Online, via Zoom
The Women’s National Book Association San Francisco Chapter is pleased and proud to debut the first-ever Effie Lee Morris WNBA Literary Awards in honor of our founder.
Ms. Morris was a pioneering Black librarian and the founder of this chapter of the Women’s National Book Association in 1968. She first started her library career in Cleveland, Ohio. She became the first female chairperson of the Library of Congress and was the president of the National Braille Association for two terms. She was dedicated to literacy for children as well as children in underserved and those who learn differently. Ms. Morris was the first Coordinator of Children’s Services at the San Francisco Public Library and established the Children’s Historical and Research Collection at the Children’s Center of the San Francisco Library. She went on to become the first African American president of the Public Library Association. In 1968, Ms. Morris founded the San Francisco Chapter of the Woman’s National Book Association, which began in 1917. The WNBA SF Chapter is continuing our advocacy for the voices of women and diverse authors.
In tribute to Ms. Morris’s important work and legacy, we are announcing the first winners of the Effie Lee Morris WNBA Literary award.
The WNBA SF chapter received many wonderful entries in the genres of fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. With the help of judges specializing in each genre, we found first, second, and third place winners for each genre.
Note: we are limited to 90 attendees at this event, so register early!
First Place: Butterfly Girl by Anne Marie O’BrienAnnemarie O’Brien grew up in Northampton, Massachusetts, and now lives in the San Francisco Bay area where she teaches writing courses at UC Berkeley Extension, Stanford Continuing Studies, and Pixar. She is known for writing dog books for children, especially her book Lara’s Gift.
Second Place: The Mounted Position by Vera Chan
Vera Chan is a senior manager at Microsoft News Labs and storyteller based in Oakland and Seattle. She has worked as a senior editor/trends reporter for Yahoo! and did her newspaper stint covering features, entertainment and outdoor living at the Contra Costa Times (now The East Bay Times). She has contributed chapters to Asia in the San Francisco Bay Area and Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia of History and Innovation and won the Sisters in Crime award for a mystery-in-progress for an unpublished writer of color (now a finished manuscript, FOLLOWING.)
Third Place: Someone Else by Harriet Garfinkle
Harriet Garfinkle is an award-winning painter, dancer, and choreographer who danced professionally in San Francisco. She has choreographed the original play “Purple Breasts” and has her own experimental theatre group called The Bureau of Western Mythology and dance group TALLGIRLS. She teaches Pilates and is currently working her way through a novel.
In the Non-Fiction Category:
First Place: Refugees in the Promised Land by Ellie Bozmarova
Ellie Bozmarova is a Bulgarian-American writer and writing coach who received her B.A of English from UC Berkeley and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College. Her work has been featured in The Common, phoebe, TIMBER Journal among others.
Second Place: And Now for the Beloved Trees by H.L. Onstad
H.L Onstad is the founder of H2O content strategy which aims to provide engaging digital experiences. She has over 15 years of experience working with developing teams in education technology and trade book publishing. She uses her acute storytelling ability to help her clients in communicating their ideas through visual components.
Third Place: I Was Just Three by Maureen Lechwar
Maureen Lechwar is an alumna of the University of San Francisco. She is a big fan of the Don’s basketball team and was featured in a YouTube video highlighting USF athletic fans.
Joan Gelfand is an award-winning author and writing coach. Her reviews, stories, and poetry have appeared in both national and international literary journals and magazines. She is a lecturer on her “4 C’s” system which boasts how to become a successful writer and is also a past president for the WNBA SF Chapter. Her poetry has had both a film based on it and has won a Certificate of Merit in a juried art show at the International Association for the Study of Dreams.
Second Place: Seoraksan by Lucille Lang DayLucille Lang Day received an M.F.A in creative writing from San Francisco State University and a Ph.D. in mathematics/science from UC Berkeley. She married at age 14 and had her first child at 15, which led to both a pause in her education from ages 14-17 and her memoir Married at Fourteen: A True Story. Her memoir received a 2013 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award and was a finalist for the 2013 Northern California Book Award in Creative Nonfiction. She had a successful career as a science writer and director of the Hall of Health in Oakland which has since closed and has numerous full-length poetry collections.
Third Place: Pivot by Joan Gelfand
Joan Gelfand is an award-winning author and writing coach. Her reviews, stories, and poetry have appeared in both national and international literary journals and magazines. She is a lecturer on her “4 C’s” system which boasts how to become a successful writer and is also a past president for the WNBA SF Chapter. Her poetry has had both a film based on it and has won a Certificate of Merit in a juried art show at the International Association for the Study of Dreams.
Congratulations to all of the winners and those who entered the competition. Our next writing contest will begin on July 24th at 5 PM. A concrete link to enter will be sent at a further date.
WNBA 2018 Annual Writing Contest
Vicki DeArmon works as the Events & Marketing Director for Copperfield’s Books in San Francisco’s North Bay, booking authors for events. In the wee hours, she writes. Her passion is reading and writing fiction. Right now she’s working on a collection of short stories, She Let Go Their Hands, depicting families riding the roller coaster of addiction. Her story from this collection entitled “Hydroplaning” placed second in the 2015 Women’s National Book Association annual writing contest for Fiction. And there’s a comic novel brewing called Tilting: The Nearly True Story of a Small Book Publishing Empire that draws from the years she spent running Foghorn Press in San Francisco in the 1990s. This year, she’s been honored to read at Litquake, to attend Lit Camp 2015 and to be chosen as one of a cast of 13 selected to read pieces at this year’s Listen to Your Mother event in San Francisco. Her blog (
Renate Stendhal, Ph.D. is the author of the award-winning photobiography “Gertrude Stein: In Words and Pictures” (Algonquin, 1994). She is a German-born, Paris-educated writer and writing coach in the San Francisco Bay Area. In Paris, she worked as a cultural correspondent and translated works by Gertrude Stein, Adrienne Rich, Susan Griffin, Audre Lorde et al into German. Her multimedia show “In the Beginning…of the End,” toured throughout Europe in the ‘80s and was produced as an award-winning film by the Canadian Film Board. Her essays appeared in many international magazines. Among her publications are “Lesbian Marriage: A Love & Sex Forever Kit” (New Leaf, 2014, www.lesbianloveforever.com), co-authored with her life companion Kim Chernin, and “True Secrets of Lesbian Desire” (North Atlantic, 2003). Her memoir entitled “Kiss me Again. She Did.” placed second in the 2015 Women’s National Book Association annual writing contest for Creative Non-Fiction. Renate also works in private practice as a relationship expert and coach for couples and individuals. Her Gertrude Stein blog “Why Do Something If It Can Be Done” is at 
