October 27, 2018
The Berkeley Branch is the founding branch of the oldest professional writers’ club West of the Missisippi.
CWC Berkeley Branch welcomes all California Writers Club members and guests to our monthly speaker program and affordable workshops on the art and business of writing.
Join us November 18, 2018 for
Click here to commit to your writing career.
November 3, 2018
Interviews Buckminster Fuller, Interviews, nonfiction, Patricia Ravasio Leave a comment
Literary publicist and CWC member Cristina Deptula interviews our November speaker, Patricia Ravasio. Ravasio is the author of The Girl from Spaceship Earth, a book about Buckminster Fuller. She will speak to the Berkeley CWC about pushing past your comfort zones, finding your voice, and writing with a mission.
November speaker, Patricia Ravasio
You are describing my life! It has been very hard to drum up interest in Buckminster Fuller, even though he has brilliant answers to some of humanity’s most pressing questions. I handle it by never ever ever giving up.
Definitely hang on to old research notes, but unfinished drafts better to let them go. Some of my best writing has come after I tossed old drafts of chapters and started over.
If you’re listening there’s usually a powerful voice inside you that holds these answers. You just know. It’s your intuition talking and if you don’t listen to it you’re making a big mistake.
All of Bucky’s wisdom applies to writers. Here’s one of my favorite quotes:
The future of humanity rests upon our individual integrity and whether or not each of us has the integrity to only go along with the truth.
Another quote that’s easily relatable:
When something is broken, don’t try to fix it. Instead create a new model that renders the old one obsolete.
(This applies to writing and to government!)
October 24, 2018
Events, Speakers nonfiction, Patricia Ravasio Leave a comment
As a young journalist, Patricia Ravasio was electrified by a day with iconic American genius and futurist R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), who urged her to share the vision of his urgent messages with the world, hoping to help humanity awaken in time. When Fuller’s dire predictions came true on 9/11, Ravasio realized she must face up to her commitment, and began her writing journey in earnest. Her memoir, The Girl from Spaceship Earth, launched on 9/11/17 to celebrate the Buckminster Fuller Institute moving to San Francisco, and was praised by Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. Anyone who is writing with a mission to change the world knows that sometimes this path of intensity can threaten your relationships and sanity. Any writer who has experienced an epiphany will benefit from hearing Pat’s struggle to climb out of comfort zones, find her voice, and live up to her promise.
Patricia’s book, The Girl from Spaceship Earth, brings forth the largely forgotten wisdom of a late American genius often called the Leonardo da Vinci of the twentieth century. It is a true story of her encounters with Buckminster Fuller; the urgent messages for humanity he shares with her during a 1982 meeting in Chicago; how she promises to share his messages and wisdom with the world; and how discoveries along the way challenged her to the core.
Ravasio has won awards for her radio reporting, advertising copywriting, and community volunteerism. She wrote a long-running weekly column for her community newspaper, and writes occasional guest opinion pieces for the Marin Independent Journal. Pat is the mother of three grown daughters and lives with her husband of thirty years in Corte Madera.
Learn more about Buckminster Fuller, Pat Ravasio or her book at BuckyIdeas.com.
Preservation Park, where Patricia Ravasio will speak this Sunday
Be sure to arrive early to participate in the Craft and Marketing groups. These are interactive conversations where you can talk to other writers to resolve the issues in your writing and your writers career. Make the commitment to be join us every third Sunday; your writing career is important and you deserve this. Non-members and guests can audit any of our critique & support groups before joining.
Enjoy the buzz of our networking time from 2-2:30 p.m. Have some coffee and make some great connections!
12:00–1:00 – Craft Support Group
1:00–2:00 – Marketing Success Group
2:00–2:30 – Writer Networking
2:30–3:00 – Welcome, Raffle & Club Announcements
3:00–3:15 – CWC Featured member Gary Durbin
3:15–4:00 – Featured Speaker Patricia Ravasio
NEW: 4:15 – CWC Open Mic
*Empty pockets? Ask about our sponsored guest program at the door. We are committed to supporting writers.
Our meetings are right off 980 in downtown Oakland, at beautiful Preservation Park. Just off 12th Street, naturally you can get there from the 12th St. BART station. Those with limited ability can use the parking lot off of MLK Way; otherwise there should be plenty of FREE parking within the park and on surrounding streets.
October 18, 2018
Announcements, Interviews fantasy, historical fiction, Interviews, Linda McCabe Leave a comment
We will be meeting this Sunday, like every 3rd Sunday, for our monthly day of writerly activities. Networking at 2 p.m., Club meeting at 2:30, Featured club author Alice Jurow at 3 p.m., and our Keynote speaker Linda McCabe at 3:15. Come early for our Craft Group at 12 p.m. and our Marketing Success Group at 1 p.m., and stay late for our new Open Mic at 4:15! (The support groups are for members but guests may audit before joining the club.)
Our October speaker, Linda McCabe, is inspired by classical works, particularly the story of Orlando Furioso, a 16th century Italian work that is connected to the 10th century French “Song of Roland.” What do laboratory science, magical creatures, Harry Potter, a Muslim/Christian holy war, Kick-ass heroines and beta readers have to do with each other? Our speaker chair Cristina Deptula did a lengthy interview on her website Lois Lane Investigates Authors, and we’ve excerpted some highlights here.
This is a gut feeling. There’s a point when I feel like I am procrastinating more than I am doing research. Sometimes I just have to shift gears and stop researching if the aspect I am trying to understand isn’t “knowable” or maybe isn’t all that important. I spent over a week wondering about diapering in the middle ages. This was all because I wanted to have a character do some action in a scene with her baby. I started imagining the characters in my setting and thought of where would the dirty diaper would be placed. Then I wondered how the diaper would be closed, (did they have diaper pins?) How often would they wash them? How many diapers would a noble household have for a baby?
Some research suggested that babies might not have been put in diapers at all. Instead, the parents would watch them carefully and hold them at arm’s length over straw to absorb urine flow.
I considered this matter for too long. I was obsessing over a minor detail that did not enhance or further the plot. I decided to take it out and not “go there.” Instead, I described the baby as been freshly bathed in the scene.
While I believe that publication credits are important to demonstrate your authority as a writer, they aren’t as important to an agent as the sample pages of your completed novel. Writing an article or short story is like running a 100 yard dash while writing a novel is more like running a marathon.
Perfecting the art of the query letter or verbal pitching to an agent in order to get the request to submit sample pages is a different skill set than regular writing. Once you get the go-ahead to send your manuscript and synopsis, your overall craft will be on full view. The agent and subsequent potential publishers will only green light a publishing contract based on the strength of your finished product and not because you had an op-ed published in the LA Times.
Honestly, I think getting a pithy book description will do more for you with agents and publishers than having multiple credits to your name. However, it is a different matter if you are writing non-fiction. If you had publication credits in magazines or peer-reviewed journals and you were submitting a book proposal on the same topic – it might help influence the decision of the agent/publisher to sign you as a client/author.
October 15, 2018
Interviews Alice Jurow, Events, featured members, Interviews, speakers Leave a comment
Sunday, October 21st we’ll be featuring a short reading from our featured member, Alice Jurow. Alice has a degree in Aesthetic Studies from UC Santa Cruz, and is
not afraid to use it. Her obsession with the 1920s has led to a long-standing involvement with the Art Deco Society of California, and she was the editor of the society’s Sophisticate magazine for 12 years. Some of her publications include the North American Review, Archetype, and Bark. Vamps of ‘29 is her first published novel; she is working on a sequel. Alice lives in Berkeley with her human and feline family.
Said Jurow:
I wouldn’t really presume to give anyone else writing advice, but the advice I give myself is: write the book that only you can write, the one you wish you could read.
I can get easily overwhelmed, when I go to bookstores or libraries or readings, and see the huge amount of new work in print, or in process—so much of it interesting, intriguing, well-crafted and crying out to be read. But just as many of these are stories I would be unlikely to write, I also don’t see anyone writing exactly what I envision writing.
In the darker corners of the City of Light, three fashionable young women revel in the glamor of late-1920s Paris nightlife. They model cutting-edge styles at a couture house on the rue Cambon. And, they are vampires.
While immortal charm keeps the vamps perennially youthful, redhaired Natalie is the oldest of the three. A former Mariinsky ballerina, she is moody and volatile, with a fatal penchant for intense Slavic idealists.
The youngest is Lucienne, an emigrée from Indochine, whose cool exterior conceals depths of mysterious knowledge and a complex past which comes back to haunt her, when her powerful Uncle Yu re-enters her life. And then there’s Sally. An Enlightenment-born native Parisienne, she’s eager to embrace all things twentieth-century: bobbed hair, hot jazz, the English language and a series of mortal friends and lovers, including a New Orleans jazz pianist, a British pilot, Oscar Wilde’s niece and an actress named Louise. When a lavish trip to Venice with a couple of American socialites turns dangerous, Sally goes undercover by cross-dressing her way to Berlin. The three vampire friends re-unite in Paris to model in one last astonishing fashion show and bring the 1920s to a close.
Learn more at Vampsof29.com
After Alice Jurow reads to us from Vamps of 29, we’ll learn how to research historical figures, settings, and customs for historical fantasy writing. Our featured guest Linda McCabe will show authors how to decide when to use dramatic license vs. adhering strictly to the historical record. Fantasy has its own rules regarding logic and consistency and Linda will discuss the craft of balancing the needs of historical fiction with drama and fantasy. Linda’s novel Quest of the Warrior Maiden was honored by the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association’s (BAIPA) as Best Historical Fantasy and received an Honorable Mention by the Hollywood Book Festival.
September 25, 2018
Events, Speakers Events, speakers Leave a comment
Writing historical fiction requires extensive research on historical figures, settings, customs, etc., and decisions regarding dramatic license vs. adhering strictly to the historical record, while fantasy has its own rules regarding logic and consistency. Linda will discuss the craft of balancing the needs of historical fiction with drama and fantasy.
Linda is the author of the novel, Quest of the Warrior Maiden, based on the legends of Charlemagne. To aid in her novel’s research, she traveled to France, scouring museums in Paris and trekking through medieval hilltop villages in the Midi-Pyrenees. Her novel was honored by the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association’s (BAIPA) as Best Historical Fantasy and received an Honorable Mention by the Hollywood Book Festival. McCabe is finishing the first of two sequels. Her website is www.LindaCMcCabe.com
Be sure to arrive early to participate in the Craft and Marketing groups. These are interactive conversations where you can talk to other writers to resolve the issues in your writing and your writers career. Make the commitment to be join us every third Sunday; your writing career is important and you deserve this. Non-members and guests can audit any of our critique & support groups before joining.
Networking from 2-2:30. Have some coffee and make some great connections!
12:00–1:00 – Craft Support Group
1:00–2:00 – Marketing Success Group
2:00–2:30 – Writer Networking
2:30–3:00 – Welcome, Raffle & Club Announcements
3:00–3:15 – CWC Featured member Alice Jurow
3:15–4:00 – Featured Speaker Linda McCabe
*Empty pockets? Ask about our sponsored guest program at the door. We are committed to supporting writers.
Our meetings are right off 980 in downtown Oakland, at beautiful Preservation Park. Just off 12th Street, naturally you can get there from the 12th St. BART station. Those with limited ability can use the parking lot off of MLK Way; otherwise there should be plenty of FREE parking within the park and on surrounding streets.
September 20, 2018
Announcements, From the President Leave a comment
Hello Writers!
We had a lively kick-off last Sunday, learning lessons from the roller coaster of Marty Nemko’s prolific career and imagining a different world with featured member Patricia McBroom. Let’s sail into the season and get our words heard!
Our membership renewal window is closing, so please renew now if you have not done so already. After October 1, those renewing will have to pay the $20 initiation fees to reinstate.
If you haven’t joined yet, now is the best time! (and here are the payment link and application!) Our monthly speaker series provides information that every writer can use, and our ongoing support groups, critique circles and collectives help us all write better together. (We have some pretty great parties, too!) This year, watch for more writing retreats and workshops, plus our presence at the San Francisco Writers Conference and the Bay Area Book Festival.
At our next meeting on October 21 we’ll hear longtime CWC mover and shaker Linda McCabe talk about the delights and demands of writing historical fiction. Anyone who loves to travel for research should enjoy this talk!
We know you love to write, so if you prefer to write a check, our address is CWC Berkeley, P.O. Box 11269, Oakland, CA 94611. It’s $45 for membership plus a one-time $20 initiation fee. (It’s better than drinking a gallon of pickle juice, you have to admit.)
—Kristen Caven, president
