SPC Spring Conference; Time Tested Books April Events; Our Live Stories Conference

Friends, SO very many writing and reading events are scheduled for this month in the Sacramento area! Enjoy these few bits from the smorgasbord! -Kate

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Sacramento Poetry Center Spring Conference, April 8-9, 2011

This year's conference promises to be great! Featuring readings and workshops by Julia Connor, K. Silem Mohammad, Melissa Morphew, Jim Powell, Dean Rader and Tim Kahl. Visit the website for details and registration instructions. Friday evening and Saturday afternoon readings are free to the public; workshops require a modest registration fee that defrays conference costs. Advance registration is recommended. www.sacramentopoetrycenter.org.

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Time Tested Books hosts a great lineup of author events in April

Have you visited Time Tested Books lately? If not, time to check in—they have a great lineup of events this April! I follow their blog here, and you can visit it at http://timetestedbooks.blogspot.com/.

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Mark Your Calendar: Our Life Stories Conference – Registration deadline April 22

Our Life Stories is a cross-generational writers' conference sponsored by Hart Senior Center and Cosumnes River College.

Saturday, May 7, 2011
8:30 am to 4:30 pm
Cosumnes River College
8401 Center Parkway, Sacramento, CA  

Conference Fee - $30.00 (Includes lunch, workshops, and materials)
Registration Deadline: April 22, 2011. Space is limited.

Conference keynotes and faculty:

Keynote Speakers Gerald Haslam has published nine collections of short fiction, four novels, three collections of essays, three non-fiction books, plus edited nine anthologies, and won many literary awards. His next book, a biography of Senator S.I. Hayakawa, is due next fall. He is professor emeritus at Sonoma State University. More importantly, he has one wife (enough), one dog (enough), five adult children (enough), and twelve grandchildren (almost enough). Long ago, he played football (not very well) at Sac'to State.     Workshop Presenters		Adair Lara is a writer of books and a writing coach/teacher in San Francisco. She has worked for San Francisco Focus, SF, and as a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle for twelve years. She has published ten books, including several collections of columns. Her work has also appeared in Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest, Parenting, Glamour, Redbook, Ladies' Home Journal, American Woman, Departures, Westways, American Way, More, Via, Fitness, and Good Housekeeping. She is currently a columnist for Grandparents.com.
Albert Garcia is the author of two books of poems, Rainshadow (Copper Beech Press) and Skunk Talk (Bear Star Press) and of Digging In: Literature for Developing Writers (Prentice Hall). His poems have been published in journals across the country, recently in Willow Springs, Cutthroat, and New Plains Review. He is dean of the Language and Literature Division at Sacramento City College and lives in the rural community of Wilton. Tim Herrera is an award winning author and communication specialist. He is the author of four family humor books and one how-to book on media relations for small businesses. Tim is a former journalist, having worked for KCRA TV and having written weekly columns for the Elk Grove Citizen and the Elk Grove Neighbors edition of the Sacramento Bee. He's currently the Communications Director for the Sacramento County Office of Education and, in his spare time which is not so spare, he teaches writing and communications courses for University of Phoenix, Mountain State University (WV) and Tiffin University (Ohio). Dennis Hock, a recently retired CRC English professor, was instrumental in helping to develop Sutterwriters in 2003. He continues to work in hospitals and retreat centers with groups that use expressive writing as a healing process. An accomplished poet, Dennis is the author of The Secret Cup: Poems of Grief and Healing. Susan Kelly-DeWitt is the author of The Fortunate Islands (Marick Press), eight small press collections, and the electronic chapbook The Limbo Suite. Her awards include a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in poetry, an Excellence In Teaching Award from UC Davis Extension and several Pushcart Prize nominations; her work has appeared on Writer's Almanac, Verse Daily in many anthologies, and most recently The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. She is currently a contributing editor of Poetry Flash and a blogger for Coal Hill Review. www.susankelly-dewitt.com Nan Mahon is a freelance writer, author and journalist. She is a staff writer for Senior Magazine and formally was Lifestyle editor for the Elk Grove Citizen and a feature writer for the Sacramento Bee. Currently, she teaches writing classes for the Elk Grove Unified School District's Adult Education and for The Learning exchange. Every April, she conducts a writer's workshop for the Elk Grove Library. Her self-published books include a family anthology and three mystery novels. Visit her website at www.nanmahon.com.		Tchaka E.K. Muhammed is a well-known educational entertainer. He is a creative performer who has taken the lessons handed down in his family and turned them into pearls of wisdom that he shares through his entertaining format. He has performed all over the country on television and radio and at countless conferences. Muhammed received his Bachelor of Arts from San Francisco State University, his Masters from California State University, Sacramento, and his Doctorate in Metaphysics from the Metaphysical Institute in St. Louis, Missouri. Emmanuel Sigauke grew up in Zimbabwe where he started writing at the age of thirteen. He teaches composition, literature and creative writing at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento, is a board member of the Sacramento Poetry Center, where he hosts poetry readings, is the book review editor of the organization's bi-monthly newsletter, and is also the co-editor of the recently published African Roar: An Eclectic Collection of African Authors. Sigauke has also taught fiction workshops for the UC Davis Extension and in the Hart Senior Center Annual Writing Conference. His fiction has been published in online and print journals. Kakwasi Somadhi is a freelance writer and teacher with a lifelong passion for literature and creative writing. She holds a BA and MA in English and a newly earned MFA in creative writing. She's written a novel, Coming Forth by Day and is hard at work on a story collection, Sun Tzu in the Hood, as well as a memoir about grace and grief, Spirits Rapping through the Vines. Somadhi resides in Elk Grove and teaches at Sacramento City College where she is the evening/weekend tutor coordinator. Before embarking on a career in education, David Weinshilboum spent years as a journalist, writing for publications that include UC Davis Magazine, Comstock's and the Sacramento Business Journal. During his time as a reporter, he's had the opportunity to interview George Stephanopoulos, who served as President Bill Clinton's senior adviser for policy and strategy, and famed author Tom Wolfe. David now teaches English and creative writing at Cosumnes River College. He lives in Davis with his wife and two sons.