Ethan Rutherford - The Peripatetic Coffin
Worried about waning enrollment, the head counselor of the world's worst summer camp leads his campers on a series of increasingly dubious escapades in an effort to revive their esprit de corps. A young boy on a sailing vacation with his father comes face-to-face with a dangerous stranger, and witnesses a wrenching act of violence. Parents estranged from their disturbed son must gird themselves for his visit, even as they cannot face each other. And in the dazzling title story, the beleaguered crew of the first Confederate submarine embarks on their final, doomed mission during the closing days of the Civil War. Alternately funny, menacing, and deeply empathetic, the wildly inventive stories in Ethan Rutherford's The Peripatetic Coffin ($13.99) mark the debut of a powerful new voice in contemporary fiction.
Ethan Rutherford received his MFA in fiction from the University of Minnesota, and has taught creative writing at Macalester, the University of Minnesota, and the Loft Literary Center. A former bookseller at Three Lives & Co. as well as Magers & Quinn, he lives in Minneapolis, where he is the guitarist for the band Pennyroyal.
- Street:
- 1 Ferry Building
- City:
- San Francisco ,
- Province:
- California
- Postal Code:
- 94118
- 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):
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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
Jennie Shortridge and Erica Bauermeister
A bittersweet novel filled with longing and hope, Jennie Shortridge’s Love Water Memory ($26.00) explores the raw, tender complexities of relationships and personal identity. Who is Lucie Walker? Even Lucie herself can’t answer that question after she comes to, confused and up to her knees in the chilly San Francisco Bay. Back home in Seattle, she adjusts to life with amnesia, growing unsettled by the clues she finds to the selfish, carefully guarded person she used to be. Will she ever fall in love with her handsome, kindhearted fiancé, Grady? Can he devote himself to the vulnerable, easygoing Lucie 2.0, who is so unlike her controlling former self? When Lucie learns that Grady has been hiding some very painful secrets that could change the course of their relationship, she musters the courage to search for the shocking, long-repressed childhood memories that will finally set her free.
Jennie Shortridge has published five novels: Love Water Memory, When She Flew, Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe, Eating Heaven, and Riding with the Queen. When not writing, teaching writing workshops, or volunteering with kids, Jennie stays busy as a founding member of Seattle7Writers.org, a collective of Northwest authors devoted both to raising funds for community literacy projects and to raising awareness of Northwest literature.
Erica Bauermeister presents The Lost Art of Mixing ($25.95). In prose to be savored, Bauermeister brings back some of the most engaging characters from School and introduces intriguing new personalities as she follows them around the seasons of a year. At the heart of her story once again is Lillian, the chef and restaurant owner with a remarkable ability to bring out the hidden essence of people as well as ingredients, and to combine both in surprising, delightful new ways
Erica Bauermeister, the bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients and Joy for Beginners, is also the coauthor of 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide and Let’s Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. She has taught literature and creative writing at the University of Washington, from which she holds a Ph.D. in literature, and is a graduate of Occidental College.
- Street:
- 51 Tamal Vista Blvd
- City:
- Corte Madera ,
- Postal Code:
- 94925
Michael Pollan - Cooked
Angelico Hall, Dominican University
Tickets: $35 (includes signed book)
Online registration is now closed. To register, call (415) 927-0960 ext. 1
In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook.
- Street:
- Dominican University of California
- Additional:
- Angelico Hall, 50 Acacia Avenue
- City:
- San Rafael ,
- Postal Code:
- 94901
Jon Mooallem - Wild Ones
Journalist Jon Mooallem has watched his little daughter’s world overflow with animals—butterfly pajamas, appliquéd owls—while the actual world she’s inheriting slides into a great storm of extinction. Half of all species could disappear by the end of the century, and scientists now concede that most of America’s endangered animals will survive only if conservationists keep rigging the world around them in their favor. So Mooallem ventures into the field, often taking his daughter with him, to move beyond childlike fascination and make those creatures feel more real. Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America ($27.95) is a tour through our environmental moment and the eccentric cultural history of people and wild animals in America that inflects it—from Thomas Jefferson’s celebrations of early abundance to the turn-of-the-last-century origins of the teddy bear to the whale-loving hippies of the 1970s.
Jon Mooallem has been a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine since 2006 and is a writer at large for Pop Up, the “live magazine” in San Francisco. He’s also contributed recently to the New Yorker, Harper’s, Wired, Radiolab, and This American Life. His magazine stories have twice been included in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and he’s been interviewed about his work on a wide range of radio and television shows, including Fresh Air and The Colbert Report.
- Street:
- 1 Ferry Building
- City:
- San Francisco ,
- Postal Code:
- 94111
- Country:
- United States
David Sedaris - Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls
Introduction by Kelly Corrigan!
From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls ($26.99), a new book of essays taking his readers on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences. Whether railing against the habits of litterers in the English countryside or marveling over a disembodied human arm in a taxidermist's shop, Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures that are not to be forgotten.
David Sedaris is the author of the books Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Naked, and Barrel Fever. He is a regular contributor to the New Yorker and Public Radio International's This American Life. He lives in England.
- Street:
- 51 Tamal Vista Blvd
- City:
- Corte Madera ,
- Postal Code:
- 94925
