POSTPONED:MAY 15, 2020 BACK AT THE M.I.!

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DUE TO THE CORONAVIRUS THIS EVENT WILL BE RESCHEDULED---WATCH THIS SPACE FOR UPDATES!

Writers Lunch: Storytelling: the Writers Tradition

NEW DATE TBD

Mechanics' Institute

57 Post Street

San Francisco, CA  94104

Have you ever wondered how your stories, told through the generations, shaped your legacy and informed your writing? Would you like to explore your storytelling voice and learn how to tell an unforgettable story? Enjoy three storytellers and their personal tales! Discover basic tips for creating and crafting authentic stories that draw from your cultural roots.

The author and two contributors to Story Power will join in a lively telling and discussion. Story Power is available for pre-order via this link.

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Kate Farrell will give a brief overview of the oral tradition and how it guides the craft of writing. She will tell a story from Story Power and discuss how her German immigrant heritage influenced her work.

Humaira Ghilzai will share how Afghan folktales, proverbs, and the power of oral storytelling shaped her as a writer, blogger, and cultural advisor.

Sheryl Bize-Boutte will share experiences from her Creole relatives' expressive storytelling and how it helped to inform her writing.

READING AT CAFE UCCELLO ON FEBRUARY 23, 2020

I will be joining Polyglot Author Kiran Bhat 

and 

Other Bay Area Local Writers 

for an

 Authors Large and Small Reading 

at 

Cafe Uccello

February 23, 2020

2:00 PM-5:00 PM

Cafe Uccello

340 14th Street

Oakland, CA

Kiran Bhat is the author of the poetry collections Autobiografia (Letrame Editorial, 2019) and Kiran Speaks (White Elephant Press, 2019), as well as the Kannada-language travelogue Tirugaatha (Chiranthana Media Solutions, 2019) and the novel We of the Forsaken World (Iguana Books, 2019). He has traveled to over 130 countries, lived in 18 different places, and speaks 12 languages. He considers Mumbai his spiritual base, but currently lives in Melbourne.

After Kiran's reading, we're hosting a selection of Bay Area authors, including Pamela McCorduck, Joan Gelfand, Sheryl Bize-Boutte, Christopher Bernard and others.

All welcome!

BIZE-BOUTTE AND KNIGHT AT THE SF WRITER'S CONFERENCE!

Women's National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter

Novel Approaches to Outlining and Marketing Fiction: Another Reason to attend SFWC 2020! 2020-01-31 22:40:23-05 Come join two of our WNBA-SF Chapter board members in a great presentation blending their expertise and experience. Brenda Knight, Publisher, Author and Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte, Author present “Novel Approaches to Outlining and Marketing Fiction This is where the “bookends” of writing meet. Hear unique insights from a prolific and popular writer on the outlining and writing of fiction along with insider secrets from a veteran of Harper Collins marketing and sales that you can use for marketing your book. Get tips on how to create the “who”, “what” and “what ifs” in outlining “must read” fiction, along with strategies for success with social media, publicity, blogging, and more, all designed to draw positive attention to your work. Get information on how to sign up for the Women’s National Book Association-San Francisco Chapter’s March 21, 2020, “Pitch-O-Rama Plus” to learn more about the “4 Ps” that lead to publication. 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 like-able 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” was 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. Brenda Knight began her career at HarperCollins, working with luminaries Marianne Williamson, Mark Nepo, Melody Beattie, Huston Smith and Paolo Coelho. Knight served for 8 years as publisher of Cleis Press & Viva Edition, winner of the IndieFab’s Publisher of the Year Award in 2014. Knight is the author of Wild Women and Books, The Grateful Table, Be a Good in the World, and Women of the Beat Generation , which won an American Book Award. Knight is Associate Publisher at Mango Publishing and acquires for all genres in fiction and nonfiction as well as children and photography books. She also serves as President of the Women’s’ National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter and is an instructor at the annual San Francisco Writers Conference. The post Novel Approaches to Outlining and Marketing Fiction: Another Reason to attend SFWC 2020! appeared first on Women's National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter.

 HAYWARD B-STREET WRITER'S COLLECTIVE (BSWC) Winter Reading

March 7, 2020

2 to 4pm

Sun Gallery

1015 E St 

Hayward, California 94541

Cathy Dana, Poet Laureate of Alameda will be the featured poet. 

Sheryl Bize-Boutte will emcee the event. 

Hope to see you there!

WOMEN'S NATIONAL BOOK ASSOCIATION FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW

Featured Member Interview – 

Sheryl Bize-Boutte

By Web Editor

A Rich Retirement: Sheryl Bize-Boutte Proves 

It’s Never Too Late for the Write Words

by Nita Sweeney, author of the running and mental health memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink. 

One of the many joys of participating in the Women’s National Book Association of San Francisco is the opportunity to learn from talented, successful authors such a Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte. As could be expected from even a quick review of her work, Sheryl provided generous, insightful answers to my questions.

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NS: You enjoyed a rich work-life before you turned to writing full-time. Did your work experience prepare you for this phase of your career?
SJBB: The two things my work experience did for my writing career were 1) to provide a nice retirement with freedom to write and 2) to let me know that I could write in many different forms. In those ways the career off-ramp was totally worth it. Although I wrote a bit now and then throughout my government career, my work-related writing was often lauded and I became the “writer” in the office. I once wrote a section of congressional testimony for a cabinet level secretary that was delivered to the House without one word being changed. That sealed it for me. I knew what I would be doing in my retirement!

NS: Your work has won some impressive awards. Have those helped further your writing career?
SJBB: Awards are impressive to some and I am sure have caught the eye of readers and some important people in the writing game. But I have found that much of my recognition and furtherance as a writer has been a result of my readings, involvement in the writing community and face-to-face casual literary encounters out there in the world of writing. I don’t write for the award of it. I write for the love of it. I think people feel my love of the writing and sometimes that alone makes them want to hear and see more of it.
NS: You have been described as a “talented 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.” What did you think when you read this review?
SJBB: I can only surmise that this is what she received from reading my stories. I will say that since an African American mother who was often treated badly because of her skin color, and a Creole father who was often mistaken as White raised me, some may view my writings about my observations of the differences as artful, but for me they are what my life was and is made of. I had an “inside view” so to speak of what it meant to be treated as Black as well as White in Oakland as well as in the South, and since I was an extremely nosey child who listened to and looked closely at everything, I remember it, I kept it and I can write it. As far as the narrative part: My favorite writing form is the short story. I learned a long time ago that be to an effective short story teller one must make each sentence a story in itself, have very few characters and stay on point. 

NS: Which of your many publications made you the proudest and why?
SJBB: I am most proud of my first published story, “Dead Chickens and Miss Anne” as it was the first short story I wrote after I retired and was published by the first and only place I submitted it. In addition to that, the comments about the story included that people felt I had found my voice, but in fact I was humbled to know that I had never lost it.

NS: Much of your work is set in Oakland. Can you talk about why this suits your work?
SJBB: I think Oakland is one of the most vibrant, creative and artistic cities on the planet and I am so fortunate to be here. As I have watched it change, grow, shrink, and morph, it has informed and nurtured my writing from the day my 12-year-old self wrote a story on my new Smith Corona, to now and beyond. My real memory and imaginary muse have their base in Oakland and both remain solid and rich with many more stories to tell.

NS: You successfully write in many genres. Are there common threads among these works?
SJBB: I think the common thread is my unique voice. My way of expression that is just me. I see things in a different way than some. I write with that difference.

NS: Crowds have enjoyed your readings, which were said to “bring down the house.” To what do you attribute your success at such events?
SJBB: I come from a family of voracious readers, storytellers, singers, poets, writers; you name it. One of our favorite pastimes as children was to act out scenes or mimic favorite characters as we told stories. I still do that. I find myself changing tone, pitch and voice when reading, especially poetry where there may be more than one character or message. Audiences are tickled and sometimes enthralled by that or perhaps how much I seem to like what I am saying. But the bigger attribution comes from the fact that I do not see myself as separate from the audience. I am not a presenter. I am a person sharing my life and work with people who have been gracious enough to sit quietly (until the end, hopefully when they applaud raucously) and listen.