Grace Cavalieri Reviews Linda Watanabe McFerrin’s “Navigating the Divide”

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A Really Great Review

Every month for the Washington Independent Review of Books, the Maryland Poet Laureate, Grace Cavalieri, author of Other Voices, Other Lives, does a round-up style review of the best recently released independent books of poetry and books about poetry.

June 2019’s review features fourteen books including two of ASP’s upcoming releases, Reuben Jackson’s Scattered Clouds and Linda Watanabe McFerrin’s Navigating the Divide. Featured also are the likes of Tina Chang, Dobby Gibson, and rising star Sri-Lankan poet Indran Amirthanayagam.

Check Out Grace Cavalieri’s Review of Navigating the Divide

McFerrin is author of poetry, travel essays, prose, and stories excerpted for this compendium.

The travel essays got me started. The first that I read, “Strangers,” was the hook. McFerrin has the gift of dialogue and character. She’s also a sexy writer, and a good soul wrapped in a hot body. Her characters are the kind of humans who seem to travel just to meet, and every paragraph is a psychological encounter in visual explorations; also, some social norms get destroyed. This is a compelling edge to the stories. We feel every word she says, because she knows that the details we can taste, smell, and see, are impossible to turn away from. Each essay is a relevant cultural experience with all the intriguing values of a foreign place. I read her as I often watch TV in search of sights I’ll never see otherwise. The added pleasure with McFerrin is she’s “Sex and the City abroad” — fun, chic, with special effects. It’ll take a while reading this book and so it goes on vacation with me — nowhere as fantastic as where McFerrin takes us, however. She’s mastered her art. To be a beautiful hypnotic writer is not a bad thing. She’s a front runner. Check it out.

Alan Squire publishers had a terrific idea here. Why not publish a kind of book no other literary publishing house (more…)

Writing and Publishing II

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Join Linda Watanabe McFerrin and agent Andy Ross for a Writing Workshop Intensive in Santa Cruz

Award winning novelist, poet, travel writer, editor, and teacher, Linda Watanabe McFerrin and literary agent, Andy Ross are conducting a 7-day writing workshop for fiction and creative non-fiction. The workshop will focus on craft and, where it’s appropriate, getting your project ready for publication. The workshop will run from August 17 – August 23, 2019.

Past participants have this to say about the experience:

You guys are the best. I loved the structure and location of the workshop. Your input and the input of other attendees was so valuable. Your recommendations were concrete. I appreciate you offer of ongoing contact. I’ve made some great friends here.—Stephani Franklin
Linda and Andy are a GREAT team. Each brings a unique perspective to the writing/publishing process. I found this workshop invaluable.—Victoria Lilienthal
Linda and Andy are more generous with their time than any other workshop leaders I’ve ever experienced. —Cindy Brady
Andy knows the publishing business inside and out, and Linda is an expert at teaching the craft of writing. Equally important is the opportunity to share your work with other writers in a supportive and collegial environment. This is by far the best writers workshop I have attended.—Harry Deering, Author The Leonowens Verandah

Registration in now open. See details below. To register or get more information, email Andy at andyrossagency@hotmail.com or Linda at http://lwmcferrin.com/services/.

The Workshop:

Mornings after breakfast you’ll attend workshops from 9 am to noon devoted to literary craft. Be prepared to bring portions of your writing projects. We will discuss them in group and individually with Linda and Andy. Afternoons will consist of exploring your environment, sampling the local fare, and finding the best spots to linger and write.

Workshops will be directed by Linda and Andy. We will conduct classes and workshops on:

Finding your literary voice
Creating irresistible characters and centers of interest
Creating spellbinding plots and strategies for structure
First pages
Best literary bells and whistles
Taking your craft to the next level: dialogue, point of view, backstory, and scene
Steps to getting published (final self-edits, effective query letters, book proposals, how agents evaluate submissions, researching the right agent for you, elements of the book contract, self-publishing)

Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Linda Watanabe McFerrin is an award-winning novelist, poet, travel writer and popular workshop leader, and contributor to numerous newspapers, magazines and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry collections, past editor of a popular Northern California guidebook and a winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. In addition to authoring book-length fiction and an award-winning short story collection (The Hand of Buddha), she has co-edited twelve anthologies, including the Hot Flashes: sexy little stories & poems series. Her latest novel, Dead Love (Stone Bridge Press, 2009), was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a Novel.

Linda has judged the San Francisco Literary Awards, the Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence and the Kiriyama Prize, served as a visiting mentor for the Loft Mentor Series and been guest faculty at the Oklahoma Arts Institute. A past NEA Panelist and juror for the Marin Literary Arts Council and the founder of Left Coast Writers®, she has led workshops in Greece, France, Italy, England, Ireland, Central America, Indonesia, Spain, Japan and the United States and has mentored a long list of accomplished and celebrated writers and best-selling authors toward publication.

Andy Ross

Andy Ross opened his literary agency in 2008. Prior to that, he was the owner of the legendary Cody’s Books in Berkeley for 30 years. His agency represents books in a wide range of non-fiction genres including: narrative non-fiction, science, journalism, history, popular culture, memoir, and current events. He also represents literary, commercial, historical, upmarket women’s fiction, and YA fiction.

For non-fiction Andy looks for writing with a strong voice, robust story arc, and books that tell a big story about culture and society by authors with the authority to write about their subject. In fiction, he likes stories about real people in the real world.

Andy is the author of The Literary Agent’s Guide to Writing a Non-Fiction Book Proposal. He has participated in writers’ conferences throughout the country and has taught classes about writing book proposals, composing query letters, working with agents, and getting published. His popular blog, “Ask the Agent: Night Thoughts About Books and Publishing”, has received over 500,000 unique views.

Authors Andy represents include: Daniel Ellsberg, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Alisa Valdes, Anjanette Delgado, Elisa Kleven, Tawni Waters, Randall Platt, Mary Jo McConahay, Gerald Nachman, Michael Parenti, Paul Krassner, Milton Viorst, and Michele Anna Jordan. (more…)

Writers Retreat and Hawaii Book & Music Festival in May 2019

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Mokule’ia Writers Retreat 2019

Please join me again in May on Oahu for the Hawaii Book & Music Festival and the Mokule’ia Writers Retreat

Hawaii Book & Music Festival
May 4 – 5, 2019

Mokule-ia Writers Retreat
Nā Wahi Ho‘oulu (Places That Inspire Us)
May 5 – 10, 2019

The Mokulē‘ia Writers Retreat is an annual gathering that brings writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essays, and memoir to the North Shore of O‘ahu for a week of intimate workshops and coaching. The retreat is high-level and professional — but also low-key and tuned in to the beauty of the surroundings.

With the Waianae Mountains behind us and the open ocean in front, we’ll eat, write, and play together. The theme, nā wahi ho‘oulu, acknowledges that this sacred spot will inspire us to embark on inner and outer exploration.

The retreat is the creation of North Shore native Constance Hale, the author of five books, the editor of more than three dozen, and a journalist whose stories about Hawai‘i appear on CD liner notes, as well as in publications like The Los Angeles Times and Smithsonian magazine. (Her most recent book, The Natives Are Restless, is about the hula.) A mix of talented writers, editors, and agents from both the islands and the mainland to lead various workshops and appear on panels. Lowry McFerrin might actually be giving early morning lessons in Tai Chi!

Camp Mokulē‘ia, is a 40-acre facility stretching along a remote beach in northwestern Oahu. One of the missions of the nonprofit camp is to raise ecological awareness and bridge Native Hawaiian and Western ideas of sustainability. It’s inspiring terrain and writers are encouraged to draw from the environment in their meditations and literary work whilst at the camp.

If you decide to join us, I also encourage you to check out the Hawaii Book and Music Festival, happening in (more…)

Poem for April

Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Navigating the DivideNo Comments

“April is the cruellest month,” wrote T. S. Eliot in Part I of The Waste Land, and I agree. This month has been a really difficult one for me with its shadowy ruff, “breeding” as Eliot says, “Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/memory and desire …”

So in that contemplation I am offering up this poem—not in the collection of my selected work coming out from Alan Squire Publishing this Fall, but certainly in keeping with its title and theme: Navigating the Divide.

It is a poem of hope, which I believe is the essence of this month’s meaning and of the many celebrations that illuminate it, and it is a poem of promise, a reminder that in dark times faith diminishes the great void, leaving us with the riddles written in its reflection.

Winter

Twig-end of winter—

black sticks poke through

the icy ruff,

old grudges buried under.

I am a tired woman with a hoe.

Nothing grows,

rocks and frozen water stubbornly separate.

Over and over again this cramping earth

convulses, giving birth

as my friends give birth, teasing

the new life out with promises that, no,

death will not happen again.

I’d like to believe in

a world that’s always green,

but the set line of my jaw

betrays me;

the way my bones take over flesh,

insisting on angles.

I am not the woman I used to be.

More dead are locked in earth’s

hard coffin. My fingernails are shorter.

Let me unfold the thin red cloth of my hysteria,

spread a picnic for us,

here, in the midst of all my worry

and exhilaration,

a place where we can talk beneath new sunlight.

I long for that first fingertip of heat.

And, let me think, for a moment,

that one small, shining rivulet

can be worm its way into winter’s tough core,

blow it wide with warmth

like an old pear splitting.

Let me believe now, while summer

memories buzz before my closed eyes,

that rivers can run again, the

dry earth flood and inundate.

Let me wriggle hip and ankle

out of the hard calyx,

whole again, white soul ajar.

—Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Wandering in Cuba Reading at Great Good Place for Books

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Thursday, February 7th, 2019 || 6pm Great Good Place for Books || 6120 La Salle Ave, Oakland

Wanderland Writers introduces WANDERING IN CUBA: Revolution and Beyond … the 6^th anthology in the prize-winning Wandering series …

Once again workshop leaders Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar take Wanderland Writers and head south to explore—this time to Cuba, an island country that has paid a high price for self-determination: revolution, isolation and hardship. But somehow this nation and its amazing people continue to reinvent themselves and fascinate visitors with their marvelous creativity and vitality.

Contributors include Tania Romanov Amochaev, Adrienne Amundsen, Christine Berardo, Joanna Biggar, Sandra Bracken, Cyndi, Goddard, Douglas Hale, Thomas Harrell, Donna Hemmila, Linda Jue, Carol J. Kelly, Laurie McAndish King, Robert Markowitz, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Mary Jean Pramik, Anne Sigmon, Jonathan A. Taylor and Anne Woods.

Wander with the contributors from city to countryside, enjoying the history, the rhythms, the tastes, the sights, and the soul of this intriguing island nation. Everywhere, of course, they encountered its Revolution and recorded their understanding of its triumphs and failures. They met and wrote about traditional Cuba: its heroes—José Martí, Fidel, Che, Hemingway—and its enduring culture as found in food, music and its African-based religion, Santería. But they also experienced Cuba in its present reality, beyond the Revolution. They found poets, artists, filmmakers and a whole generation of young people who embrace and are shaping Cuba’s future.

“I hope that, as you read the stories in this collection, a sense of that infinite potential inspires you to make that very short flight to our very misunderstood neighbor. You’ll find nothing intimidating (except, maybe, some of the salsa dancers) and much that is pure magic.

—Jeff Greenwald, Author of The Size of the World and Snake Lake

Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar have floated down the Canal du Midi in France, danced in the sunlight of southern Greece, toasted the best of times in Ireland, devoured the culture and countryside of southern (more…)

Jason Rezaian in Interview with W. Kamau Bell: Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison

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Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison—Solitary Confinement, a Sham Trial, High-Stakes Diplomacy, and the Extraordinary Efforts It Took to Get Me So

Monday, January, 28th, 2019 || 7pm Angelico Hall|| Dominican University of California || 20 Olive Avenue, San Rafael California || www.bookpassage.com

Please join me, the folks at Book Passage, and a host of local writer Jason Rezaian’s friends and admirers at Dominican University, San Rafael for his interview with W. Kamau Bell.

Buy tickets here: https://www.bookpassage.com/Rezaian

Some of us remember Jason from his halcyon days in the Bay Area before the ordeal. In the country of his ancestors, far from his Bay Area roots and idyllic childhood, this young journalist found himself in a nightmare straight out of a Kafka novel.

Working in Tehran he was suddenly arrested, imprisoned and held, sometimes in total darkness, in a high-security prison in Tehran for 544 days, a hostage trapped in a lethal web of politics and culture.

About the Book:

In July 2014, Washington Post Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaian was arrested by Iranian police, accused of spying for America. The charges were absurd. Rezaian’s reporting was a mix of human interest stories and political analysis. He had even served as a guide for Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. Initially, Rezaian thought the whole thing was a terrible misunderstanding, but soon realized that it was much more dire as it became an eighteen-month prison stint with impossibly high diplomatic stakes.

While in prison, Rezaian had tireless advocates working on his behalf. His brother lobbied political heavyweights including John Kerry and Barack Obama and started a social media campaign—#FreeJason—while Jason’s wife navigated the red tape (more…)

Writing and Publishing Workshop on January 26, 2019

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Writing and Publishing at Book Passage in Corte Madera

Saturday, January, 26th, 2019 || 10am to 2pm Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com

I hope you’ll join me for the first of a series of Writing and Publishing Workshops on January, 26th.

To Register: https://www.bookpassage.com/linda-watanabe-mcferrin-writing-publishing-corte-madera-store

Here’s what we’ll cover in this Writing and Publishing Workshop:

Is your book just for you, or does it have wider appeal?
What is a platform? What is a market?
Should you self-publish or go the traditional route?
What are the publishing options today?
How do you find a publisher?
What does a publisher do for you?
What do you do after the book is published?
How much money will you make on your book?

(more…)

Traveling and Travel Writing in 2019

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Winter Wanderland: Traveling and Travel Writing in 2019

It’s an evening of wine, writing, travel and literary camaraderie.

MONDAY, January 14th, 2019 || 6pm Book Passage || San Francisco 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco ||www.bookpassage.com

Join travel writers and editors Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Laurie McAndish King in a reading, discussion and celebration of travel, travel anthologies and writing opportunities in 2019.

Laurie and Linda will read excerpts from the most recent collection of tales, Wandering in Cuba: Revolution and Beyond and talk about years of Venturing and Wanderland Writers adventures and the anthologies and writers that documented those journeys. They’ll discuss the genesis of those anthologies, current calls for submission (more…)

Join me at the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference

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The Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference is coming up in August, here, in the Bay Area.

I’ll be on Faculty again.

This is the most amazing literary conference ever!

If you’ve gone, you already know that, and I hope to see you there once more.
If you haven’t … for goodness sakes, sign up!!!
Much as I love poetry … and I do LOVE poetry … I’m also a lover of well-written prose, and expert advice is available at this conference. For me and so many others it has opened the door to published works in newspapers, magazines, and anthologies. Tim Cahill‘s fantastic workshop on craft helped me put together those novels!

So, I want to sing the praises of the Book Passage Bookstore & Cafe staff, Conference Chair, Don George, Marguerita Castenera, Karen West, Kathy Petrocelli, and all the other mentors, editors and friends I’ve met there through the years: Don, Tim, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, Jan Morris, Larry Habegger, Jeff Greenwald, Jim Benning, John Flinn, Pauline Frommer, Spud Hilton, Robert Holmes, Andrea Johnson, Celeste Brash, Pam Mandel, Mikkel Aaland, Phil Cousineau, Perry Garfinkel, Michael Shapiro, Janis Cooke Newman, Alison Wright, Jen Leo , Lavinia, Jill Robinson, Laurie McAndish King, Andrew Tarica, Andy Ross and all the rest of the current cast.
I think Pauline makes the point beautifully in her recent Frommer’s post: https://www.frommers.com/…/a-life-changing-conference-for-w…
Check it out!
Hope to see you there. Let me know if you’re coming!

(more…)

What I’m Reading (5/21/18) Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Bill Petrocelli, books, Jasmin Darznik, Reading List2 comments

What I’m Reading Now (5/21/18)

Through the Bookstore Window

Through the Bookstore Window, a novel by Bill Petrocelli

For some years back in the late nineties and early 21st century I wrote a travel book review column (Bookings) for the San Francisco Sunday Examiner/Chronicle. In it I offered up short reviews of five or six of my favorite travel books for the month. I really miss that column, but I have no reason to miss the books. I have new favorites.

Bookseller Bill Petrocelli’s new novel, Through the Bookstore Window, is a page-turner. Even if you are not, like me, among the book- and bookstore-obsessed, you’ll find plenty to wind you up in this gripping tale about an enigmatic and fascinating woman who is driven to outrun and outwit her tormentors and fix what is broken. Gina, the protagonist, is a feminist for a new era. Add a taut mix of the issues that keep most Americans up at night or shaken by the daily news—gun violence, child abuse, conspiracy, gender issues, war—and a series of shocking reveals, and you have an enthralling book that’s hard to put down. Quick shifts in time, place, point of view, and plot are athletic enough to keep pace with modern readers. No snoozing here.

Song of a Captive Bird

Song of a Captive Bird, by Jasmin Darznik

This new novel by New York Times bestselling author, Jasmin Darznik, is probably on everyone’s bookshelf, and if it isn’t, it should be. The fictionalized biography of Iranian poet, Forugh Farrokzhad, whose press for freedom in her life and work came at tremendous cost is more than enlightening. It opens up a world that still lies within walls today. From her 1940’s childhood to her tragic death at thirty-two, Forugh epitomized the fierce and truthful spirit of a woman who refused to be constrained or restrained against her will in a world where this was the norm. Just as (more…)