Joan Lester - Mama's Child
Featuring "Bliss" Ananda Kenboya on conga drums!
Mama’s Child ($15.00) is Joan Lester's story of an idealistic young white woman who travels to the American South as a civil rights worker, falls in love with an African American man, and starts a family in San Francisco, where the more liberal city embraces them—except when it doesn’t. They raise a son and daughter, but the tensions surrounding them have a negative impact on their marriage, and they divorce when their children are still young. As the years pass, the chasm between mother and daughter widens, even as the mother attempts to hold on to the emotional chord that binds them. It isn’t until the daughter, Ruby, herself becomes a wife and mother that she begins to develop compassion and understanding for the many ways that her own mother’s love transcended race and questions of identity.
Joan Steinau Lester, Ed.D., is an award-winning journalist and author of four critically acclaimed books. Her writing has appeared in many newspapers and magazines, including Essence, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Cosmopolitan. She lives in Northern California.
- Street:
- 51 Tamal Vista Blvd
- City:
- Corte Madera ,
- Postal Code:
- 94925
Denise Kiernan - The Girls of Atomic City
At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians—many of them young women from small towns across the South—were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. That is, until the end of the war—when Oak Ridge’s secret was revealed.
Drawing on the voices of the women who lived it—women who are now in their eighties and nineties— The Girls of Atomic City ($27.00) rescues a remarkable, forgotten chapter of American history from obscurity. Denise Kiernan captures the spirit of the times through these women: their pluck, their desire to contribute, and their enduring courage. Combining the grand-scale human drama of The Worst Hard Time with the intimate biography and often troubling science of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Girls of Atomic City is a lasting and important addition to our country’s history.
Denise Kiernan is the author of several books, including Signing Their Lives Away and Signing Their Rights Away. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Discover, Ms., and other national publications.
- Street:
- 1 Ferry Building
- City:
- San Francisco ,
- Postal Code:
- 94111
- Country:
- United States
Class: Left Coast Writers® - Monthly Writers Workshop
Third Monday of Every Month • 6:30-8:30 pm
$200 per year/$40 Drop-in fee ($150 for Left Coast Writers® members)
Register for annual membership
(Left Coast Writers Salon Rate):
Register for annual membership
(For Non-Salon Members):
Register for one session:
Finally, the writing group everyone has been asking for! Get in on the latest Left Coast Writers® literary adventure: The Left Coast Writers® Monthly Writers' Workshop. Bring your work and your imagination as well as humor, honesty, and attention to an evening of sharing recent writings, discussion on craft, and fabulous literary prompts. Either author/instructors Linda Watanabe McFerrin or Joanna Biggar will be on hand to contribute editorial direction and orchestrate sessions. This is a chance to get feedback on your work and hone your skills in a stimulating, supportive, and highly professional environment.
Led by Linda Watanabe McFerrin & Joanna Biggar
- Street:
- 51 Tamal Vista Blvd
- City:
- Corte Madera ,
- Province:
- California
- Postal Code:
- 94925
- Country:
- United States
Brian Fagan - The Attacking Ocean
Since 1860, the world has warmed significantly and the ocean's climb has speeded. The sea level changes are cumulative and gradual; no one knows when they will end. The Attacking Ocean ($30.00), from celebrated author Brian Fagan, tells a tale of the rising complexity of the relationship between humans and the sea at their doorsteps, a complexity created not by the oceans, which have changed but little. What has changed is us, and the number of us on earth.
Brian Fagan is emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Beyond the Blue Horizon, Elixir, the Los Angeles Times bestseller Cro-Magnon, and the New York Times bestseller The Great Warming, and many other books, including Fish on Friday, The Long Summer, and The Little Ice Age. He has decades of experience at sea and is the author of several titles for sailors, including the widely praised Cruising Guide to Central and Southern California. He lives in Santa Barbara, CA.
- Street:
- 51 Tamal Vista Blvd
- City:
- Corte Madera ,
- Province:
- California
- Postal Code:
- 94925
- Country:
- United States
James Conaway - Nose
In a gorgeous wine valley in northern California, the economic downturn has put a number of dreams on hold. But not so for wine critic Clyde Craven-Jones, a man whose ego nearly surpasses his substantial girth. During a routine tasting in advance of his eponymous publication’s new issue, he blindly samples a selection of Cabernets. To his confounded delight, he discovers one bottle worthy of his highest score (a 20, on the Craven-Jones-on- Wine scale), an accolade he’s never before awarded. But the bottle has no origin, no one seems to know how it appeared on his doorstep—and that's a problem for a critic who’s supposed to know everything. An investigation into the mystery Cabernet commences, led by the Clyde’s wife, Claire, and a couple of underdogs—one a determined throw-back to ancient viticulture, the other a wine-stained, Pygmalion-esque scribbler—who by wit and luck rise on incoming tides of money, notoriety, and, yes, love. James Conaway's Nose ($24.99) is a witty, delectable, and fast-paced novel that, like a good Cabernet, only grows truly enjoyable once opened.
James Conaway is the author of several books, including Napa: The Story of an American Eden, the nonfiction bestseller about the wine country and those responsible for California’s winemaking triumphs, and its sequel, The Far Side of Eden. He is the author of two novels, The Big Easy and World’s End. His most recent book is Vanishing America. Conaway has written for multiple magazines, among them Harper’s, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, Saveur, Gourmet, and National Geographic Traveler.
- Street:
- 1 Ferry Building
- City:
- San Francisco ,
- Postal Code:
- 94111
Stephen Rodrick - Magical Stranger
On November 28, 1979, accomplished Navy pilot Peter Rodrick died when his plane crashed in the Indian Ocean, leaving behind a devastated wife, two daughters, and a thirteen-year-old son. In The Magical Stranger, Stephen Rodrick explores the life and death of the man who indelibly shaped his life, even as he remained a mystery: brilliant but unknowable, sacred but absent-an apparition gone 200 days of the year for much of his young son's life-a born leader who gave his son little direction. Through adolescence and into adulthood, Rodrick struggled to fully grasp the reality of his father's death and its permanence. Peter's picture and memory haunted the family home, but his name was rarely mentioned.
Stephen Rodrick is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and also a contributing editor at Men's Journal. His writing has been anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing, The Best American Crime Reporting, and The Best American Political Writing. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
- Street:
- 51 Tamal Vista Blvd
- City:
- Corte Madera ,
- Postal Code:
- 94925
- Country:
- United States
