Brilliant and prolific writers, comedians, entertainers, sages:

Laura Bean

Laura Bean spent ten years practicing Tibetan Buddhism with a Canadian lama in Kyoto, Japan. She edited a collection of his dharma talks entitled Dharma If You Dare, which will soon be in print. Laura is a published poet, journalist, and performance artist. Her monologues and a play entitled Love, Sex, and Hollow, Holy Places have been performed on stages in New York City, Cali, Colombia, and Kyoto, Japan.

Tessa Bertoldi

Catharine Bramkamp

Catharine Bramkamp is a successful book coach and author. She is a dynamic speaker covering subjects as diverse as NaNoNowWhat? to the Evolution of Language to working through writing blocks. She works with clients creating both fictional works (Three clients have published four books) and non-fiction (one client has published two books).
She holds two degrees in English and Creative Writing and is an adjunct professor for University of Phoenix. She had published a handful of novels and collections including five books in her Real Estate Diva Mystery series, two Chicken Soup for the Soul books and a poetry collection; Ammonia Sunrise. Her writing books are Don’t Write Like You Talk and The Cheap Retreat Workbook.

She lives in Sonoma County with her husband.
Website: [http://www.YourBookStartsHere.com]
Facebook: [http://facebook/catharinebramkamp.com]
LinkedIn: [http://linkedin/catharinebramkamp.com]
Twitter: [http://cbramkamp]

marty castleberg

Website: [http://davelandthebook.wordpress.com/]

Paula Chinick

Paula Chinick, current president of CWC Tri-Valley Branch spent the majority of her career in Information Technology as a project manager working for various Fortune 500 companies. She holds an MBA from John F. Kennedy University in International Business. After the economy collapsed, she decided to retire and pursue her greatest passion – writing. Paula has contributed short stories to several anthologies and is currently working on her first novel, Red Asscher, a three-part spy thriller series.

Kellie Edson

Kellie has her bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing with a minor in Music. She graduated with honors in 2011 and has started the Meeting and Event Planning Certificate Program at CCE.

She is the Academic Programs Marketing Coordinator for the College of Continuing Education (CCE) at Sacramento State. A jack of many trades, she also is also a part time Zumba instructor, blogger and plays softball.

Much how she feels about music, she also loves writing and reading all formats and genres and is still finding her own place in the literary world.

This will be her 4th year volunteering at SFWC, and prior to that she was a volunteer for 3 years at the Maui Writer’s Conference.
Website: [http://kelliejoy.wordpress.com]
Twitter: [http://kelliejoy1588]

Kimberly A. Edwards

Kimberly A. Edwards (kimberlyedwards00@comcast.net) writes articles for local, national and international markets on cross-cultural issues, lifestyle and seniors, coordinating events, working with boards and committees, and presentation strategies. Print credits amassed over 30 years include: Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Senior Spectrum, The Times of India, International Travel News, Sacramento News and Review, The Sacramento Bee, and Independent (Book Publishers Association, IBPA), and sales magazines. Recently, her “Tapping into Twitter Expertise ” was selected for IBPA’s ebook, The Book Publishers Toolkit: 10 Practical Pointers for Independent and Self Publishers. Work continues on her novel, The Year of Black and White, inspired by true events in 1960. Kimberly serves as an officer for the California Writers Club, Sacramento Branch. She heads the Seminar Committee, bringing known names to the community. Recently she retired from the California Department of Education where she enlisted corporate sponsors; put on large conferences; coordinated California Teachers of the Year, National Blue Ribbon Schools, the Milken Family Foundation Educators Program; and crafted a “Noon Hour with a Local Author” series.

Audrey Fairchild

Audrey is a full time English teacher in Hillsborough, and a crisis intervention and suicide hotline counselor for San Mateo County. She received her Ph.D. in 2001, and her counseling practice is in downtown San Mateo. She attended Santa Clara University for her Counseling Psychology and MFT licensure. She is an active member of the National Academy of Neuropsychology and the Northern California Writer’s Association. She is currently writing a self help guide for parenting preteens and provides presentations on a variety of parenting topics.
Website: [http://www.AudreyFairchild.com]

Tara Farquhar

Writing is the one staple that has stayed with me throughout my life. Writing is breath, sanity and joy. I have an MFA in English and Creative Writing from Mills College. I write memoir, fiction and poetry.
Website: [http://www.thepennedartist.com]

Kate Farrell

Kate Farrell earned a Masters degree from UC-Berkeley; is an author, teacher, librarian, and storyteller and has published numerous educational materials. Kate is the founder of Wisdom Has a Voice memoir project http://wisdomhasavoice.com/ and editor of the anthology, Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother, 2011. She’s a member of the Redwood Branch of the California Writer’s Club, Story Circle Network, the National Association of Memoir Writers, and is Vice-President of the Women’s National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter. Currently, Kate is working with Linda Joy Myers and Amber Lea Starfire on a new anthology: Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s to be released in June 2013.
Website: [http://www.wisdomhasavoice.com]

Betsy Graziani Fasbinder

In both her works of memoir and fiction, Betsy Graziani Fasbinder explores the unending complications of people living, working, and loving one another. As a practicing therapist for more than twenty years, she has been witness to the heartbreak, healing, and heroism of people from all walks of life. She strives to create stories that bring the emotional truths she’s experienced and observed to the pages in all of her writing.

Betsy has been awarded the Floyd Salas Award for Fiction, and has been honored with a Jack London award and two East of Eden awards for both fiction and memoir pieces. Four of her works have been produced as Readers’ Theater in the historic Nevada Theater in Nevada City, California. She is the co-producer of The Women’s Writing Salon in Nevada County. Her first novel, Fire and Water, will be released by She Writes Press on March 1, 2013. She’s working now on a collection of memoir stories and a new novel set in California’s Wine Country, a great excuse for some wine tasting. Research, only for research.
Website: [http://www.betsygrazianifasbinder.com]
Facebook: [http://www.facebook.com/BetsyG.Fasbinder?ref=ts&fref=ts]
Twitter: [https://twitter.com/WriterBGF]

Lynn Henriksen

Lynn Cook Henriksen, aka The Story Woman, discovered a profound way to keep our mothers’ spirits alive by helping hundreds of daughters and sons capture in brief memoirs the memories and feelings they never thought they could record. She is the author of the award-winning guidebook, TellTale Souls Writing the Mother Memoir: How to Tap Memory and Write Your Story Capturing Character & Spirit.
Website: [http://www.telltalesouls.com/blog/]
Facebook: [http://www.facebook.com/lynn.henriksen.3]
LinkedIn: [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lynn-henriksen/5/336/952]
Twitter: [https://twitter.com/lynnhenriksen]

Julaina Kleist-Corwin

Julaina Kleist-Corwin has won five short story contest awards. She is a writing teacher for the City of Dublin, CA and a field Supervisor for teachers working toward their credentials. Her short stories are in several anthologies, the most recent is Harlequin’s A Christmas Miracle. Current writing projects are a novel called Hada’s Fog and an anthology, A Class of Muses, due to be published this year.
Blog: timetowritenow.wordpress.com
Website: [http://julaina.homestead.com]
Facebook: [http://www.facebook.com/julaina.kleist]

Danine Manette

My name is Danine Manette and I am a seven year volunteer for the SFWC. I am an infidelity expert and the author of Ultimate Betrayal: Recognizing, Uncovering and Dealing with Infidelity. Working at the SFWC provided me with an opportunity to connect with countless contacts. Additionally, I learned how to develop a platform that enabled me to go from being a self published author to landing a book deal and appearing on a host of television programs such as the Oprah Winfrey Show and NBC’s Today Show. I look forward to continuing this journey in 2013.
Website: [http://www.ultimatebetrayal.com]
Facebook: [http://www.facebook.com/pages/Danine-Manette-Media/56254129521]
LinkedIn: [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/danine-manette/7/289/776]
Twitter: [http://twitter.com/DanineManette]

Rebecca Martin

Rebecca Martin, founder and CEO of California based dear jane Inc. a career services company, believes that people can succeed in navigating through corporate and business environments, as well as their career transitions if they can first identify what is right for them. She is dedicated to helping and coaching management and individuals, and is extremely passionate about the career management and human capital industries.
Today, dear jane Inc. develops and delivers career management training classes, workshops, seminars, and coaching to Fortune 1000 companies as well as individuals throughout the United States. Since its inception, dear jane Inc. has enjoyed a very high success rate in coaching clients through career transitions, navigating corporate environments and working with today’s job market.
She has appeared on the View from the Bay San Francisco’s ABC afternoon show, Beyond the Headlines with Cheryl Jennings, and Conversations with Robin Fahr, a local channel 30 television show. A USC graduate with a B.S. in Business Administration, Rebecca has written and published the booklet “83 Tips on How to Successfully Work with Corporate and External Recruiters.”
She belongs to the Women’s National Book Association and is a volunteer for the San Francisco Writer’s Conference.
Website: [http://dearjane.info]
Facebook: [http://rebeccamartin]
Twitter: [http://dearjaneadvisor]

Carmen Micsa

Born and raised in Romania, Carmen Micsa moved to America in 1995 and chose to write about her old life in communist Romania and her new life in America. She earned a BA and MA degree in English (Creative Writing) from Sacramento State University. Besides writing, Carmen MIcsa enjoys being a mother to her two beautiful children Alex and Sophia. She owns her own real estate company and prides herself for being organized and efficient in leading a balanced life. Freedom Rocks is Carmen’s first book/memoir that she’s hoping to publish in 2013. She also writes short fiction, travel articles, and picture books. When she is not reading and writing, Carmen Micsa and her children train in Taekwondo and are close to receiving their black belts. She also was one of the top five in Northern California Women’s 4.00 Tennis in 2011 and 2012. Besides tennis, Carmen loves to bike and has done 100K and century (100 miles) bike rides for the last 6 years in a row for Diabetes Tour de Cure in memory of her beloved father.

An enthusiastic, energetic, and outgoing mother, wife, daughter, writer, real estate broker, and friend, one of Carmen’s favorite quotes is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s: “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” She also applies the lessons learned from Anatole France, who said: “To accomplish one’s goals, one must dream, as well as act.”
Website: [http://carmenmicsabooks.com]
Facebook: [http://www.facebook.com/cmicsa]
LinkedIn: [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/carmen-micsa/26/191/b36]

Lori Noack

Associate Director of the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, Lori Noack has over twenty years of non-profit leadership experience, along with independent writing, editing, consulting, and arts management expertise. In addition to serving on governing and cultural boards from local to state levels, her professional positions have included executive director of nationally recognized music festivals in Oregon and San Francisco, newspaper editor, founder of an arts management agency, university lecturer, and writing instructor. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing in 2009. Today, Lori applies her expertise in building AWWP’s North American team to ensure program excellence and enhance public awareness for the benefit of women’s rights in Afghanistan.

Andrew Rose

I am a first teacher in Sacramento. I grew up in Modesto, California. After high school graduation, I worked as a clown for two years in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. I then obtained a BA degree in Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts from San Francisco State University. I also earned a teaching credential there. In addition, I hold an MA in Communication at CSU Stanislaus.

Sue Ross

It is rumored that the first word SUE ROSS ever uttered gave her such satisfaction that she said it twice, “Author! Author!” Finding stories in everything she does, Sue has made her living as a non-profit administrator and small business owner throughout her career. Her checkered past has provided her with opportunities to revel in language, whether through structured business plans, reports, grant applications, marketing materials (print and online); or speeches, presentations, and letters that lift and inspire.

Currently, she is revising her manuscript for GOLANSKI’S TREASURES, a character-driven novel about a Holocaust survivor who travels to Poland to reconnect with his past, and discovers that the choices we make frame our destiny – and the treasures we seek are not always what we might anticipate. To avoid postpartum blues, once the book is finished work will begin on a prequel to the novel. Sue is intent in focusing her life on writing and is a member of: the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA – SF Chapter,) California Writers Club (Redwood Writers), and a Sonoma Scribes critique group. She had two extraordinary recent experiences that expanded her understanding of the world of writing and publishing in today’s rapidly changing world — her second (2012) SF Writers Conference and a 2012 “Meet the Agents” event presented by WNBA.

Sue also sits on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Sonoma State University, is a member of Congregation Shomrei Torah in Santa Rosa, California, and served as the Vice President for Development and Public Relations at Spertus Center for Jewish Learning in Chicago. Sue currently lives in Santa Rosa with her fiancé, dog and two cats..

Sue’s writing is inspired by one of her personal heroes, Holocaust Survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, ELIE WIESEL, who said, “Are we so naïve as to think that we can bring peace to the world through words? Yes we are. What else do we have?”
Website: [http://GolanskisTreasures.com]
LinkedIn: [http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=37030939&trk=tab_pro&_mSplash=1]

Angela Tung

A former corporate cog, Angela Tung now writes full-time. Her work has appeared in CNN Living, The Frisky, Asian Cha Magazine, Matador Life, The Nervous Breakdown, and various anthologies, including The Beautiful Anthology which was recently featured in The New York Times’ Best Bathroom Books of 2012. She also blogs about words and language for Wordnik.

Her latest book, Black Fish: Memoir of a Bad Luck Girl, chronicles the failed marriage between a Chinese woman and Korean man, both American-born but bound by old world traditions. Black Fish has been called “a work of dark enchantment, in which history, magic, and fate loom as large as character and desire,” and “a beautiful, cultural tapestry that keeps the reader riveted.” It was shortlisted for the 2010 Graywolf Nonfiction Prize. Black Fish is available now in both paperback and ebook.

She has an MS in Library Science from the Pratt Institute, an MA in Creative Writing from Boston University, where she was the fiction fellow, and a BA in English from Barnard College.
Website: [http://blog.angelatung.com/]
LinkedIn: [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/angela-tung/2/872/912]
Twitter: [https://twitter.com/tung_angela]

Margie Yee Webb

Margie Yee Webb is the author/photographer of Cat Mulan’s Mindful Musings: Insight and Inspiration for a Wonderful Life, a gift book for cat lovers and their finicky friends! The Sacramento Bee wrote: “The El Dorado Hills writer-photographer imparts words of wisdom, accented with pictures of her rescued cat.”

As a co-creator of Not Your Mother’s Book . . . On Cats, she is seeking true, funny, silly and endearing cat stories of between 500 to 2,500 words. The submission deadline for Cats is May 1, 2013. Not Your Mother’s Book (NYMB) is a new anthology for a new century from Publishing Syndicate, with 30-plus titles needing hip, fun and modern stories. Titles released by Publishing Syndicate include NYMB . . . On Being a Woman, NYMB . . . On Being a Stupid Kid and NYMB . . . On Dogs. For submission guidelines and to submit stories, visit www.PublishingSyndicate.com.

Margie is past president of California Writers Club–Sacramento Branch (CWC–Sacramento) and received the Jack London Award for outstanding service. Currently, she serves on the CWC–Sacramento board of directors and as CWC vice president. She is also a member of Cat Writers’ Association (CWA), Northern California Publishers & Authors Association (NCPA), Women’s National Book Association–San Francisco Chapter, and Bay Area Independent Publishers Association.

In the CWA 2011 Communications Contest, Margie was awarded Certificates of Excellence for “Gift” and for “Color Photographs (series)” for Cat Mulan’s Mindful Musings. She received “Best Nonfiction 2012-Gift” and “Best Book Design 2012, 2nd Place” in the NCPA Awards.
Website: [http://www.catmulan.com]
Facebook: [http://facebook.com/MargieYeeWebb]
LinkedIn: [http://www.linkedin.com/in/margieyeewebb]