This monthly salon, hosted by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, features authors, literary agents, and others involved in the field of writing. Set in the atmospheric Scape Gallery in Corona del Mar, the salon is a mecca for literary devotees who listen to readings, take part in discussions, and attend book signings.
May
15
7pm
An Evening with Memoirists Claire Bidwell Smith, James Brown and Dinah Lenney
in conversation with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Join us on Tuesday, May 15, when we will focus on the memoir. Our authors will talk about their memoirs, and about the process of writing memoir--from coming up with the focus of your story, to the process of writing, and onto the publication. There will be a Q&A session, and Laguna Beach Books will have their books for sale so you can have them signed.
Claire Bidwell Smith
Claire Bidwell Smith lives in Los Angeles. She is a therapist specializing in grief and is the author of the memoir The Rules of Inheritance (Penguin/Hudson St.). Claire has a bachelor’s degree from The New School University in Manhattan and a master’s degree in clinical psychology from Antioch University in Los Angeles. She has written for many publications including Time Out New York, Yoga Journal, BlackBook Magazine, The Huffington Post and Chicago Public Radio. She has also worked for nonprofits, such as Dave Eggers’ literacy center 826LA and most recently as a bereavement counselor for a hospice in Chicago.
James Brown
James Brown is the author of several novels, including Lucky Town and Final Performance, and the memoirs, The Los Angeles Diaries and This River. His work has appeared inGQ, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Orange Coast Magazine, Ploughshares and numerous other magazines. The Los Angeles Diarieswas chosen as Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Independent on Sunday in the U.K., and is currently under option for a film by producer Jude Prest. Additionally, his writing on free-style wrestling has been anthologized in Best American Sports Writing (Houghton Mifflin), Great American Sports Writing (ESPN Books), and his essay on wrestling, "Dirty Moves," was chosen by the Canadian Board of Education for their High School English Exam. Brown, a recovering alcoholic, has been a representative for Partnership for a Drug-Free America, and frequently speaks at drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities, as well as inmates incarcerated for drug and alcohol related offenses. He is also co-editor, along with writer Diana Raab, of the anthology Writers On the Edge: 22 Writers Speak About Addiction and Dependency. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Nelson Algren Award in Short Fiction, Brown lives in Lake Arrowhead, California, and holds an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from U.C. Irvine. He has three sons and is married to the writer Paula Priamos.
Dinah Lenney
Dinah Lenney wrote Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir, published in Tobias Wolff’s American Lives Series at the University of Nebraska Press, and co-authored Acting for Young Actors . Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Ploughshares, Agni, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity , and elsewhere, and she received special mention in the Pushcart Anthology, 2010, for an essay published in the Water~Stone Review . Dinah serves as core faculty in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California, as well as in the Rainier Writing Workshop, and the Bennington Writing Seminars, where she earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction. She lives in Los Angeles, just over the hill from Dodger Stadium.
Buy tickets for the May 15 Event
Please note: We begin at 7pm sharp.
Latecomers risk losing their seats and may enjoy standing-room only.
Jun
5
7pm
An Evening with Fiction Writers Pam Houston and Stacy Bierlein
in conversation with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Join us for an evening of talk about the art, craft and business of writing fiction. The authors will discuss their new books and talk about writing fiction, story, plot, and the marketplace. There will be a Q&A session, and Laguna Beach Books will have our authors' books for sale so you can have them signed.
Pam Houston
Pam Houston is the award winning author of books including Cowboys Are My Weakness, Waltzing the Cat, A Little More About Me, and Sight Hound. Her stories have been selected for the Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Awards, the Pushcart Prize, and the Best American Short Stories of the Century. A collection of essays, A Little More About Me, was published by W.W. Norton in the fall of 1999. Her stories have been selected for volumes of Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, and Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA award for contemporary fiction, and The Evil Companions Literary Award and multiple teaching awards. She is the Director of Creative Writing at U.C. Davis and teaches in The Pacific University low residency MFA program, and at writer’s conferences around the country and the world. She lives on a ranch at 9,000 feet in Colorado near the headwaters of the Rio Grande. Her new novel is Contents May Have Shifted. published by Norton.
Stacy Bierlein
Stacy Bierlein is the editor of the award-winning anthology, A Stranger Among Us: Stories of Cross Cultural Collision and Connection, and coeditor of Men Undressed: Female Writers and the Male Sexual Experience. She is a founding editor of the independent press Other Voices Books, and co-creator of the Morgan Street International Novel Series. Her articles about writing, publishing, and the arts appear on various websites, including TheNervousBreakdown.com. She has been a visiting lecturer at Whittier College, UC Riverside/Palm Desert, and Columbia College Chicago. She is a graduate of the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. A native of mid-Michigan and an avid traveler, she currently lives in Southern California with her husband and daughter.
Buy tickets for the June 5 Event
Please note: We begin at 7pm sharp.
Latecomers risk losing their seats and may enjoy standing-room only.
Past guests include T. Jefferson Parker, Merrill Markoe, Karen Karbo, Heidi Durrow, Danzy Senna, Taylor Martindale, Sally van Haitsma, Elise Capron, Katie Arnoldi, Marisa Matarrazo, Tatjana Soli, Lisa Fugard, Andrew Winer, Dennis Palumbo, Daniel Pyne, Aimee Bender, Michael Jaime-Becerra, Jill Marr, Stacy Chilton Weiss, Gary Phillips, Mary Castillo, Martin J. Smith, Patricia McFall, Ron Carlson, Tod Goldberg, Victoria Patterson, Dani Shapiro, Lisa See, Carolyn See, Norman Ollestad, Susan Straight, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, Merrill Markoe, Marty Smith, Kelly Sonnack, Debra Ollivier.
"What a terrific evening with you at the gallery. You've got some really fine readers/writers/fans. It was an enjoyable night for me. I felt much appreciated and not a little spoiled!"
In Spring 2010, The Pen on Fire Writers Salon honored graduating senior Ashkan Salamatipour for his essay, "Commanding Composure," and awarded him a $300 scholarship. Stay tuned for future scholarship opportunities.
Comments from Pen On Fire Writers Salon Attendees
"Thanks for Tuesday evening with Heidi Durrow and Danzy Senna. I hesitated when I paid my $20, as I was not sure this was the program for me. When I arrived to realize I was the only man, I was convinced of it. The only thing I remembered was that by far the majority of writers and readers are women. But I was committed, and sitting by the wall; leaving wasn't an option. But then the authors started talking and reading. Wow! It was then that I knew why I came. I listened to every word. And each word was valuable.
Thanks again.
—Frederick R. Andresen
www.fandresen.com