Has been quilting, drawing and telling her Folk -Art Stories for twenty years. This year she appeared at the Crocker- Capital Storytelling event. Her “Harlem Hill Chronicles”, available on lulu.com, takes place during Jim Crow Segregation Era in Fort Worth, Texas. The stories are woven with dreams of youthful confidence, guarded in the hopes of family love and fortified in the eyes of cultural history. “The Elephant Champion”, this year’s short story, will be published by the Northern California Publishers and Authors, in Dec.
MS Wilburn is a retired councilor of abused children.She lives in South Sacramento.
L.M. RANDOLPH
L.M. Randolph
Lisa M. Randolph an aspiring children’s book writer, goes by the pen name, L.M. Randolph. Her first action-adventure series The Wildlife Divas Adventure Team and short story Raju the Crying Elephant,tackles the subject of Wildlife Conservation and Endangered Species. Her real-life adventures have taken her to four of seven continents of the world. Her fascinating hobby of ‘Rock Hunting’ for semi-precious stones has sent her exploring mountains reaching heights up to 8000 feet, to valley floors of ancient seabed’s hunting for trilobite fossils. Don’t be surprised when meeting her to find pockets filled with an interesting array of rocks, crystals and gemstones. She resides in Elk Grove, California with two small rescue dogs, Rose (a terrier-mix) and Petal (a teacup chihuahua) and admits to being their emotional support human. They’ve inspired her upcoming children’s book series, The Adventures of an Ugly Dog in a Tutu’.
Angelina Woodberry
Angelina Woodberry
Angelina (A-Jae) Woodberry is a Bay area born storyteller that draws upon the experience of life to colour her fiction. The award winning author has published short stories, poems, academic and personal reflective essays in several literary journals over the past two decades. A children’s play she wrote was performed by a local theater company. She has also served as editor on various educational texts. Recently her essays have been published in two regional anthologies. She currently holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Clark Atlanta University in Mass Media Arts with an emphasis in Film. She is also an active member of the Romance Writers of America. Her first novel, Son of a Preacher Man, is due to debut in the spring of 2020. A licensed minister of the Christian Gospel, she is very active with her local church. She worked for seven years as an advocate in the mental health system. She lives with bipolar disorder and strives to be a support for her peers. A-Jae lives in Sacramento with her husband and two teenage children. For more information: website: www.ajaewoodbery.com, twitter: @jaewoodberry, facebook and instagram: #ajaewoodberry.
Brenda Davis
Brenda Davis is a writer, director of plays, attorney, and businesswoman. Her creative works include poetic prose, pure poetry, science fiction, and now an action/adventure tale. She was born in New Orleans, LA and currently resides in Sacramento, CA.
Frederick Foote
todd boyd
andy, Charles, Cheryl, Donella, Jennifer,lynette
michelle, pat s, rose ann, Shannon, susan, vicki
Frederick
Foote
Since 2014 Frederick has published over
two- hundred stories and poems including literary, science fiction, fables, and
horror genres. Frederick has published two short story collections, For the
Sake of Soul, (2015) and, Crossroads Encounters, (2016). Frederick
hosts the Prose and Poetry Meet Up group and is a member of the INK writers
workshop and is currently preparing a short story collection manuscript
Todd Boyd
I survived as a carpenter, railroad
worker, and a social studies teacher before I retired for good, so I am no
longer tied down to the wage industrial complex tracks, like Sweet Sue, like
sweet sue used to.
I define myself as an agnostically
oriented spiritual believer in Hope and second, third, and fourth chances
because there’s no future in believing only in your own fallibility, no matter
how much attention/notoriety you get nor how smart you are.
I’ve been taken on some long rides
down life’s road and I’ve driven some too.
Nowadays I write, get to make things
up, and continue to try my literary hand as a self-published author, internet
radio host, blogging, making some visual art, hosting both writing and open mic
events, working on another novel, and enjoying whatever sports my body will let
me do.
Self-published author of one novel (Marat, Untrue Loves, four chapbooks-(Shark Poems and Caroline’s Adeline Street
and Other Poems), one book of short stories, (Allred’s Short Stories), one journal of personal history (The Election of 2012- A Year of Living
Inside the Definition of Insanity). Most of these titles can be found on
Amazon for practically nothing.
carol lynn Jennifer o pickering
taylor graham sue crisp
Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas
Carol Lynn Stevenson
Grellas lives in the Sierra Foothills. She is a nine-time Pushcart nominee and
a seven-time Best of the Net nominee. In 2012 she was the winner on the Red
Ochre Chapbook Contest, with her manuscript, ‘Before I Go to Sleep.’ She
is the author of numerous books and has had hundreds of poems published
in\print journals and online, including War, Literature and the Arts, and The
Yale Journal of Humanities and Medicine. In 2018 her poem ‘A Mall in
California’ took 2nd place for the Jack Kerouac Poetry Prize. Her
work has appeared in international publications as well as several anthologies
across the U.S. In 2019 her chapbook An Ode to Hope in the Midstof
Pandemonium was a finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards. She was
recently the guest speaker at the California Writer’s Club, Sacramento chapter.
She is the Editor-in-Chief for The Orchards Poetry Journal and
Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Tule Review. She is a member of the Sacramento Poetry
Center Board of Directors, Saratoga Author’s Hall of Fame and according to
family lore, she is a direct descendant of Robert Louis Stevenson. www.clgrellaspoetry.com
Jennifer O’Neill Pickering is a literary and visual artist living in California who loves to paint with words. Find her poems and prose featured in publications, literary journals and podcasts. Some of these include Writer’s on the Air, Sacramento Voices, Earth’s Daughters, Yellow Silk, Paddock Review, Restore and Restory, The Dog With the Old Soul and Tiger’s Eye: AJournal of Poetry. ” Her poem, I Am the Creek” is included in the Sacramento site-specific sculpture, Open Circle. A collection of her poetry, Blooming In Winter is illustrated with ten color plates of her visual art and available on Amazon aNdelsewhere. She is editor of the Sable and Quill: writers who are also visual artists. Shepaintsandwrites.com
Taylor Graham
With her husband, Hatch, Taylor Graham has been a volunteer
search-and-rescue dog handler for many years. Retired now from callout, they
still train their dogs every week. Taylor served as El Dorado County’s first
poet laureate (2016-2018), and continues to help coordinate workshops and
readings. Her poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, New York
Quarterly, Poetry Now, Sacramento Voices,Tule Review,
and elsewhere. She’s included in the anthologies Villanelles (Everyman’s
Library) and California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Santa
Clara University/Heyday Books). Her latest book is Windows of Time and Place
(Cold River Press, 2019), a collection of poems written during her tenure
as Poet Laureate.
Sue Crisp
Sue Crisp is originally from Bakersfield, California, now a
resident of El Dorado County since 1951. Sue currently resides in
Shingle Springs, California. Sue retired from 25 years of customer
service and began writing at age 50, and is still writing.
Here’s the July 27th, 2019 Featured Reading by Bethanie Humphreys and Heather Judy, Rene Marie and Jeanine Stevens
Bethanie Humphreys Heather Judy
Renee Marie Jeanine Stevens
Here are the Open Mic’ers from July 27th, 2019 Writers On the Air.
Aeisha, Carol Lynn, Gena, Jennifer, Laura, Lynette, Mike, Shannon, Susan, Tj, Tom, Todd, Vicki
Part 1 Aeisha carol lynn gena Jennifer laura lynette
Part 2 mike Shannon susan tj tom todd vicki
Bio: For more information about our July Featured Readers , Read below.
Bethanie Humphreys is a writer, editor, and
mixed-media visual artist. Her poetry, short fiction, and art have appeared in
various publications in the U.S. and U.K. including: Artemis, Nonbinary
Review, The Found Poetry Review, American River Review, and Sacramento
Voices. She
serves as board member for the
Sacramento Poetry Center
and co-curator for the SPC Art Gallery. She was Editor-in-Chief of the 2015 American
River Review, and is currently Associate Editor for Tule
Review.
She is a Squaw Valley Community of Writers Poetry
Workshop Alumni, has a Bachelors in Spanish from CSU, Sacramento, and a
Creative Writing Certificate in Literary Publishing from American River
College. She is also a California Certified Naturalist, and certified in the
Amherst Writer’s and Artists Method.
Her chapbook, Dendrochronology, was published by Finishing Line Press in June,
2019, and is available for $14.99.
Bethanie’s Sample Poem:
I think I dreamed we were birds
Yardstick ruler strapped
across our shoulders
feathers dyed jewel-tones
taped in streamer-fashion
along measurements
that no longer matter
Bio:
Heather Judy is a poet and artist living
in Sacramento. She earned her MFA in Poetry from Mills College in 2009. Before
attending Mills, she received her BA in English from CSU, Sacramento where she
won the 2005 Bazzanella Award for first place in poetry. Her poems have
appeared in Tule
Review, The California Quarterly, Flatmancrooked’s Thin Volume of Contemporary
Poetry, and others.
She is a Sacramento Poetry Center board member, an Associate Editor and Art Director for Tule
Review, and co-curates for the Sacramento Poetry Center Art Gallery. Her
chapbook, Inosculation, was a
semi-finalist for the CutBank
Chapbook Contest in 2018.
Heather’s Sample Poem:
PUEDO BAILAR
They danced in the street, bare
breastbones, crouching,
aprons nestled low. She held her
lover, wing
lifted, right arm round lover’s
waist, palm resting in
her smallness. They danced in
blood, a banner hung
behind them: Puedo bailar. Black hightops sung
against dove stone, sandals
treading hymns. Young
heads bowed, eyes, closed, brows
together, no sin
between them. Nectar drips and
shifts, bodies glint.
They dance in sheets, bare breasts,
bones clinging,
open, nestled low, lovers folding
into wings.
Bio:
Jeanine Stevens is the author of Limberlost and Inheritor (Future Cycle Press) and Sailing on Milkweed (Cherry Grove Collections). Her latest
chapbook, Citadels, was published by
Folded Word Press, 2019. Winner of the MacGuffin Poet Hunt, The Ekphrasis
Prize, Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference, and WOMR Cape Cod Community Radio
National Poetry Award. Jeanine studied poetry at U.C. Davis and California
State University, Sacramento. Poems have been published in Evansville Review, Forge, Chiron Review, Pearl, Stoneboat, Connecticut
River Review, Verse Wisconsin, The Curator and North Dakota Quarterly. She also enjoys Romanian folk dance and
working with collage. Jeanine is Professor Emeritus at American River College
having taughtAnthropology,
Psychology and Women’s Studies for thirty two years.
Jeanine’s Sample Poem:
New Delhi
She is the brick wall that
defines her,
the thin arms under the sari.
She is the madras pattern
of marigold orange and olive
green.
She is the littered ground,
the ground scattered with bricks
and refuse.
One brick is her table. She
entertains
simply. There are no spoons,
only hands to mix grains and
river water.
The street is her open window,
her furniture, the battered chair
tipped
on its side, a cupboard of sorts
for bent pans.
She is the smoke stained wall
and crouches under a large sign
in English, “Choice Shampoo.”
She is the big toe that grips the
ground.
Nearby, are bits of denim,
foreign labels, and one bright,
upright yellow pear.
Back straight, she does not
slouch,
looks directly at the camera in a
half smile.
She is the pierced diamond
carried in the side of her nose
and the red spice she holds to
mix
with her evening meal. She is
the memory of golden flocks on
hilly flanks,
the darkness of things being
burnt,
surrounded by things already
burnt.
Her only book, a book of matches,
her tablet: the wall, her pen:
bits of charcoal.
She doesn’t worry if her seeds
are not planted by the spring
equinox.
~after a photograph, National Geographic
Bethanie will have copies of her new book-Dendrochronology
Members of Writers On the Air Meetup are encouraged to RSVP (Yes or No).
Please go to writersontheair.com for more information.
Recordings made during the open mic are played on accesssacramento.org/KUBU 96.5 LP-FM radio on Mondays, 7am-8am.
The Writers On the Air Show podcast can be heard at Itunes/IConnect Podcast, either at the website or as a subscriber.
Here’s the reading from our features on June 22nd, 2019 – Storyteller(s) Sue Hobbs, Suzi Byrd, and poet Mary Zeppa.
sue hobbs suzi byrd mary zeppa
Here’s some info about the Features: Sue Hobbs The title of my story is “The Jam.” Here is a little bit about me: I am a tenure track professor at Sacramento State University in the Child Development Program. I am a member of the Citizen Band Potawatomi, which is a Native American tribe with headquarters in Shawnee, Oklahoma. My Potawatomi name is Shishib’kwe (pronounced she -she- buh- kway). It means Duck Woman. I have two daughters and four grandchildren (one was just born on May 8).
Suzi Byrd I work at Sacramento State as administrative support staff. I have two degrees, one in biological sciences and one in art studio. Neither of which I use professionally. I live in Sacramento with my two daughters.
Mary Zeppa is a singer and lyricist as well as a poet and literary journalist, has been active in the Sacramento Poetry Center (SPC) since 1981. Zeppa served as Co-Editor of Poet News from 1984-1995 and was a founding Editor (1993) of The Tule Review. She currently serves as co-host of the Third Thursday in the Sacramento Room series and as SPC’s Archivist Emeritus
Luz Maria Gama. My Poet name is Luz Maria Gama and in November I will be 69 years old. This year I will celebrate my 50th High School Reunion from Hirahm W. Johnson. I was born in the small town of Teocuitatlan, Jalisco but have lived in Sacramento since 1955..many years before it became Midtown.It was in the mid 1980’s that Poetry came knocking at my door. I opened the door and let Her in..She has been writing me ever since!A retired Head Start Teacher after 38 years, a mother to two lovely daughters, a grandmother to 7, a sister to one brother, I live with my mother of 92 in Midtown.I have been attending the Monday morning women’s writing group at Women’s Wisdom Art.it is an amazing and very supportive group! I wish to write more and travel some soon! I also dream of having my own home with a big back yard for Mr. Meow Meow, my grandkids and Linda, my Precious Inner Child to roam..Peace!
Lois
Ann Abraham is a retired ARC English professor, author of Circus Girl and
Other Stories, and Tina Goes to Heaven, a novel. She is presently on
the home stretch with her next novel, The Long Art.
Sue Daly’s poetry has been published in When
the Light Changes, Lift it Tenderly Anthology 2017, Sacramento Voices,
Brevities, Medusa’s Kitchen, Poetry Now, and Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine, among
others. Sue’s poetry chapbook, titled “A Voice
at Last” was published by “DADs Desk Publishing” in
2017. Sue is the author of “Plug into Poetry”, a monthly newsletter
highlighting Sacramento area poetry events. She also leads a Poetry Workshop at
Wellspring Women’s Center in Sacramento. Sue has an interest in
empowering women to find their unique voices through writing and sharing
their poetry with others.
