The Berkeley Branch is the founding branch of the oldest professional writers’ club West of the Mississippi.
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.
On February 16th the California Writers Club – Berkeley branch welcomes award-winning poet and activist Jan Steckel as a featured guest of the club. Steckel will speak on how poets and writers can effect change through their writing. She will speak on advocacy, representation, and documenting social conditions. Steckel has experience to share on using your writing to inspire empathy and using your notoriety to draw attention to injustice. She will share the ways poets and writers can participate in acts of resistance and move others to action.
Steckel will briefly survey activist poets of the past. Many poets who rarely wrote overtly political poetry have felt moved to do so over the last few years. Online and print venues for political poetry have recently multiplied; a list of 22 journals that publish poetry about current events, including poems that take a political stance, will be provided. Local and national organizations of activist poets and publishers and ways to be an activist poet will be discussed.
About February Guest Jan Steckel
February CWC-Berkeley speaker Jan Steckel
Jan Steckel is a former pediatrician who stopped practicing medicine because of chronic pain. She is an activist for bisexual people’s, disabled people’s and immigrants’ rights. Her latest book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, December 2018) won two Rainbow Awards (for LGBT Poetry and Best Bisexual Book) and was a finalist for the poetry category of the Bi Book Awards. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. Her writing has appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, Rise Up Review, Poetry Reading the News, The New Verse News, and elsewhere. She lives in Oakland, California and works as a medical editor. Learn more at JanSteckel.com or follow her on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
NOTE: Change of ROOM!
We usually meet in Robinson Classroom ‘B’ but at this meeting will meet in Robinson Classroom ‘A’
Full Schedule of Events
12:00 pm Setup 12:30 Doors open & member services 1:00 Raffle & Announcements 1:30 Featured Member: Henry Hitz 1:45 Keynote Speaker: Jan Steckel 2:30 Book Sales & Networking 3:00 Marketing Group* 4:00 Craft Group* 5:00 Byeeee!
$5 for members, $10 for non-members*
Coffee is provided, bring cookies and treats to share!
Admission includes 1 free raffle ticket
PLEASE PLAN TO PURCHASE A RAFFLE TICKET! Only $1 each or 6 for $5, every ticket supports the club’s equity program. You can win a book written by our club authors!
* Support groups are members-only but guests may audit * Empty pockets? Ask about our sponsored guest program at the door. We are writers helping writers, a welcoming community.
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.
We meet in Robinson Classroom ‘B’ but at this meeting will meet in Robinson Classroom ‘A’
June 16th – Member Book Launch at Great Good Place for Books, Oakland
Check for support groups and more member events on our Calendar.
Full Schedule of Events
Please NOTE NEW SCHEDULE
12:00 pm Setup 12:30 Doors open & member services 1:00 Introducing Featured Member 1:15 Keynote Speaker: September Williams 2:00 Announcements & Networking 3:00 Marketing Group* 4:00 Craft Group* 5:00 The End
$5 for members, $10 for non-members*
Coffee is provided, bring cookies and treats to share!
Admission includes 1 free raffle ticket
PLEASE PLAN TO PURCHASE A RAFFLE TICKET! Only $1 each or 6 for $5, every ticket supports the club’s equity program. You can win a book written by our club authors!
* Support groups are members-only but guests may audit * Empty pockets? Ask about our sponsored guest program at the door. We are writers helping writers, a welcoming community.
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.
Member Judith Offer will be our featured reader at our first meeting of the year on Sunday, January 19th. Judith is celebrating her one-year anniversary of being in the California Writers Club! She is an Oakland poet and playwright. 18 of her plays have been professionally produced, most in community theatres in the Bay Area. Her themes are women’s issues, American history, and the various cultural groups that populate Oakland.
Judith has five books of poetry. Recently, she self-published a chapbook called The Grating of America, Poems For a Democracy Ground Down, about the current political situation.
Pictures of plays, copies of some of her poems, and reviews are available at her web site, JudithOffer.com.
How did you become a writer?
In one sense my career is amazing: I had every possible disadvantage to ever writing anything. I was the oldest girl in a family of nine kids, born to parents who didn’t really want a huge family and were angry and resentful. We moved a lot, so I attended seven grammar schools and ended up with a sketchy, confused basic education, no permanent friends, and no long-term other adult support. My high school probably saved me. It was big, well-organized, and had a good teaching staff. And I got to be there for four years. I managed a few close friends and in spite of many home responsibilities, participation in a drama club. My intelligence was recognized to the extent that I made it into the top “track”. And though the teachers of the day mostly tried to ignore the girls, there were two who showed that they thought I had…something special. I made it through college by working as an au pair for room and board and with a state scholarship for tuition. I graduated with no single teacher telling me my writing was good, or suggesting a writing career, in spite of many essays and term papers with good grades. I went off to teach after school, not sure I wanted to; left to work in urban renewal, mostly because I got to work in downtown DC, still wondering what I was “becoming”. All this time, I was writing a few poems every year, which I kept in a small black notebook. In my late twenties I married, and two years later my husband, Stuart Offer, the only person who had seen my notebook, gave me a typewriter for Christmas, “so you can send your poems out.” So in my case, I really was rescued by Prince Charming. When I did send them, a number were quickly taken, and I suddenly knew what I was becoming. There has been a long road since then, and I am far from rich or famous from my writing. But I have been able to develop my gift, and I have seen many of my plays performed and poems published. I have had some killer fun times, directing plays, teaching kids drama, reading in cool places, and meeting all sorts of interesting and wonderful people. I feel like I have become part of the American story…a small part, but a part. I would like to see my plays on bigger, better-known stages, and I would like to get paid real money some day for them. But even if I never do, I feel that I have had at least some chance to “have my say” and to add to the list of women who, thanks to American feminists–such as the suffragists we’re celebrating this year—have made openings for people like me.
“When Jack London said you have to go after inspiration with a club, I think he meant a writing club.” — Kristen Caven, author, president of CWC Berkeley 2017-2020
Dear Members,
It’s time for us to hold council at a general meeting about the state of our branch. Please join us for a very special monthly meeting where, in lieu of a speaker + announcements, we’ll have a chance to talk together about what we want from each other our association.
After our announcements & featured reader, The meeting will have three parts:
Where We’ve Been
Historians Therese Pipe and Linda Brown will do a brief (10-minute) presentation on the history of the California Writers Club. If you don’t know much about us, this is a MUST-SEE! This club has been operating, and run by volunteers, for 110 years.
Where We’re At
As the century swings into gear, we employ various technologies to run the intricate business machinery of our metaphorical sailing ship. But the ship is only as strong as it’s sailors. President Kristen will give an overview of who pulls the ropes and pushes the oars, and help you see YOUR place in the crowd & crew.
Where We’re Going
Reflecting on the overview, club leaders will host breakout groups where we will all brainstorm about: 1) something the club is doing well, 2) what we get from the club, 3) what we want from the club, 4) what we can each contribute to the club, and 5) the club’s greatest concerns.
We’ll close by sharing priorities from each group, and selecting task groups for our crucial next steps and future.
We are a Participatory Democracy (or better yet, a DO-ocracy!), so do plan to come to this important group event and participate—this is YOUR club. Until then, please give some thought to these existential questions:
Who/what is the CWC?
What do we all, as a group, want to do?
Why does having a club matter to you?
What are you willing to contribute so that you get the benefit you need?
We are an eclectic assembly of strong writers who are all very interesting people. So…
How can we best work together to help each other and ourselves?
Here’s the day’s schedule. (If you’re attending the 5-page group the day before, we still hope to hear from you!) Please send notes to berkeley.cwc@gmail.com if you cannot attend.
12:00 pm Setup
12:30 Doors open & member services
1:00 Raffle & Announcements
1:30 Featured Member: Judith Offer, poet & playwright
1:45 CWC past & future PRESENTATION & DISCUSSION
2:45 Break & Networking
3:00 Marketing Group (Kymberlie Ingalls)
4:00 Craft Group (Terry Tierney)
Happy New Year to all writers, editors, publishers, publicists who follow this blog. Please take time to savor all of your writing and personal accomplishments! I look forward to us all giving each other energy on our writing goals for 2020.
Coffee is provided, bring cookies and treats to share!
Admission includes 1 free raffle ticket
PLEASE PLAN TO PURCHASE AN EXTRA RAFFLE TICKET! Only $1 each or 6 for $5, every ticket supports the club’s equity program. You can win a book written by our club authors!
* Support groups are members-only but guests may audit
* Empty pockets? Ask about our sponsored guest program at the door. We are writers helping writers, a welcoming community.
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.
Please join us for our Winter Social! We’ll be gathering at the home of a soon-to-be-famous writer for an afternoon salon.
& Open House
Members know Rancho Deluxe is a home in the Dimond District, but since this is a private house party we can’t post the address publicly. Members received an email with the address, and are welcome to bring guests. If you’re not a member and you’d like to attend, drop an email to our president and request an invite.
What to bring:
A holiday or literary-themed dessert or beverage
an inspiring passage to read or song to perform (instruments welcome!)
a guitar or musical instrument if you feel like jamming
gently-used and unwrapped books to share (one for the gift grab and one to donate)
a guest who loves writers or is a writer or wants to be one!
Our featured guest this November 17th is Joan Gelfand. Her reviews, stories, essays and poetry have appeared in over 100 national and international literary journals and magazines including the Los Angeles Review of Books, Rattle, Prairie Schooner, PANK! Kalliope, The Toronto Review, Levure Litteraire and Chicken Soup for the Soul. The author of three well-reviewed poetry collections and an award-winning chapbook of short fiction, Joan’s novel Fear to Shred will be published by Mastadon Press in 2020. Past President of the Women’s National Book Association, Joan is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and a juror for the Northern California Book Awards. Her poetry was featured at the 4th Annual Video Poetry Festival in Athens, Greece and won Certificate of Merit in a juried art show at the International Association for the Study of Dreams. A film based on her poem, The Ferlinghetti School of Poetics, has since showed at nine international film festivals and won Best Poetry Film at the World Film Festival.
Four Questions for Joan Gelfand
What are some common misconceptions people have about what it takes to be a real writer, and what’s true instead?
One common misconception is that real writers have literary agents. Many writers work with small presses directly, or university presses that do not require an agent. Also—and I feel strongly about this—poets are real writers and only a handful of poets have agents. IMHO, the distinguishing feature of a ‘real writer’ is a writer who has at least one traditionally published book.
How did you harness Confidence, Commitment, Craft, and Community to help you write your latest novel Fear to Shred?
Let’s talk about Community first: I met my publisher at a Women’s National Book Association event. I had been very involved with the WNBA for 14 years as a volunteer. I served as National President and chapter president of the SF chapter for two years. I also spent many years building up a platform, or fan base. I started a national writing contest that brought in a lot of writers and funds to the WNBA. The other topics, Commitment, Craft and Confidence—I’d prefer to discuss in person with the group.
Who should be in a writer’s community? Are you talking about critique groups, or going to conferences to meet agents and editors, or both? Or something else entirely?
Again, in my humble opinion, every writer NEEDS to be in some sort of community. If they are able, they should be serving as volunteers in any number of active writing communities in the Bay Area. I don’t consider critique groups , or going to conferences, part of community. Conferences would be part of networking and critique groups I would put under craft. I am talking about building up your platform and fan base. One writer said you build your fan base one fan at a time. That means you need to meet people, you need to show up at other people’s events, support other writers, etc. Building community is a long term commitment. That said, many writers have built strong, successful communities on line. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all provide the tools to build community.
What are some good places to go in the Bay Area to meet some other writers and build community?
Beside the CWC there is the Women’s National Book Association, Left Coast Writers, San Francisco Creative Writing Institute, the Writing Salon, just to name a few.
Presidio branch of the SF Public Library 3150 Sacramento St, San Francisco
With the skyrocketing popularity of audiobooks, every author—published or not—should understand their options regarding audiobooks.
Learn about key decisions involved in the audiobook production process, such as:
preparing your manuscript for recording
finding your narrator
audiobook distribution options
where to get your audiobook produced
hiring a narrator or producer
using the ACX system
dos and don’ts of recording your audiobook
marketing your audiobook from the inside out
what to do once your book has launched
About Workshop Presenter Becky Parker Geist
Becky Parker Geist is an audiobook producer and narrator with 37+ years of experience in the audiobook industry; and owner of Pro Audio Voices, serving clients internationally for audiobook production and marketing. Becky has narrated and/or produced over 200 titles to date.
Becky Parker Geist
Committed to leadership, Becky serves as President of BAIPA (Bay Area Independent Publishers Association) and is a member of IBPA, APA (Audio Publishers Assn), NFAA (NonFiction Authors Association) and the California Writers Club. She is the author of five titles, including Audiobook Toolkit for Authors: Your Comprehensive Guide to Recording Your Own Audiobook, now available at authortoolkits.com. Her passion is to help great stories come alive. Learn more at proaudiovoices.com.
In Freefall: A Divine Comedy, Lily Iona MacKenzie zeroes in on a fundamental truth: We’re all in freefall, and that’s the real divine comedy. No matter how old we are, we’re still trying to “find ourselves” and discover what we want out of life.
Meet Lily Iona MacKenzie, a new member this season, at the November 17th meeting, opening for Joan Gelfland.
Lily writes:
I don’t have hayseed clinging to my trousers, but growing up on a Canadian farm gave me a unique foundation as a writer. I sprouted under cumulous clouds that bloomed everywhere in Alberta’s big sky. They were my first creative writing instructors, scudding across the heavenly blue, constantly changing shape: one minute an elephant, bruised and brooding. The next morphing into a rabbit or a castle. These billowing masses gave me a unique view of life on earth.
I continue to seek instruction from clouds. Just as they provide the earth with much-needed water, I believe that stories have a similar function, preparing the mind to receive new ideas. Also, conditions inside a cloud are not static—water droplets are constantly forming and re-evaporating. Stories, too, change, depending on who is reading them, each one giving life to its readers.
A high school dropout, and a mother at 17, in my early years, I supported myself as a stock girl in the Hudson’s Bay Company, as a long distance operator for the former Alberta Government Telephones, and as a secretary (Bechtel Corp sponsored me into the States). I also was a cocktail waitress at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco; briefly broke into the male-dominated world of the docks as a longshoreman (I was the first woman to work on the SF docks and almost got my legs broken); founded and managed a homeless shelter in Marin County; co-created The Story Shoppe, a weekly radio program for children that aired on KTIM in Marin; and eventually earned two Master’s degrees (one in Creative writing and one in the Humanities). I have published reviews, interviews, short fiction, poetry, travel pieces, essays, and memoir in over 160 American and Canadian venues. Fling!, one of my novels, was published in July 2015 by Pen-L Publishing. Curva Peligrosa, another novel, was published in September 2017. Freefall: A Divine Comedy was released in January 2019. Tillie: Portrait of a Canadian Girl in Training, featuring the same main character as in Freefall, will come out in 2020. My poetry collection All This was published in 2011. I also taught writing at the University of San Francisco (USF) for over 30 years and was vice-president of USF’s part-time faculty union. I currently teach creative writing at USF’s Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning. When not writing, I paint and travel with my husband.
Lily answers a few questions about her writing, and then gives advice to writers!
An enchanting story about old friends reuniting as they struggle with thoughts on aging, religion, motherhood, men, art, and death, with plenty of surprises and laughs along the way. A Divine Comedy, indeed!
Freefall’s subtitle is A Divine Comedy. Dante’s epic poem of that same name also involves lots of travelling, and lots of soul-searching. Dante’s poem, however, has three parts: The Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Did you see the four women in your novel as going through a similar time sequence, reaching a kind of paradise at the end of a hellish journey? Or did you mean to suggest a different process?
I actually wasn’t thinking about Dante’s poem when I wrote this novel. The title came to me much later, and then I realized the narrative was a kind of divine comedy, though I wasn’t trying to imitate Dante’s excellent work. To me it’s Divine because I believe that all life on earth is divine, and the comedy part Isn’t comic in the slapstick sense but in the humor that’s implicit in being human. We all face different challenges in our lives. If we’re lucky, we can see through the darkness to the wry aspect of how little control we have over anything.
But the characters in Freefall, as those in Dante’s work, do travel, and they also do a fair amount of soul searching. And while they don’t reach a kind of paradise at the novel’s end, they have come to a new understanding of themselves and each other.
“Tillie Bloom,” the main character’s name, is similar to Molly Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Was that intentional? Tillie certainly “blooms” in other ways throughout the novel. Did you choose this striking name purposely?
Yes, I deliberately chose Bloom as Tillie’s last name. Tillie renames herself “Bloom” after reading Ulysses. She didn’t want her previous husband’s name, and she doesn’t have a father. So, she chose Bloom because he lives so much in his senses. And just as Bloom is searching for a son, Tillie is searching for a father.
Freefall has more than a touch of magical realism in it. Is this a style you use in your other books? What attracts you to this style of writing?
Reality is both magical and “real,” if by real we mean something that isn’t imagined. Language by its very nature is magical, transforming our everyday reality in multiple ways, carrying us aloft on the wings of thought. When I call on magical realism in my fiction, I do it because it opens me up to a fuller understanding of our world, both internally and externally. I believe it captures a fuller view of what’s going on in our lives than realism can do.
You describe writing as “your addiction” and “compulsion,” but your website also features several of your watercolor paintings. Then, too, Tillie herself is an artist. Is visual art also a passion of yours? What does painting allow you to do that writing doesn’t, and vice versa?
If I could reincarnate, it would be BOTH as a visual and literary artist. What I produce when I’m playing with water color or acrylics or oils is not unlike what happens when I write poetry or prose. I start out with no expectations, no plan, and I follow wherever the unconscious leads me. I never know where I’ll end up, and that’s much of the pleasure for me in creating, whether as a visual artist or as a writer. In each case, I’m open to what I’ll discover and what will discover me. I’m passionate about art, and museums are my temples.
In addition to writing yourself, you also teach and coach writing. What are the advantages of working with a private teacher/editor versus taking a class or joining a critique group?
In a class, at least how I teach it, students receive responses from multiple viewpoints (other class members), though they usually aren’t professional/trained writers. Therefore, the feedback can be uneven, and the writer needs to weigh each comment and decide for herself which ones seem to offer an opening into her work.
With a private teacher, you hope that s/he will be able to accommodate many different approaches to writing poetry/prose so s/he can offer a wide range of possibilities in his/her critiques. Otherwise, there’s a danger that the teacher/editor will abort whatever in the person as a writer is trying to bloom.
You have another novel about Tillie in the works. Will we be hearing more about Tillie and her re-found friends as they reach their seventies and beyond? Or just more about Tillie?
The follow up to Freefall that I’m currently working on and will be published in 2010 doesn’t involve an older Tillie but a much younger one. Yet your question makes me wonder if I need to consider writing a novel that follows these women into their seventies and beyond!
Tillie: Portraits of a Canadian Girl in Training is a Bildungsroman that takes the reader back to the ‘50s, to a world that flashes green and red lights at women. This novel starts with three-year-old Tillie and follows her until she’s seventeen and struggling to find her place in the world
Lily Talks to Fellow Writers:
Where are you in your writing career? Aspiring? Published?
I’ve published reviews, interviews, short fiction, poetry, travel pieces, and essays in over 160 American and Canadian venues. All This, a poetry collection, was published in 2011, and a poetry chapbook (No More Kings) will come out later this year. My novel Fling! was released in July 2015. Curva Peligrosa, another novel, was brought out in 2017. A third novel, Freefall: A Divine Comedy,was published on January 1, 2019.
How long have you been part of CWC, and what does membership mean to you?
I just joined this past spring, and I’m looking forward to sharing the writing journey with other committed writers. We need to help each other find the appropriate paths that will connect us with our best readers!
What other things would you like people to know about you – writings, passions, etc?
I grew up on a Canadian farm that taught me how dependent the natural world and the animals that inhabit it are on we humans, and vice versa. While I’m not a backpacker or even a camper, I do have a passion for nature. I also love art in all of its forms: music, visual, etc. I’m always uplifted by great art! And I enjoy eating well!
How do you manage your writing life?
I think it’s the reverse! It manages me, since it’s as important to me as eating. Over the years, I’ve had to find ways to fit writing into my days. I’ve discovered that if I only commit to an hour a day religiously, I can produce a tremendous amount of material, as my publications indicate.
Please send a link to something people can read of yours!
12:00 pm Setup
12:30 Doors open & member services
1:00 Raffle & Announcements
1:30 Featured Member: Lily Iona McKenzie
1:45 Keynote Speaker: Joan Gelfland
2:30 Book Sales & Networking
3:00 Marketing Group*
4:00 Craft Group*
5:00 The End
$5 for members, $10 for non-members*
Coffee is provided, bring cookies and treats to share!
Admission includes 1 free raffle ticket
PLEASE PLAN TO PURCHASE A RAFFLE TICKET! Only $1 each or 6 for $5, every ticket supports the club’s equity program. You can win a book written by our club authors!
* Support groups are members-only but guests may audit
* Empty pockets? Ask about our sponsored guest program at the door. We are writers helping writers, a welcoming community.
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.
The California Writers Club is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization open to writers in every genre and at every level of experience, from novice to notable. Our purpose is to promote fellowship and to provide practical information that supports all members in achieving their literary and professional goals. OUR MONTHLY SPEAKER PROGRAM
is open to the public Third Sundays
at Preservation Park
MEETING SCHEDULE
12:00 Setup
12:30 Doors open, networking & member services
Come to our meetings and enjoy our programs, which are open to the public. Enter a contest. Become a member and enjoy all the benefits, which include critique groups of all kinds, a monthly newsletter, and the ability to share your news with a supportive community as your writing career takes off.
