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The Ridge Writers, the East Sierra Branch of the California Writers Club, is based in the city of
Ridgecrest. The Ridge Writers meet year round, usually the first Wednesday evening of each month
at 6:30 PM (unless conflicted with a holiday) at the High Desert Haven.
All meetings are open to the public.
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Site Contents: Download Writers of the Purple Sage Newsletters: Contact Information
Speakers for 2007
Many critics consider the late Mary Austin to have been the greatest teller of tales that Inyo ever knew. She left pictures of Lone Pine and Independence in their heyday that continue to live and speak.
Opinionated and widely regarded as a genius, Mary Austin was a member of the literary elite, counting presidents and famous writers as friends, and yet her writings are most often down to earth. Whether chronicling the unforgiving, yet inspiring desert, translating California Indian tales, or describing the behavior of San Franciscans during an earthquake, Austin's writings were always rooted in place, capturing the spirit of California with purity and grace. In language that is as lush as the Mojave after the spring rains and as precise as the sheep-shearer's art, Mary Austin's writing is forever fresh.
Kevin Hearle, a sixth-generation Californian from Santa Ana, has written extensively on John Steinbeck and is the voice of "Our California Legacy" -- a public radio program on KAZU-FM in Santa Clara. He is the author of Each Thing We Know Is Changed Because We Know It and Other Poems.
His presentation will include a brief introduction to Mary Austin,
readings from her works, and insights into decision that went into the making of Essential Mary Austin.
We invite the public to attend "What's So Essential About Mary Austin?" and please bring your friends. Remember, admission is free.
Speakers from 2006
An English teacher at Boron Jr. Sr. High School for the past 20 years, she
sees her job as "an attempt to engage my students in a love of literature,
and in the adventure of capturing their thoughts and ideas on paper."
When not teaching, she writes, turning primarily to community activism and
grant writing. This has resulted in her successfully writing a grant to
start a community preschool. She has also written several smaller grants
to benefit youth and the community and, in another vein, she contributes
to educational magazines.
Her mother, Barbara Pratt, serves as the director of the Twenty Mule Team
Museum in Boron. As part of the January program, they will talk about the
campaign that made the museum happen, a story with particular timeliness
in light of Ridgecrest's efforts to save and refurbish the USO building.
Born and raised in Boron, Keller-Gage lived in Germany for several years,
but returned to Boron where her three grandchildren now regularly come to
her house for breakfast and again after school. She says that "they join
my two children still at home in unsupervised chaos for awhile. There is
also a husband and about six cats thrown into the mix."
At the January meeting, Keller-Gage will share some of her favorite
writing books with the group, discuss certain basic but nonetheless often
overlooked writing techniques, and then focus on effective grant writing.
Mr. Danhauser is also regarded by many as one of the chief
experts on the little known and oft forgotten Animated STAR TREK series that was produced from 1973-1974. His knowledge of the animated series has lead to his being hired to write
and select the images for the first ever series of trading
cards devoted to that series which were released in March
2003. Time permitting, Curt will talk a bit about how the
copy on the front and back of the 198 trading cards was
written.
Beyond poetry and novels, she has written and published in several genres including personal
experience articles, how-to and op-ed pieces, essays and short fiction for magazines.
Sandy is a keeper of journals, who began seriously writing and submitting at age 42.
But where did it come from? Surely it came from her life as lived up to that age, but also,
and probably more important, from the echo of a mother's voice in her ear. In her own words,
"My mom read to me when I was a small child, so I loved books from the beginning."
And writing too has been in her blood from an early age. By high school she wanted a little
beyond her family's response to her work, so she sneaked a poem anonymously onto her freshman
English teacher's desk. "[The teacher] asked repeatedly who'd written the mystery poem.
By then I was at a mission school in Northern New Mexico; we'd moved from Michigan to
Espanola when I was 10. At last I admitted to her that it was mine. She encouraged me. ...
I went on to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and then I got married and raised
three children. But I was always writing - sometimes short fiction and personal essays. And
I published in small journals along the way. About 1980 my own journal became mainly poetry."
For 25 years as a Navy wife, Bonnie Domrose Stone gained invaluable, first-hand experience of family life in the military. She drew on those experiences for Uncle Sam's Brides and Campfollowing, two of the first non-fiction books on the military wife.
Working as a newspaper reporter and editor for weekly and daily newspapers in the cities where her husband was stationed, Bonnie reported on military medicine, family lifestyles, hardships, and the courage it takes to survive as a military wife. In Charleston, she edited a popular society column on military happenings.
Growing up in Los Angeles, Bonnie Domrose Stone claims she was never aware of the Antelope Valley other than the times her parents dragged her to Valermo in the horrible heat of summer. She spent her time at the much cooler environs of St. Mary's Academy and Mount St. Mary's College before transferring to Marquette University to earn her degree in journalism.
Then came the trekking: Internship at a small weekly paper in Green Lake, Wisconsin; copy girl at the Santa Monica Evening Outlook; family section editor for the Angeles Mesa News-Advertiser in Los Angeles; Grayslake, Illinois; Family Section Editor for Lakeland Publisher's five newspapers; staff reporter for the News & Courier in Charleston; special assignment writer for Today in Cocoa, Florida, and the Honolulu Advertiser, Hawaii, and editor of Ka Nupepa, Mililani, Hawaii.
When her three sons were young, she freelanced for magazines, specializing in writing about the family for numerous local, regional and national publications.
With her first book, Aloha Cowboy, she learned she loved doing research. She burrowed her way through libraries to produce Uncle Sam's Brides, Campfollowing, a history of military wives, and Civil War in Paradise, a middle grade reader.
Her awards include a Who's Who of American Women, and American Women Writers; International Association of Business Communicators/Hawaii, four Galley Awards for excellence in writing; Tad Quattlebaum Award, South Carolina, for best state-wide feature story; South Carolina Press Association state-wide first place awards for newspaper page layout, article writing and photography; Three National Federation of Press Women awards for newspaper articles. She founded the Antelope Valley Writers, in 1986.
Her husband, who retired from the Army's Flight Test Program (Edwards AFB) has helped research the field trips for San Andreas Ain't No Fault of Mine, Stone's recently released guide to the Antelope Valley. Together they've explored the far reaches of the Antelope Valley to provide readers with a guide to the myriad places to explore.
His program will cover the various forms of publicity
including newspaper, magazine, online, radio, television,
signings, lecture and conferences, as well as basics such
as what publicists do, publicity as a cost-effective
alternative to advertising and whether a publicist can get
you on Oprah.
"Authors and publicists have a unique relationship," says
Nelson, noting that any number of factors can improve or
undermine the bond. "It's one of the most beautiful things
in the world to watch. The most graceful of publicists can
get things done, make the author happy, and sidestep
additional haranguing with charm and ease. Just remember,
while a savvy author is - well, savvy, a happy publicist is... well, less likely to ignore you."
Born in Englewood, NJ, Nelson moved to Berkeley to attend
college. He followed that with a job as marketing and
publicity director at Heyday Books, a nonprofit publisher
with a strong emphasis on California writers and heritage.
While at Heyday, he arranged the 20% discount on California
Legacy titles that California Writers Club members
currently enjoy. He recently joined the staff of Ten Speed
Press, the home of the best-selling What Color is Your
Parachute, award-winning cookbooks, mind/body titles and
books for young readers.
Author Phyllis Helene Mattson will discuss her book War Orphan in San Francisco: Letters Link a Family Scattered by World War II which is the personal memoir of 10-year-old Felicitas, sent to live with a distant relative in America during World War II to escape Hitler's atrocities. She came to San Francisco alone and there got a new name, Phyllis, and had to learn a new language and culture. When the arrangement deteriorated, she found herself shunted from foster home to orphanage for the next six years while her parents suffered hardships abroad - her mother in a German slave camp and her father interned in Australia.
They wrote to one another during their ordeal and Mattson based War Orphan in San Francisco on their letters. San Francisco talk show host John Rothmann has called it "a remarkable story... compelling, powerful and an inspiration."
Mattson, who lives in Cupertino, CA, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, received graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin and the Harvard School of Public Health, and taught Anthropology and Health Sciences at community college in Silicon Valley. She is a member of the South Bay branch of the California Writers Club.
For more information about Phyllis Mattson and War Orphan in San Francisco, click here stevenscreekpress@pacbell.net. To meet her in person, join us at the Ridgecrest branch library on June 7th when she talks about "Writing and Organizing Memoirs" and the lessons she learned from writing hers. The public is welcome so bring your friends. Admission is free.
Author of Life is a Game and You Can Play It, Nancy will provide very specific tips and techniques to get our creative engines going full steam ahead. Her topics will include:
During her teenage years she co-starred on a weekly live television series. After raising her family of four, she returned to TV, appearing in such staples as Little House on the Prairie, Dynasty and General Hospital. Last year she returned to her first love, the stage, and appeared in Big River and The Secret Garden.
Now Berggren has added "author" to her list of credits with the release of her first book, Life is a Game and You Can Play It. With the recording of her CD single, One More Song to Sing, and her new motto, Travel, Teach, Speak; Live, Love, Laugh, she is taking her show on the road. This year she has traveled to Vancouver, B.C., and to Moscow and Nizhny in Russia, where she discussed and presented her book, which is being considered for translation into Russian.
Life is a Game can be ordered directly from Amazon.com. The CD single is being released to the public this month. You can check out her new web site at: www.lifeisagame-whatif.com.
For our August meeting, we'll hold an Open Mike Night, with members and the general public invited to read from their own works. Participants are asked to limit their presentations to 5-7 minutes.
Our open mike nights get better and better. We seem to experience more humor, more insight, and more downright good writing each time.
Chris Langley is Executive Director of the recently opened Beverly and Jim Rogers Museum of Lone Pine Film History in Lone Pine. Chris is also director of the Film Festival coming up October 6-8.
Langley promises an evening of "discussion with some hands on writing." He will review some of his work as a film historian creating the exhibits that tell the story of filming in Inyo County since 1915. Challenges include research and putting together anecdotal records to discover how films were made locally, summarizing plots, and most importantly describing images from the films. Since many of the earliest films no longer exist, the effects of the films must be created verbally from a few stills.
"I hope to let the audience experiment with creating verbal descriptions of some images I will present, analyzing the images to create for the reader what a viewer would experience. Then create some succinct and revealing analysis. If time permits, we will examine a few movie plots to see how a verbal story was told visually using stunning images. It's a lot harder to tell stories visually than you might think."
Langley writes a bi-weekly column for the Inyo Register about the local film history and his research. He also has published articles in booklets for the museum. One is a lengthy study of the work of Director Clarence Badger who lived in Lone Pine and another new article on the making of The Hitchhiker, a thriller directed by pioneer woman director Ida Lupino in the 1950s. Langley also serves as Inyo County Film Commission bringing filming to the area today. He is presently working on a film entitled American Identity, soon to film in Lone Pine.
Marilyn Meredith, spoke to our group a few years ago and was very well received. For her program, she will discuss a few things, then have us plot a mystery together.
Marilyn Meredith is the author of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series as well as the Rocky Bluff P.D. series.
One of the first authors to embrace e-publishing Marilyn Meredith has several books that are available in both e-format and trade paperback, among them, the award winning mystery Guilt by Association.
Christian horror is another of the genres she writes in-The Choice, Deeds of Darkness, and Cup of Demons are prime examples.
She also has a chapter in the best seller, "THE PORTABLE WRITERS' CONFERENCE" from Quill Driver Press.
Also a writing teacher, Marilyn has been a featured speaker at several writers' conferences. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, EPIC, and the Public Safety Writers Association.
For the last 18 years, Marilyn has been the editor of the California Residential Services Association monthly newsletter for The Association for Administrators of State-Licensed Residential Care Facilities for Youth, Adults and the Elderly.
She has aslo written free-lance writer for the Tule River Times, Springville California over the past 12 years.
With such a multi-talented and experienced speaker, Wednesday is sure to be an interesting and informative evening for the Ridge Writers.
The program is a shorter version of a workshop presented in
April of this year.
People who were able to attend in April thought it was
great, but so many said they had had scheduling conflicts
and couldn't be there that the Ridge Writers wanted to give
them another chance. After all, with family gatherings
coming up over the next few months, attendees will have a
golden opportunity to collect facts.
The event is designed for people who want
to preserve their heritage but need some help getting
started. Writer and editor Babcock will talk about collecting and preparing
images. Donna McCrohan Rosenthal, will discuss organizing and research.
Casey Wilson will discuss techniques of interviewing.
As in the past, we will have a sumptuous dinner with every course well
represented. If you have not already signed up to bring a salad,
casserole, entrée, vegetables, dessert or other dish but want to, do it
now by contacting Donna McCrohan Rosenthal at mccrohan@ridgenet.net. Also
let Donna know if you would like to read so that she can put your name on
the list. We ask members to limit themselves to original pieces no longer
than 5-7 minutes.
The Heritage Clubhouse is located at 425 North Heritage Drive (a little
beyond the Heritage Inn). We urge members to attend with spouses or
significant others but please remember that we do not open this particular
festivity to the general public.
Past Speakers
The Ridge Writers Branch of the CWC is very proud of the caliber of
presenters that have spoken at our meetings. Listed below are some of these outstanding
speakers:
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