Join the Left Coast Writers® as they debut sneak peeks from their upcoming books!

A night of unabashed travel tales and fun with authors from Left Coast Writers®. In this Caravansary, a selection of travel writers will share their stories from the road.

Join Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Rebecca Foust as Left Coast Writers® celebrate National Poetry Month at the Ferry Terminal!

Linda Watanabe McFerrin is the founder of Left Coast Writers®. Her latest novel, Dead Love, was a Bram Stoker Award finalist.

Rebecca Foust is the Poet Laureate of Marin County and author of the books Paradise Drive; All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song; and God, Seed: Poetry & Art About the Natural World.

When Diane Kelly's lover and friend, Jack, comes out seven years into their relationship expressing his well-kept secret desire to transition from male to female, Diane's world turns upside down. With little information to help her answer the question 'do I stay or do I go', she searches for direction on her own.

Navigating the murky waters of the unknown that accompany the challenges of Jack's changing persona, Diane is guided by love, loyalty, and a willingness to sacrifice. In the true story The Sky Turned Green & the Grass Turned Blue, Diane shares her observations and reactions as she explores the underground world of BDSM, bondage/submission and sadomasochism, as well as providing an intimate view into gay and lesbian lifestyles in her attempt to gauge what impact Jack's changes might have to their relationship and to her own authentic self.

Author and award-winning translator Niloufar Talebi offers a rare glimpse into her native Iran in Self-Portrait in Bloom, her part-memoir, part-biography, and part-history of literature in Iran, a “brutally honest memoir of a life built by words, destroyed by words, rebuilt by words,” (Firoozeh Dumas, New York Times bestselling author of Funny in Farsi and Laughing Without an Accent).

Iranian poets were increasingly instrumental in “freeing Persian poetry from the state of decline and stagnation” in the aftermath of World War II, when a new dynamism was taking shape in Persian poetry. Into this backdrop emerges the poet Ahmad Shamlou (1925-2000), an iconic cultural figure who spent much time in Talebi’s childhood home. “There are two books in this book, one portrait of me and one of Ahmad Shamlou. And they intersect,” Talebi writes of Self-Portrait in Bloom. Released in the 40th anniversary year of the Iranian revolution, it delves deep into culture, personal history, and pays homage to Tehran, the city of Talebi’s childhood. Told in fragments of prose, poetry, and photographs, this lyrical exploration reimagines the memoir form and in a dramatic climax sets free the details of a hurt that can no longer limit the blossoming of an artist.

Niloufar Talebi is a writer, award-winning translator, creator, and producer. Her work has been featured at the Kennedy Center, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and she has received commissions from Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Her projects include Belonging, Epiphany, The Persian Rite of Spring, and ICARUS/RISE. Her work has been published in World Literature Today, PBS Frontline, Rattapallax, and Poetry International. Her TEDxBerkeley talk on Match 9, 2019, is about the transformative power of translation and visibility. She is the author of the Self-Portrait in Bloom (l’Aleph, 2019), and the creator/librettist of its related opera, Abraham in Flames, which world premieres in San Francisco on May 9-12, 2019.

Please join Left Coast Writers® for a special panel featuring authors Penny Warner, and Nicola Trwst, as well as literary agent Laurie Fox, moderated by Left Coast Writers® founder Linda Watanabe McFerrin.

Penny Warner's Code Busters are excited for their class field trip to Angel Island, known as the Ellis Island of the West. One of Mika's ancestors passed through the island's immigration station in the early twentieth century, and Mika thinks he may have left behind some secret messages...plus a very special box. But as the Code Busters search for hints from the past, they get caught up in an even bigger secret. Can you crack the code? Test your brain with the Code Busters to see if you have the right stuff to be an ace detective.

In Nicola Trwst's San Rafael Sizzle, journalist Briana Kaleigh's ex has tracked her to Marin County, California hoping to rekindle their marriage, but Briana has set her sights on smoking hot sheriff's detective, Dusty Arkansas. When the body of a leading stem cell researcher is discovered beside a cooler of iced placentas, Briana is the first journalist on the scene, and she and Dusty team up to work the evidence until Briana's ex is arrested for the murder. Now, Briana must work against Dusty and the authorities to prove her ex is innocent, but the surrounding emotions and her ex's stubborn silence don't help. When a fire destroys the researcher's lab and all the lab employees disappear, finding the truth becomes even more crucial. A sinister killer is taking aim again and Briana could be his next target.

Laurie Fox joined the Linda Chester Literary Agency in 1989 and is currently a partner there. A graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz (Writing and Theatre Arts), she is a published author of fiction and poetry, including Sexy Hieroglyphics (Chronicle Books); and two novels, My Sister from the Black Lagoon (starred Publishers Weekly review; San Francisco Chronicle bestseller) and The Lost Girls (optioned for film), both published by Simon & Schuster. She represents books in the areas of literary and quality fiction, memoir/biography, popular culture and cultural criticism, quirky humor, narrative nonfiction, history and current events, art and artists, and cutting-edge science and technology.

Linda Watanabe McFerrin is the founder of Left Coast Writers®. Her latest novel, Dead Love, was a Bram Stoker Award finalist.

A mysterious beachcomber appears one day on the coastal bluffs near the small town of Carverville, a place whose best days are long behind it. Who is he, and why has he returned after nearly forty years?

Carverville's prodigal son, James, serendipitously finds work at a gentrified motel, but his homecoming soon takes a sinister turn when he and a local teenager make a gruesome discovery on the beach. It forces him to reckon with the ghosts of his past -- and the dangers of the present. Rumors, distrust, and conspiracies spread among the townsfolk, all of them seemingly trapped in their claustrophobic and isolated world. But is there something more sinister at work here than the mere fear of outsiders?

In The Gardener of Eden, Downie weaves an intricate and compelling narrative of redemption, revenge, justice, and love -- and the price of secrecy -- as a community grapples with its tortured past and frightening future.

David Downie, a native San Franciscan, lived in New York, Providence, Rome, and Milan before moving to Paris in the mid-80s. He divides his time between France and Italy. His travel, food and arts features have appeared in leading print and online publications including Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Saveur, Epicurious.com, and Gault & Millau, the premier French food guide. He is the author of over a dozen nonfiction books, including the highly acclaimed Paris, Paris and A Passion for Paris.

In The Devil's Pipline by Michael Fitzgerald, a mega-energy conglomerate collides with a pacifist farm community in a quiet corner of Iowa where the community's founder and his family have been seeking solitude and tranquility since witnessing the famous Kent State University massacre in 1970.As the company pushes a huge pipeline directly through their farm, even pacifists will eventually push back.A tragic skirmish kicks off a rollercoaster of explosive confrontations at the farm, in courtrooms and across a wide political and industrial landscape from Washington D.C. to California.Chronicling the tragedy and misdeeds is Jack Stafford, editor of The Clarion News Syndicate and his staff of ardent environmentalists with a long history of uncovering misdeeds by energy companies, secrets it want to keep hidden from the public. Eventually the investigative journalists discover the pipeline is not what it seems, opening the door on a closet of nasty secrets buried for decades by the CEO of the energy corporation.

As a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1967, Gwen Harris is supposed to just report on the phenomenon known as the Summer of Love, where peace and love are the mantras. But murder? Kidnapping? Gwen can’t just stand by. In A Sleuth in the Summer of Love by Carol Sheldon, Gwen's efforts to discover the guilty and rescue the innocent lead her to be caught up in a web of events which threaten her relationships and -- eventually -- even her life.

Join Linda Watanabe McFerrin and author Ann Steiner for a panel entitled "Publishing and Beyond." For more information, visit www.leftcoastwriters.com.