It’s that time again! Please elect this new slate of officers down below to continue to guide our chapter through the next two years (2022-2024).
We welcome the opportunity for ongoing and new WNBA-SF leadership! (Please note that in accordance with WNBA-SF Bylaws, there are two Vice President positions). The WNBA-SF Bylaws also provide brief descriptions of the officer positions and are attached here for your review:
https://wnba-books.org/members-only/
VOTING DEADLINE – APRIL 20, 2022
If you wish, you may also nominate an active, qualified WNBA-SF Chapter member as an alternative to this slate with their prior, written consent not later than April 11, 2022.
Many thanks,
Elise Marie Collins, President WNBA-SF Chapter
2022-2024 WNBA-SF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ELECTION SLATE
PRESIDENT
ELISE MARIE COLLINS
Current WNBA-SF Chapter President, Elise Marie Collins has played major roles in the overall direction and strategy development of the chapter, leading teams to accomplish successful Pitch-O-Ramas, membership drives and mixers, and educational literary presentations. A yoga instructor, health coach, and author with a master’s degree in gerontology from USC, Elise became more in touch with how food and lifestyle affects us spiritually. This knowledge led her to author “An A-Z Guide to Healing Foods, A Shoppers Companion,” and “Chakra Tonics. Essential Elixirs for Mind, Body and Spirit,” published by Conari Press. As a gerontologist, she writes about how to be well and live a long life. Her latest book is “Super Ager: You Can Look Younger, Have More Energy, A Better Memory, and Live a Long and Healthy Life.”
CO-VICE PRESIDENT
JOAN GELFAND
Author of three poetry collections and a chapbook of short fiction, Joan Gelfand’s reviews, stories, essays, and poetry have appeared in national and international literary journals and magazines. Winner of twenty writing awards, Joan teaches for The Writing Salon. “You Can Be a Winning Writer,” a book for writers is an Amazon #1 best seller. “Extreme,” Joan’s debut novel (Blue Light Press) is set in a Silicon Valley gaming startup and received praise from Katie Hafner of the NYT and Ransom Stephens. A member of the National Book Critics Circle and a Juror for the Northern California Book Awards, Joan lives in San Francisco with her husband Adam Hertz and two beatnik kitties – Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. www.joangelfand.com
CO-VICE PRESIDENT
ANNIQUA RANA
Anniqua Rana is a writer and educator committed to eliminating inequities around her. She has done this in collaboration with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office providing professional development and training to colleges in the Bay Area. She co-founded Aalimocracy.com a volunteer organization providing professional development to educational institutions in Pakistan. She has taught English, ESL, EFL, International Education, and Creative Writing at San Mateo Community Colleges, DeAnza College, University of San Francisco, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan, and Stanford University. Her debut novel, Wild Boar in the Cane Field was shortlisted for Pakistan’s UBL Literary Award 2020. To create a platform for writers she co-founded the blog Tillism.
TREASURER
BRENDA KNIGHT
Brenda Knight began her career at HarperCollins, working with luminaries Paolo Coelho, Marianne Williamson, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Knight was awarded IndieFab’s Publisher of the Year in 2014 at the ALA, American Library Association. She is the author of Wild Women and Books, Random Acts of Kindness, The Grateful Table, Be a Good in the World, and Women of the Beat Generation, which won an American Book Award. Brenda is Associate Publisher and Director of Editorial Acquisition at Mango Publishing and has served the immediate past President of the Women’s National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter, as well an instructor at the annual San Francisco Writers Conference.
SECRETARY
KATHLEEN ARCHAMBEAU
Native San Franciscan, Kathleen Archambeau, is an award-winning writer and LGBTQ activist. She is author of four nonfiction works, Climbing the Corporate Ladder in High Heels (2006), “Seized,” an essay in The Other Woman (2007), edited by Victoria Zackheim, Pride & Joy (2017), and We Make It Better (2019), with gay dad, Eric Rosswood. Academy Award-winning screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black wrote the Foreword to Pride & Joy and endorsed We Make It Better. Archambeau’s work has been favorably reviewed in global and national literary publications and she has been a featured speaker at national and global Pride literary events. Her book was included as part of the Oakland Museum of California store’s Queer California Exhibit, and she is a founding member of the James Hormel LGBT wing of the SF Public Library. Currently, she is on a final draft of her novel, Liberty Street, about a gay presidential candidate and his Quixotic campaign for equal protection.
Vote here:
Voting stops as of midnight, April 20th, 2022
It’s a MIXER, so bring a bookish pal or two to join the virtual fun. We appreciate our members and would love for you to join us so we can hear about how this most challenging of years went for you and your hopes for the new year to come.
About the Book: One of the biggest reasons goals fail is that people often don’t put enough thought into what they really want before diving in. Your Goal Guide by Debra 
As a consultant and professor of strategic management, 
Kate Farrell is our host and facilitator. Kate is a storyteller, author, librarian, founded the Word Weaving Storytelling Project and published numerous educational materials on storytelling. She has contributed to and edited award-winning anthologies of personal narrative. Farrell’s new book, a timely how-to guide on the art of storytelling for adults, Story Power: Secrets to Creating, Crafting, and Telling Memorable Stories, was released in June 2020. Farrell has presented workshops for adults on the art of storytelling at the San Francisco Public Library, Mechanics Institute, and the San Francisco Writers Conference. She is now offering virtual workshops for libraries and writing groups, as well as performing virtually as a storyteller. 
Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte is a Pushcart Prize nominated author who has 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.” Based in Oakland, California, the diverse bay-side city often serves as the backdrop for her always touching and frequently hilarious works. Reviewers praised her first book, A Dollar Five-Stories from A Baby Boomer’s Ongoing Journey calling it “rich in vivid imagery”, and “incredible.” Her second book, All That and More’s Wedding, is a collection of fictional mystery/crime short stories. Running for the 2:10, a follow-on to A Dollar Five delved deeper into her coming of age in Oakland and the embedded issues of race and skin color. She is a contributor to award-winning author Kate Farrell’s book Story Power. Betrayal on the Bayou, published June 2020, is her first novel. Website: 
Humaira Ghilzai is a writer, speaker and Afghanistan Cultural Consultant. Humaira opens the world to Afghan culture and cuisine through her wildly popular blog, 
Mary Mackey is an award-winning novelist and poet with fourteen novels including The Village of Bones, which won a 2018 CIIS Women’s Spirituality Book Award from the Department of Diversity and Inclusion; The Year The Horses Came; and A Grand Passion, that was translated into 12 foreign languages and made the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle’s best seller lists. Mackey is the author of eight collections of poetry including Sugar Zone, which won the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams, which won the 2019 Eric Hoffer Award for the Best Book Published by a Small Press. Mary became a writer by running high fevers, tramping through tropical jungles, dodging machine gun fire, being swarmed by army ants, making catastrophic decisions about men, and reading. Website: 
Aya de León teaches creative writing at UC Berkeley. Kensington Books publishes her award-winning Justice Hustlers feminist heist series, including SIDE CHICK NATION the first novel published about Hurricane Maria. In December, Kensington will publish her first spy novel, A SPY IN THE STRUGGLE about FBI infiltration of an African American eco-racial justice organization. Aya blogs for Daily Dose: Feminist Voices for the Green New Deal and working on a Black/Latina spy girl series, GOING DARK. Visit her at 
Fourth-generation native San Franciscan Kathleen Archambeau is an award-winning writer and LGBTQ activist. She is author of four nonfiction works, Climbing the Corporate Ladder in High Heels (2006), “Seized,” an essay in The Other Woman (2007), edited by Victoria Zackheim, Pride & Joy (2017), and We Make It Better (2019), with gay dad, Eric Rosswood. Academy Award-winning screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black wrote the Foreword to Pride & Joy and endorsed We Make It Better. Archambeau’s work has been favorably reviewed in global and national literary publications and she has been a featured speaker at national and global Pride literary events. Her book was included as part of the Oakland Museum of California store’s Queer California Exhibit and she is a founding member of the James Hormel LGBT wing of the SF Public Library.