Counterpoint Press. another time and place.” Award, an ALA Best Book, a Booklist Drift, her interlinked story collection, was —Susan Salter Reynolds, Editor’s Choice and a Kirkus Best Book. selected as one of the best books of 2009 Los Angeles Times www .christinameldrum .com by the San Francisco Chronicle and was a finalist for the California Book Award Named one of Oprah “ A riveting historical tale... with Anthony J. Mohr (08): His essay “My in First Fiction. Her story “The Case of Book Club’s beautifully detailed, often conversa- Father Died Fifty Times” appeared in the Violeta Lois Stokes” was in Five Chapters. Ten Best Books for Fall tional, language, Sharp describes a lost Spring 2010 issue of ZYZZYVA. “Nobody’s Business” was published in the world.” —Christian Science Monitor J.W.M. Morgan (05): His short story “The Fall & Winter 2010 edition of the Alaska Patriots Are Three and Oh” will appear in Quarterly Review.

~ 44~ ~ 45~ From TRes Picos PRess Bill Pieper (10): He published his Harriet Rohmer (05): Chronicle Books Ma^`kbiibg`]^[nmgho^e new novel, What You Wish For, through published her Heroes of the Environment: _khfInla\ZkmIkbs^Ghfbg^^ Strategic Publishing Group . True Stories of People Who Are Helping to Zg]_hng]^kh_EbmIZkd'\hf Shira Potash (08): With her husband she Protect Our Planet in fall 2009 . It has been LNL:GA>G=>KLHG produced and directed the documentary selected by Booklist as one of the 10 Best film Food Stamped, which follows a couple Environment Books for Children for 2010 . up from the blue as they attempt to eat eat a healthy, well- She also received a Lifetime Achievement balanced diet on a food stamp budget . The Award from Pen Oakland for her work with film was an official selection for the Mill Children’s Book Press, the award-winning Valley Film Festival. publisher of multicultural and bilingual books, which she founded in 1975 . Yoav Potash (08,05): With his wife he produced and directed the documentary Elizabeth Rosner (Poetry 99; WW 87, film Food Stamped, which follows a couple 83,82): See Writers Workshop Staff News . as they attempt to eat eat a healthy, well- Penelope Rowlands (91): Her latest balanced diet on a food stamp budget . The book, Paris Was Ours: 32 Writers Reflect on film was an official selection for the Mill the City of Light, is due out from Algonquin Valley Film Festival. Books of Chapel Hill on February 8, 2011. A remarkable retelling of Ismet Prcic (07): His debut novel (... The book is a collection of essays about Shakespeare’s Romeo & shards...) will be published in 2011 the transformative effect of living in Paris . Juliet...in 1890’s Idaho. by Grove Atlantic. His short story “At Three of the pieces were contributed by the National Theater” is appearing in members of the Community of Writers: McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #36. Diane Johnson, Roxane Farmanfarmaian and Penelope . www .peneloperowlands . Paula Priamos (97): Her memoir, The com; www .pariswasours .com Shyster’s Daughter, will be coming out “[An] elegant debut. . . .Beautiful, in spring 2012 with Etruscan Press . Her Kris Saknussemm (00): A thriller, funny, sad, and complicated.” personal essays have appeared in The New Private Midnight, was published by an the daughter of a —In[ebla^klP^^der York Times Magazine, The Washington the Overlook Press in 2009 . It has since sheepman and (starred review) Post Magazine and The Los Angeles Times become a bestseller for Zanzibar Editions C Magazine. in France and has been sold in Italy to the son of a cattleman “Inescapable sadness is threaded Rizzoli. In March 2011 Del Rey Books will triumph over family Jerry Ratch (06,05): He published his through with surprising moments memoir, A Body Divided, in November bring out his third novel, Enigmatic Pilot . tragedy? of joy, in an intimate story that 2009 with Atelier Books of Santa Fe. www. A new imprint of the Eraserhead Press dispels the usual notions of jerryratch.com in Portland will publish his collection of victims and oppressors.” short stories, Sinister Miniatures, in May “The Bridge at Valentine Judy Reeves (01): The revised edition of —

~ 46~ ~ 47~ finalist for The Ivan Klima fellowship for the writing competition Art Tales from the City third story, “How To Read Your Father’s Prague summer program . His stories were of Ventura and E.P. Foster Library. Obituary” is forthcoming in The Santa Fe HigH Heat Literary Review. finalists in the Southern Indiana Review Elaine Starkman (93): She has a poem in and The Dana Awards competitions . the anthology Child of My Child, published Alice Stern (09): Her story “I Hear You The Secret History of the Fastball and Adrienne Sharp (98,88): Her novel, The by Literary Enterprises . She is currently Talking,” workshopped at Squaw Valley the Improbable Search for the Fastest Pitcher of All Time True Memoirs of Little K, was published by teaching a poetry class for OLLI, Osher in 2009, won third prize in The Roanoke Farrar, Straus and Giroux in October. Life Long Learning Institute and will begin Review’s Fiction Contest. By tim Wendel a prose class in January 2011. Brad Summerhill (04,98): His debut Laurie Sleeper (96): Her short story “... an almost literary fantasy ... a “Naomi and the Writer” won the Page to Janyce Stefan-Cole (04): Her personal novel, Gambler’s Quartet, was released in seance with the game’s past.” Stage story contest, a collaboration between essay “Dad at the VA” was published in July by Virginia Avenue Press. —The New York Times Stories on Stage and the Lighthouse January 2010 in the journal And Then, Christine Sunderland (05): Her second “(A) book of delightful digressions.” Writers Workshop in Denver, CO . She won volume 15. Her personal essay “My Sister’s novel, Offerings (OakTara 2009) won a —The Washington Post a cash prize, and her story was performed Diagnosis” was published in the Fall 2010 bronze medal in the IPPY 2010 Awards “… a fascinating book.” by Stories on Stage in November . issue of The Healing Muse . (Independent Publishers Association) . —The Associated Press Her fourth novel, Hana-lani was released Donald Sommerfield (03): He wrote Karen Stefano (08): She published in December 2010 by OakTara . www . “... goes by faster than a David Price aspirin tablet.” —Sports Illustrated ten articles about his time as a homeless her first short story, “The Rule Against ChristineSunderland .com person for the Ventura County Star . He Perpetuities,” in the journal Ellipsis in “… a fun and fact-filled flip through was also awarded second place in 2009 for Spring 2009 . The South Carolina Review Ellen Sussman (96,80): Her new novel, baseball’s record books that brings his poem “Crashing” and first place in 2010 published her second story, “Different French Lessons, will be published by to life the players we previously Ballantine in May 2011. for his essay “Late Night Coffee” in the But The Same,” in its Spring 2010 issue . A only knew from our baseball card Luke Tennis (07,05,97): He won a 2010 collections.” —ForeWord magazine fiction writing grant from the Maryland State Arts Council . One of his stories, a Pushcart . She was also Second Runner- Another Pair of Eyes “Donuts,” is on Flatmancrooked.com. His up in Fiction for Poets & Writers California son Leo was born in December 2009 . Exchange Award . Renee Thompson (09,07,03): Her Lori Tobias (95,94): One of her essays, • Research novel Bridge at Valentine was published “Going to the City,” was a finalist in the • Editing by Tres Picos Press in October. “The Plume Narrative Spring 2010 Story Contest . Hunter” was the First Place Winner in the Andrew Tonkovich (WW 95,93; Screen • Proofreading First Chapter/Novel category in the Focus 96): See Writers Workshop Staff News . • Low rates on Writers Writing Competition, Fall 2009. Her short story “Farallon,” which she Jessica Maria (J.M.) Tuccelli (08): { } Her novel You Daughter Delicious will brought to Squaw Valley in 2009, was a Serena Howlett Story of the Week in Narrative Magazine be published by Viking Penguin in 2012 . in March. www.reneethompson.com In June, she gave birth to her first child, Viviana Amélie . Berkeley, BA/JD Sheila Thorne (04): Her short story “The Harvard, MPH Numbers Angel” was anthologized in Texas Martha Ture (95): She married Jim Hill Told’em (Ink Brush Press, 2010) . on October 21, 2009 . A contemporary family saga dealing Cynthia Walker (08,07): A short story with the issue of assisted suicide. Jill Rosenblum Tidman (09): Her short 617-875-8995 story “This is How I Saw It” was published of hers, which she workshopped at Squaw Eloquent Books 604-947-2470 in 14 Hills in Fall 2009, subsequently won Valley, placed second in the Rick Di Marinis the magazine’s Bambi Holmes Award for short fiction competition. It was published www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/ [email protected] title/WhatYouWishFor.html Emerging Writers, and was nominated for in the February issue of Cutthroat .

~ 48~ ~ 49~ David Walton (73,72): University of by Henry Holt & Co. in October. Participant Profile: Jennifer Egan Georgia Press has reissued Evening Out, Diane P. Wolff (screen 84, ww 83): his collection of stories, in paperback . Palgrave MacMillan published her Tibet rika Rohrbach, writing for Kirkus Reviews, It was a difficult time. Spring Warren (03): Her book about Unconquered: An Epic Struggle for Edescribes Jennifer Egan’s latest novel, A She had moved to New Visit from the Goon Squad (Knopf, 2010), York, and was working as a growing her family’s food in her yard, The Freedom in September 2010, with a as “the uncanny love child of conceptual temp . Then, at 26, she sold Quarter Acre Farm, just came out from foreword by Robert Thurman . The book Seal Press . www thequarteracrefarm. .com insight gleaned from years of reading Proust a story to the New Yorker. has been nominated for the PEN/John and structural inspiration drawn from The This early success turned out to be a difficult Sheldon Weinstein (07): He self- Kenneth Galbraith Prize for nonfiction. Sopranos . Beset by time as the ultimate goon, experience, coming too soon in her career, she published Comin’ Up, the book he Tiphanie Yanique (05): She has been Egan’s richly eclectic cast of music-industry says. “That story really hung over me and cast workshopped at Squaw Valley in 2007. have and have-nots confront one another a long shadow, and I felt that I would never named to the National Book Foundation’s across three decades, multiple points of view, even match it, much less top it .” The following Tim Wendel (Screen 05; WW 89-86): 5 Under 35 list, which recognizes five His latest book, High Heat: The Secret even a chapter written in PowerPoint .” The year, in 1989, she attended the Community young fiction writers chosen by National History of the Fastball and the Improbable book, Egan’s fifth, is a finalist for three major of Writers. It wasn’t until 1995 that her first Book Award Winners and Finalists. She Search for the Fastest Pitcher of All Time, awards—the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, novel, The Invisible Circus, was published . The will be out in trade paperback in February also won a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award. the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the story became a feature film starting Cameron 2011. He recently signed to do a nonfiction Mingmei Yip (98): Her third novel, Song National Book Critic’s Circle Award—and was Diaz in 2001 . Emerald City and Other Stories on numerous top ten lists including New came out in 1996, followed by her novel Look narrative entitled Sixty-Eight for Da of the Silk Road, will come out in April from Capo Press . In addition, he received the York Times Book Review, Washington Post, at Me, which was a finalist for the National Kensington Books. She is also writing and Publisher’s Weekly, Time Magazine, People Book Award in 2001 . In Look at Me, Egan says Distinguished Professional Achievement illustrating her second children’s book for Award from Johns Hopkins University for Magazine, and many others . But the writing she “set out to examine the impact of image Tuttle Publishing . www mingmeiyip. com. 2009-2010 . www timwendel. .com life didn’t always come easily for Egan . culture on human identity . How, I wondered, Alia Yunis (04): Her novel The Night has America’s emphasis on display—on Naomi Williams (05): She has had Jennifer Egan made an unwavering appearances, literal and metaphorical—altered Counter (Random House) came out in short stories appear in A Public Space decision to be a writer while on a trip through the makeup of people’s private selves?” paperback in July, as well as in German and One Story . She was also a resident at Europe before college: “My mother and step Hedgebrook during the summer of 2010 . and Norwegian . The Night Counter was father were in the middle of divorcing. I just Playing with style and the formal structure selected by Target Stores as a “Breakout Robert Steven Williams (06,04): He felt very alone in a big way, and at that point, of the novel has been important to Egan . Novel, Emerging Authors” book for the had a story published in the comic book in a fairly extreme state of fear and worry and “[In] what’s come to be thought of the CBGB OMFUG, which is part of a series he months of September and October . just general flipping out, I became aware that standard novel, there’s no play at all with writing was really critical for me .” the artifice itself.…My impulse would be executive produced . NPR picked it as Top Alexi Zentner (05): His first novel, to play with that a little more .” At the same Five Must Read out of this summer’s Comic Touch, will be published this spring by So she focused on writing in college time she acknowledges the importance of Con convention in San Diego . W .W . Norton . Touch will also be published and started sending out stories early on, but “emotional resonance” in the novel, and also Andrew Winer (98,97): His second in Canada, the UK, Italy, France, The says, “it all led to nothing for years. And then lets enjoyment lead the process of writing. “I novel, The Marriage Artist, was published Netherlands, Israel and Korea. finally, I did sell a story toThe North American know that if I’m not having fun, the reader is Review, and then another one to Boulevard not having fun. Fun is actually my best guide as when I was 24 .” Then she wrote what she calls to whether something is working or not .” “an unreadable monster of The Community of Writers Goes Social! a novel” and after sending In 2006 her novel The Keep was a national it around, remembers, “I bestseller . Now she is working on a historical We have a page on Facebook where you can post your news, find writing had the horrible awakening war novel . The mother of two children, she partners, form groups and find out what’s going on with your peers. that any writer knows of has published dozens of short stories and book You can also follow us on Twitter, where we’re learning to be brief! discovering that I had done reviews and regularly contributes investigative You can access both from our website: www.squawvalleywriters.org something that everyone journalism pieces to the New York Times hated ”. Magazine and other publications . ~ 50~ ~ 51~ All But Dissertation: a short short story George Washington Bridge . Janet Fitch Now she was just waiting. For the rain to stop. For Phil to go. Her friends said it From Janet Fitch’s blog: janetfitchwrites.wordpress.com. This is part of a weekly series of short must be working for her on some level, or she would leave. But they didn ‘t understand short stories based on a writing exercise, The Word: Inspired by a simple word, chosen at random, the strange torpor that came over her . write a two-page double-spaced story, using the Word at least once. The word for this story: CLIP. Clip . Clip . Could you kill someone over his nail clippings? Would it be exculpatory? Please Judge, he knew all about the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus but he never bought e sat on the sprung couch they’d found the summer before on 112th Street milk, and he clipped his nails over the floor. Hand clipped his nails over the floor. Maya could never convince him to do it She opened the window, startling two sheltering pigeons . The cacaphony of horns, over the wastebasket or in the toilet . You’re so bourgeois, he said, resting his big foot on the swish of the rain. It would end. It just had to. his knee . Like your whole family in Sherman Oaks . The invisible ironic quotation marks . Sherman Oaks . He did it defiantly. She didn’t believe only bourgeois people cut their nails over the Dear Friends, wastebasket . Surely plumbers and bakers and machinists did too . People who worked in fast food . People who cleaned up in airports . Only a grad student of philosophy would think of it For many decades at Squaw we’ve been holding up a special kind of ladder. as liberation politics to cut his toenails and let the half moons fall onto the floor, those little On the one hand publishers are always raking the slush pile for that elusive thing “talent” - or call it “truth and beauty” - and mostly regret its scarcity. On the other hand sharp crescents gouging into her bare soles in the middle of the night . each summer our valley is brimming with serious writers and poets whose work may She watched him, rain weeping down the dirty window behind him overlooking provide a full measure of truth and beauty were it to see the light. And during the week Broadway . The horns, honking out their impotency, echoed her mood . And tried to in Squaw Valley, light shines forth. And is often sent forth from our workshop tables. remember what she’d ever seen in him . His untrimmed beard . His glasses, taped in the middle. His habit of finishing the milk or the orange juice or the eggs and never telling Every summer we bring together poets for a week, and writers and screen- her . As if food miraculously appeared in the refrigerator . His friends came over and drank writers for another week, to explore the secrets of their crafts. We’ve done it in large whatever happened to be in the apartment, they seemed to believe in miracles as well . part with financial help from people like you. Sometimes that single concentrated week She imagined Sartre . Would Sartre have done anything so disgusting as clip his nails seems to accomplish more than two years in graduate school (or toiling in solitude!) over the floor and then accuse Simone of being bourgeois if she didn’t like it? She hoped he toward bringing creative people closer to realizing their hopes. As you will probably hadn’t . She knew it had been a problematic relationship . But she didn’t think it was of the remember, it’s an intense time, uplifting, bracing, difficult, always a learning experience. toenail nature . Buried in the same grave . She hoped their relationship, hers and Phil’s would I hope now to convince you to pay it forward for another writer. Many of not last that long . Really, she hoped it wouldn’t last another year . She wished she had the you were recipients of some kind of financial aid. Some of you may still be strapped energy to end it, but something about him sucked the life out of her. It made her tired just financially. Nevertheless, we hope you can send something. Or you may no longer be thinking about it . in school, may have a better job, or may have even seen your book published, and in How long could the rain keep up? She sat on the bed, wishing Phil would go do something such a most happy case, I hope you will consider sending us a larger donation. so she could have the apartment to herself for a while. But ever since he finished coursework for his PhD, he never left the apartment anymore . He was supposed to be working on his We are all set for 2011, and we’ll be there no matter what, unpacking the dissertation. But mostly he wrote long e-mails to colleagues in Germany and France, and, green chairs and the workshop tables and the author portraits to line our walls, prepar- she suspected, watched internet porn when she was working . She’d never heard the term ing for the next group of writers to come up ABD until she’d met him . She thought you went to grad school, wrote your dissertation, you to 6200 feet. We do this in the faith that the How you can help: work you do - communication, and the truth- published, you began the road to tenure . Send a check made out to and-beauty business - is the most wonderful, That limbo, that academic mangrove swamp . All But Dissertation . Since coming Squaw Valley Community of Writers consequential work we’ve got. to Columbia, she learned PhD candidates could be ABD for years, becalmed between PO Box 1416, Nevada City, CA 95959 Or donate securely online from our studenthood and life . Brett Hall Jones website. She’d once thought she and Phil would marry. She imagined brilliant, German-inflected Executive Director children, Grethe and Marta and Jan. Like the Royal Tennenbaums. They would go to a progressive New York pre-school, make sculptures in clay and march against the war . Phil A list of our wonderful supporters can be found at: would play the guitar for them and take them onto the roof and point out the stars and the www.squawvalleywriters.org/supporters.html ~ 52~ ~ 53~ Oakley Maxwell Hall III Contributors This Issue May 26, 1950 - February 13, 2011 LISA ALVAREZ is co-director of the Community of JANET FITCH is the author of the novels Paint Writers’ Writers Workshops and is a professor of It Black and White Oleander, an Oprah book the English department at Irvine Valley College . selection, adapted into a feature film in 2002. Her akley Hall III, eldest son of the late novelist Oakley Hall, was a Her essays and short stories have appeared in most recent short stories can be seen in Black Clock Oplaywright, director, and author . In the mid-70s, when he was journals and anthologies. With Alan Cheuse, 7 and the anthology Los Angeles Noir . She teaches a rising star in the New York theatre scene, his play Mike Fink was she edited Writers Workshop in a Book: The fiction writing in the Master of Professional Writing Community of Writers on the Art of Fiction. program at the University of Southern California . optioned by Joseph Papp of the Public Theatre. He founded and Online, she writes a blog: www.janetfitchwrites. was the Artistic Director of the legendary Lexington Conservatory ALAN CHEUSE is the author of the novels The wordpress.com. www.literati.net/Fitch Theatre, in upstate New York, where his plays Grinder’s Stand and Bohemians, The Grandmothers’ Club, The Light Beatrice and the Old Man, and his adaptation of Frankenstein en- Possessed, and the award-winning To Catch the BRETT HALL JONES has been the Executive Lightning, collection of his travel writing, A Trance Director of the Community of Writers for 18 joyed their premiere productions. Lexington Conservatory Theatre After Breakfast, plus several collections of short years . Before that, she was director of catalogue moved to Albany in 1979 and continues today as Albany Rep . fiction. His new novel,Song of Slaves in the Desert, photography for the San Francisco Auction House, was just published this spring. Cheuse has been a Butterfield & Butterfield. She continues to bea photographer, focusing lately on author portraits . In 1978, Oakley suffered traumatic and massive head injuries in regular contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered since 1982. His short fiction MAXIMA KAHN is a poet, fiction writer and essay- a fall from a bridge . He eventually returned to California to live in Nevada has appeared in The New Yorker, Boston Globe ist . She teaches workshops on writing and creativ- City near his family; his play Grinder’s Stand was produced by the Foothill Sunday Magazine, The Southern Review, The ity in Nevada County, California . She attended the Antioch Review, and elsewhere . His three-volume Theatre Company, directed by Philip Sneed . The story of this production, Writers Workshop in 2010 and 2006 and the Poetry introduction to literary study, Literature: Craft & entwined with Oakley’s fall and the slow process of creating a new life, Workshop in 2007 . Voice, which he wrote with Nicholas Delbanco, are movingly told in Bill Rose’s award-winning documentary, The Loss of came out from McGraw-Hill last year. Nameless Things.

Oakley made a life-long study of the surrealist playwright, Al- fred Jarry, and over the years translated several of his plays from the You Might Want to Consider… original French. In 2008, Hall moved to Albany, New York, to live with These magazines are edited by Squaw Valley Staff or Participants and/or they expressly encourage Hadiya Wilborn, who helped set in motion a collaboration with ac- submissions from The Community of Writers . Be sure to mention your participation at Squaw . claimed puppeteer Ed Atkeson . This resulted in a production of one Canary: Gail Entrekin, editor. www.hippocketpress.com/canary.cfm of those translated plays, Ubu Roi, at an Albany theater, Steamer 10, DMQ Review: Sally Ashton, Editor in Chief . www .dmqreview .com directed by Oakley, with Steven Patterson in the title role . In the fall of Ecotone: Ben George (01,99), editor. www.ecotonejournal.com 2010, Moving Finger Press published Oakley’s novel, Jarry and Me, in untitled country review: Scot Siegel (07) editor . untitledcountry .blogspot .com which Oakley intertwines a memoir of his own life with a sly “autobiogra- Faultline: UC Irvine’s literary journal. www.humanities.uci.edu/faultline phy” of Jarry. One of the last sentences of GREY SPARROW JOURNAL: Annam Manthiram, copy editor (10). http://greysparrowpress.net the book is, “Jarry dies with a grin on his Manzanita: Monika Rose, editor. www.manzanitacalifornia.org face .” We are told that Oakley too had a narrative magazine, Tom Jenks, Carol Edgarian, editors (staff). http://narrativemagazine.com grin on his face, at the end . As Oakley Night Train, Alicia Gifford (04), fiction editor. www .nighttrainmagazine .com would say: “Merde.” Orange Coast Review: www .orangecoastreview .com Santa Monica Review, Andrew Tonkovich (staff), editor . www.smc.edu/sm_review He is survived by his two children, Oakley and tin house, Rob Spillman (staff), editor; Elissa Schappell (staff); editor at large, Lee Montgomery Elizabeth, his mother, Barbara E . Hall, his sisters Sands (98), executive editor . www .tinhouse .com Hall, Tracy Hall, and Brett Hall Jones, four loving neph- Water~Stone Review, Hamline University . www .waterstonereview .com ews and a niece—Justin, Nico, Hunter, Dashiell, and If you edit a literary journal and would like to be included in future lists, let us know! Emma—and his cherie, Hadiya Wilborn . ~ 54~ ~ 55~ non-profit org. Community of writers US postage p.o. box 1416 paid nevada city, ca 95959 sacramento, CA Permit #216

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