Saturday, May 16, 2015, 2:00 – 4:00 pm Workshop 2:15 – 2:45 pm In this fun, action packed workshop, KJ Landis, member/author of Superior Self: Reaching Superior Health For A Superior Self, will help us find tools to reach our superior health. Topics include:
Healthy snacks provided! Annual Planning Meeting 3:00 – 4:00 pm |
Big news! The winner of the 2015 WNBA Award is Amy King, the moving force and executive behind VIDA, Women in Literary Arts. VIDA is an organization founded in 2009 that counts men and women whose works are reviewed in literary journals each year. VIDA’s mission is to bring attention to gender equality issues in contemporary literature: a laudable mission, and one that aligns with the mission of WNBA. Members of WNBA-SF Chapter include publishers, editors, booksellers, librarians, reviewers, publicists, authors of poetry, memoir, fiction and nonfiction for all ages. We comprise a Bay Area literary network that can come together to advocate for women in the world of words: books magazines, blogs, and media. SF Chapter can create activities that support women’s voice and one another’s professional literary work. How? Join us May 16th at the Oakland Main Library to plan next year’s program. Enjoy the inspired workshop presented by our member, KJ Landis, “Eat Well, Be Well.” Bring your ideas and creative energy. I’d like to thank those who’ve served so well this past year! It’s been an amazing team effort that produced our many events and meetings. To read about those and the volunteers who made it happen, go to this page: https://wnba-sfchapter.org/volunteer-opportunities-wnba-sf/ Thank you, as always, for your support! |
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Jeanne Powell, poet, essayist, short fiction Written by Catharine Bramkamp April is National Poetry Month, so we’re interviewing a member poet! Member Jeanne Powell is an accomplished California poet whose work has been praised by Al Young, California Poet Laureate Emeritus. She writes prose poems, flash fiction and short stage plays. For ten years Jeanne hosted an acclaimed spoken word series, “Celebration of the Word.” Celebrating the word is something Jeanne has done her whole career. “I came to the writing of poetry later in my life. In the beginning I was attracted to spoken word events because I loved the sound of words, and the images which came to mind as I listened. I was in transition from one life to another, and poetry appealed to me. I was inspired by adult moments, and the challenges of coping with those moments. “What helped me a lot was listening to others speak their pieces either as recitations or performances. In the beginning I did not send out poems for publication. Friends practically had to come to my home, grab poems from my notebooks and send them to prospective publishers. To read more, click HERE. |
WNBA Award 2015 WNBA has selected Amy King, poet, professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College and Executive Board Member of VIDA Women in Literary Arts.
The WNBA Award is presented every second year to a “living American woman who derives part or all of her income from books and allied arts, and who has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation.” To learn more about this award and previous winners, The award will be presented at a special event June 6, 2015, as part of WNBA’s annual meeting, to be held this year in New Orleans, Louisiana. Press Release HERE. |
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Martha Conway, Author Written by Catharine Bramkamp Martha Conway’s newest novel, THIEVING FOREST, recently won the North American Book Award for Best Historical Fiction. Which is, of course, pretty impressive. She is also an instructor for Stanford’s Online Writer’s Studio. As an instructor and writer she balances between three identities and is qualified to share what that means. We’ll start with her life as an on-line instructor: “I started teaching at OWS (Online Writer’s Studio) after speaking with one of the lead instructors about the program and I got an idea for a class I’d like to teach—something I wish I’d been taught when I was first learning how to write novels. A few weeks later I pitched the idea to the creative writing team. They liked it, so that’s how I started. My class is a novel-writing class structured around character, and how developing allyour characters (not just your protagonist) before you begin writing can really help pull the story along: plot development, climax, denoument—everything….” “I like writing better than anything else—especially after the difficult first draft is over and you have some material to work with. But teaching keeps me thinking about writing, and it keeps me sharp. “I started taking notes for Thieving Forest in 2006, but I think I was starting to think about it even in 2004…” |
Which Is the Manliest Literary Magazine of Them All? In 2012, 79.8 percent of the authors of books chosen for review in the New York Review of Books—and the critics tapped to review them—were men. “We certainly hope to publish more women writers,” editor Robert Silvers insisted last year. Now, Silvers has made good on his promise: In 2013, the review featured exactly one more woman than it did in 2012, bringing its percentage of male authors and reviewers down to 79.5 percent. Every year, VIDA—an organization established in 2009 to assess the status of women in the literary arts—counts up the men and women who have been featured as authors and reviewers in major literary magazines, then bakes them into pie charts to offer a quick glimpse of the gender split. According to its 2013 VIDA count, the New York Review of Books is the manliest journal around, but the London Review of Books and the New Republic are following close behind, tying at 78.5 percent male. McSweeney’s clocks in at 76.8 percent male, Harper’s at 74 percent, and theTimes Literary Supplement at 73 percent. …Granta editor John Freeman put it this way: “We have to ask a deeper question, which is: How gendered are our notions of storytelling?” |
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WNBA 2014-2015 BOARD President: Kate Farrell Vice Presidents: Open Treasurer: Sherry Nadworny Secretary: Julaina Kleist-Corwin Membership Chair: Jane Glendinning Web Editor: Open Featured Member Interview Editor: Catharine Bramkamp Social Media Manager: Open |
Membership 2015-2016
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