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| Keynote Speaker: Steve Heller |
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Steve Heller, a two-time O. Henry Award winner, is best known for his novel The
Automotive History of Lucky Kellerman, a selection of both Book-of-the-Month Club and QPB, and recipient
of the Friends of American Writers Award. In addition to novels, he has also written a collection of
short stories, The
Man Who Drank a Thousand Beers, and most recently, a collection of narrative essays titled What
We Choose to Remember. Heller
is currently president of the board for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP). He lives
with his wife and son in Culver City, CA, where he directs the low-residency MFA in creative writing program
at Antioch University Los Angeles, and is working on a new novel. |
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| Rebecca (Becca) Conrad Lawton |
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Rebecca (Becca) Conrad Lawton’s collection of essays about life as a whitewater guide in
the West, Reading Water: Lessons from the River, was a SF Chronicle Bay Area Bestseller and ForeWord Nature Book
of the Year finalist. She has authored three additional books of nonfiction, as well as published stories,
poems, and essays in Orion, THEMA, Shenandoah, Sierra, SF Chronicle Magazine, and many other periodicals and
anthologies. Her writing honors include the inaugural Ellen Meloy Fund Award for Desert Writers and three
Pushcart Prize nominations. Visit her Writer in Residence blog via her website, www.beccalawton.com. |
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| Wendy Bertrand |
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Wendy Bertrand, who attended the first North Coast Redwoods Writers’ Conference and has
returned often, will launch her new memoir at the 2012 conference. Enamored with Place:
As Woman + As Architect is from eyeonplace press, which Bertrand recently established in San Francisco to emphasize the importance of
place, to increase awareness about the architectural profession and what architects do, and to inspire other
women to speak and write more about their concerns. Eyeonplace press also distributes Bertrand’s Rug
Retrospective of Weaving Seasons: 1999-2010. For more than 20 years, she has lived summers in Del Norte County and winters
in San Francisco. www.wendybertrand.com |
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| Ken Letko |
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Ken Letko's most recent publication is Forgotten Inventors, a collection of seventeen poems from
Long House Press of Vermont. His poems have also been published in three earlier chapbooks as well as a
number of anthologies and magazines, including Dos Passos Review, Earth's Daughters: Stormy
Weather, Natural Bridge, North American Review, and Rattle (www.rattle.com/poetry/2010/08/the-power-of-light-by-ken-letko/). He
has taught as a lecturer at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and as a foreign expert at the Xian Foreign
Languages Institute in the People's Republic of China. He currently teaches at College of the Redwoods. |
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| Jody Gehrman |
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Jody Gehrman is the author of six novels and numerous plays. Babe in Boyland is her most
recent young adult novel, published this year by Penguin's Dial books. Her other novels include Confessions
of a Triple Shot Betty, Triple Shot Bettys in Love, Notes from the Backseat, Tart, and Summer
in the Land of Skin. Her plays have been produced in Ashland, New York, San Francisco and L.A. She and her partner David
Wolf won the New Generation Playwrights Award for their one-act, Jake Savage, Jungle P.I. She is a professor
of English at Mendocino College. www.jodygehrman.com |
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| Rebecca Olson |
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Rebecca Olson is senior editor of CALYX, Inc., a nonprofit independent publisher of art and literature
by women since 1976. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Cream City
Review, PANK, Word Riot, and other literary journals. She holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison and a master’s degree in poetry from Oregon State University, where she works as the
creative writing program assistant. She is also vice president of the Association of Writers and Writing
Programs (AWP) Women's Caucus. www.calyxpress.org |
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