9th Annual Pleasanton Poetry, Prose & Arts Festival Workshop Leaders & Judges

Bob Jenkins, An Artist in the World (Keynote Speaker and Workshop Leader)

Bob Jenkins

Since taking the stage as a teenager, Bob Jenkins has enjoyed metamorphic careers in a wide-ranging array of fine arts. He has been a short story author, scene painter, actor, director, playwright, vocalist, guitarist, percussionist, dancer, sound and lighting designer, essayist, blogger, and storyteller. During his professional life he has also applied the principles of artistry to his other interests as teacher, college dean, university department chairman, real estate investor, carpenter, gardener, runner, husband, father and friend. For many years he has considered the questions: "How do you know when you are successful as an artist? Is your success measured by the money you make? The length of the applause at curtain call? What newspaper critics say about your work? The approval of other artists? Your own sense of Self?" The answers may surprise you.

Visit Bob Jenkins's blog at http://drbobj.blogspot.com.

Susan Browne

Susan Browne's poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, such as 180 More, Extraordinary Poems for Everyday, edited by Billy Collins. Selected as the winner of The Four Way Books Prize, her first book, Buddha's Dogs, was published in 2004. Former Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser, recently selected one of her poems for his column, American Life in Poetry. Susan teaches at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California. Her second book of poetry, Zephyr, won The Editor's Prize at Steel Toe Books and will be published in 2010. She is currently working on a memoir.

Visit Susan Browne's website at www.redroom.com/author/susan-browne.

Rebecca Foust

Rebecca Foust's All That Gorgeous, Pitiless Song recently won the Many Mountains Moving Book Award and will be released in April 2010. Also forthcoming in 2010 is God, Seed, a book of environmental poetry with watercolors by a local artist. Foust's chapbooks, Mom's Canoe and Dark Card won the Robert Phillips Poetry Prizes in 2007 and in 2008, and her poetry is or will be published in Atlanta Review, Margie, North American Review, The Hudson Review, and elsewhere. Foust earned her MFA from Warren Wilson College in January 2010.

Visit Rebecca Foust's website at www.rebeccafoust.com.

Gerald Haslam

Gerald Haslam's most recent works are a collection of short pieces, Haslam's Valley (Heyday Books, 2005) and a novel, Grace Period (University of Nevada Press, 2006). He has published nine collections of short fiction, four novels, three essay collections, three non-fiction books, and many shorter pieces. His work has won honors as varied as Rolling Stone's Ralph J. Gleason Award, a Bay Area Book Reviewers' Award, a Commonwealth Club Medal, and a Western States' Book Award. He has just completed a biography of Dr. S.I. Hayakawa.

Lynne Knight

Lynne Knight's fourth collection, Again, was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2009. Her previous collections are Night in the Shape of a Mirror, The Book of Common Betrayals, and Dissolving Borders, plus three award-winning chapbooks. Knight's awards include a Theodore Roethke Award from Poetry Northwest, a Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, an NEA grant, and the 2009 RATTLE Poetry Prize. She lives in Berkeley, California.

Alison Luterman

Alison Luterman has written two award-winning books of poetry: The Largest Possible Life, Cleveland State University Press, 2001, and See How We Almost Fly, published by Pearl Editions. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies and have been seen on busses and trains in San Francisco and in Portland, Oregon as part of the Poetry in Motion program. Her plays are Saying Kaddish With My Sister, Oasis, A Night in Jail, Hot Water, Glitter and Spew, and The Recruiter. She has also published numerous personal essays. Alison Luterman works with California Poet-in-the-Schools, and also teaches Personal Essay and Poetry to adults through The Writing Salon.

Visit Alison Luterman's website at www.alisonluterman.com.

Michael McNevin

Michael McNevin is a performing songwriter with a vivid brand of storytelling. His Americana songs capture the people and places of his travels, and his hometown of Niles, California. Michael is six-time winner of the West Coast Songwriters "Song Of The Year," is a Kerrville New-folk Award winner, and a Performing Songwriter Magazine Top 12 "Artist Of The Year." He has 5 CDs and 15 years touring the U.S., including Strawberry, Philadelphia, & High Sierra festivals, and halls with Johnny Cash, Shawn Colvin, Donovan, and many others.

Visit Michael McNevin's website at www.michaelmcnevin.com.

Tim Meyers

Tim Myers is a writer, songwriter, storyteller, and lecturer at Santa Clara University. His children's books have won recognition from the New York Times, NPR, the Smithsonian, and others. He has published over 110 poems, won a poetry contest judged by John Updike, has a chapbook out, won a major prize in San Francisco, has been nominated for a Pushcart, and has published much other fiction and non-fiction for children and adults.

Visit Tim Meyer's website at www.timmyersstorysong.com/index.html.

Ann Parker

Ann Parker slings scientific and corporate verbiage by day while writing historical mysteries at night. Her critically acclaimed Silver Rush Mystery Series, featuring saloon owner Inez Stannert, is set in the nineteenth-century silver mining boomtown of Leadville, Colorado. Leaden Skies is the newest in the series, after Silver Lies (winner of the Willa Literary Award for Historical Fiction) and Iron Ties (winner of the Colorado Book Award for Popular Fiction). The series is published by Poisoned Pen Press.

Visit Ann Parker's website at www.annparker.net.

Sam Pierstorff

Sam Pierstorff became the youngest Poet Laureate in California when he was selected to the position in 2004 by the city of Modesto where he teaches creative writing at Modesto Junior College. A veteran of countless poetry slams, he is now the editor of Quercus Review and host of Slam on Rye. He has published more than 150 poems in numerous anthologies and journals such as Free Lunch, Rattle, Pearl, Slipstream, and many others. He received his MFA from CSU Long Beach, three Pushcart Prize nominations, and his new collection, Growing Up in Someone Else's Shoes, was published in March 2010 by World Parade Books. His fiction is represented by Michelle Andelman at Lynn C. Franklin Associates.

You can find Sam Pierstorff on the Slam on Rye website at www.slamonrye.com.

Lee Rossi

Lee Rossi's books include ESL texts, a critical study of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and two books of poems, Beyond Rescue (Bombshelter Press) and Ghost Diary (Terrapin Press). His poetry, reviews, and interviews have appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry East, Chelsea, ONTHEBUS, The Southern Poetry Review and dozens of others. He is a staff reviewer and interviewer for the online magazine pedestal. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where he pursues a daytime career in data processing.

Susan Wooldridge

Susan Wooldridge is the author of poemcrazy: freeing your life with words (in a 20th printing from Three Rivers, Random House) and Foolsgold: Making Something from Nothing and Freeing Your Creative Process (Harmony Books, Random House, 2007). Poemcrazy was a long-running Quality Paperback Book Club Selection, a Writer's Digest Book Club Selection and a Book Sense (Independent bookstores) Pick. Anne Lamott wrote, "you're going to love it." Foolsgold has been featured by both One Spirit and Quality Paper Back Book Club. Rachel Naomi Remen says, ". . . beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And a book that may save your life." Susan also has a chapbook of poems, Bathing with Ants (Bear Star Press). Susan conducts workshops on writing and creativity throughout the U.S. She's in her seventh year of a series to foster creative expression among people of all ages and backgrounds at workshops in rural California libraries sponsored by Poets and Writers organization and the California Center for the Book.

Visit Susan Wooldridge's website at www.susanwooldridge.com.

Poetry, Prose & Arts Festival Judges

Richard Dry

Richard Dry, author of the novel Leaving (St. Martin's, 2002), teaches creative writing and English composition at Las Positas College, where he also serves as one the supervisors for the Las Positas Literary Anthology.

Joan Gelfand

An award winning writer, Joan Gelfand's poetry, fiction, reviews and essays have appeared in national and international magazines, anthologies and literary journals. President of the Women's National Book Association, Joan earned her MFA from Mills College. The Fiction Editor for Zeek Magazine, Joan also teaches in the California Poets in the School and the NEA's Poetry Out Loud Programs. "A Dreamer's Guide to Cities and Streams" was published by San Francisco Bay Press in January 2009. For more information, visit http://joangelfand.com.

Kevin Gunn

Kevin Gunn is a teacher who formed a poetry club at Livermore High School in 1991 which he continues to sponsor. He has won awards in various poetry contests including first place in the Ina Coolbrith short verse category, second place in Alameda County Fair poetry contest, and second place in the Las Positas College Poetry contest. He has been published in the California Quarterly, Las Positas College Anthology, Ina Coolbrith The Gathering in 2006, Song of the San Joaquin 2009, and he has four poems forthcoming in the Chiron Review.