In partnership with the Womens' National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter and moderated by President Brenda Knight.
What are the secrets to success for novels? At least one of them is
structure -- our speakers will share the approaches that have garnered
them bestseller status, awards and rave reviews. Learn what role
planning and research play and how to make your scenes, settings, and
characters realistic and compulsively readable from beginning to end.
There will be Q&A followed by book signings; bring your lunch, a
notebook and plenty of questions! Coffee, tea and dessert will be
provided.
Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte
is an Oakland multidisciplinary writer whose works artfully succeed in
getting across deeper meanings about life and the politics of race and
economics without breaking out of the narrative, with Oakland often
serving as the backdrop for her touching and often hilarious works. Her
first book,
A Dollar Five-Stories From A Baby Boomer's Ongoing Journey (2014) has been described as "rich in vivid imagery", and "incredible." Her second book,
All That and More's Wedding
(2016), a collection of fictional mystery/crime short stories, is
praised as "imaginative with colorful and likeable characters that draw
you in to each story and leave you wanting more." Her latest book,
Running for the 2:10 (2017), a follow-on to
A Dollar Five,
delves deeper into her coming of age in Oakland and the embedded issues
of race and skin color with one reviewer calling it "... a great
contribution to literature." Her fictional story, "Uncle Martin" will be
published by
Medusa's Laugh Press Summer 2019. She currently has a novel in progress titled
Betrayal on the Bayou, slated for publication in early 2020. She is also a contributor to award winning author Kate Farrell's upcoming book
Story Power,
an anthology on how writers build and create their stories. It has been
said that Sheryl "brings down the house" with presentations of her
stories (both true and fictional) and poetry. Her poems "Cutty Sark and
Milk (She Said, She Said)" and "Childthink" were winners in the 2019 San
Lorenzo Library Literary Contest. She is still often asked to read "The
Last Collard Green," one of her most popular fiction stories, published
by
Synchronized Chaos Magazine in 2017.
Mary Mackey is the New York Times bestselling author of fourteen novels, including
The Earthsong Series—four
novels which describe how the peaceful Goddess-worshiping people of
Prehistoric Europe fought off patriarchal nomad invaders (
The Village of Bones, The Year The Horses Came, The Horses at the Gate, and The Fires of Spring).
Mary's novels have been praised by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Pat Conroy,
Thomas Moore, Marija Gimbutas, Maxine Hong Kingston, Marge Piercy, and
Theodore Roszak for their historical accuracy, inventiveness, literary
grace, vividness, and storytelling magic. They have made
The New York Times and
San Francisco Chronicle
Bestseller Lists, been translated into twelve foreign languages and
sold over a million and a half copies. Mary has also written seven
collections of poetry including
Sugar Zone, winner of the 2012
PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award. This September Marsh Hawk Press will
publish a collection of her new and selected poems entitled
The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams. At
marymackey.com,
you can get the latest news about Mary's books and public appearances,
sample her work, sign up for her newsletter, and get writing advice. You
can also find her on
Facebook and follow her on Twitter @MMackeyAuthor.
Martha Conway’s latest novel,
The Underground River, was selected as a
New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. She is also the author of
Thieving Forest, which won the North American Book Award in Historical Fiction, and
Sugarland, which was named one of Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2016. Martha’s short fiction has appeared in the
Iowa Review, Mississippi Review, The Quarterly, Carolina Quarterly, and other publications. She has reviewed fiction for the
San Francisco Chronicle and the
Iowa Review, and
is a recipient of a California Arts Council fellowship in Creative
Writing. In addition to writing, Martha is an instructor of creative
writing at Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program and UC
Berkeley Extension. She received her BA from Vassar College in History
and English, and her MA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State
University. Born and raised in Ohio, she now lives in San Francisco with
her family, where the fog reminds her of lake-effect cloud cover in
Cleveland. Martha tweets ten-minute prompts every weekday on twitter
(#10minprompt) via
@marthamconway.
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