California Writers Club, Sacramento Branch

Dedicated to Educating Writers of all Levels

Jenifer Rowe

Jenifer Rowe writes short stories, essays and memoir.  Her work has been published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Crack the Spine, Wildflower Muse, Liars League NYC, the Sacramento Bee, and the 2018 and 2019 issues of California Literary Review.  She earned Finalist distinction in the New Millennium Writings 46th Literary Awards.  Jenifer is a board member of California Writers Club – Sacramento.   She lives in El Dorado Hills with her partner Richard.   Her first novel Unexpected Findings earned Finalist distinction in the 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

https://jeniferrowe.com

Colene Sawyer Schlaepfer

 

Colene Sawyer Schlaepfer, MFT, PhD

A licensed Marriage and Family Therapist for 40 years, Colene’s first two publications were self-help books about romantic relationships.  Both were titled “Fishing by Moonlight”.

The first was subtitled “The Art of Choosing Intimate Partners”, published in 1986 and awarded an honor by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists for contribution to the profession.

The second was subtitled “The Art of Enhancing Intimate Relationships”, published in 2008.

Colene’s latest book is a memoir, titled “If It Weren’t for Me,” published March, 2018. Her memoir begins in 1933 during the Great Depression when chauvinism was a way of life.  Her life story describes the profound changes in male/female relationships.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luncheon, Apr 21 – Using Photographs in Your Memoir

Focusing Your Memoir or Family History

Through Photographs

presented by

Jacqueline Doyle

Author and Essayist

 Saturday, April 21

11 AM–1:00 PM

(10:15 Early-Bird Session – Celebrate National Poetry Month)

Cattlemens, 12409 Folsom Blvd, $15 members/$20 guests (includes lunch)

 

Photographs are often all that remains after a loved one has died. They remind us of those we’ve known well and have lost, introduce us to distant relatives who are no longer here to tell their stories, or conjure ancestors we never knew.

Whether you include the actual photographs or not, spending time on written description and written exploration of what you see in family photographs can significantly deepen your memoir or history project. Photographs can be used not only to illustrate your personal or family story but also to:

*  develop your reflections on those close to you

*  explore the lives of those you don’t know, or the early lives of those you do

*  document the past

*  evoke an historical era

*  focus description

*  deepen characterization

*  inspire imagined recreations of the past

*  inspire imagined interventions in the past

We’ll talk about why and how you can use photographs in your memoir or family history, and look at examples from Dorothy Alison, Paul Auster, Sharon Olds, Judith Kitchen, and others.

Bring a photo of a relative in a previous generation (preferably one or two people, or one or two that you can single out in a group photo) for a short writing exercise

Attendee takeaways:

  1. some written description,
  2. avenues for imaginative speculation, and
  3. ideas on how to use what you’ve written.

Jacqueline Doyle is a prolific author who has published memoir essays in The Gettysburg Review, Under the Gum Tree, Full Grown People, NOR: New Ohio Review, Southern Humanities Review, Under the Sun, and many other literary journals. Her work has earned four Pushcart Prize nominations and numerous awards, including Notable Essay citations in Best American Essays 2013, Best American Essays 2015, and Best American Essays 2017. She is a professor at California State University East Bay.

Luncheon 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Early Bird special 10:15

Download (PDF, 349KB)

 

Luncheon Information

  • Monthly Luncheons are open to the public
  • Cost is $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers
  • The meeting fee includes speaker,  lunch and beverage
  • Cattlemens Restaurant, 12409 Folsom Blvd., Rancho Cordova, CA

The restaurant is located just east of Hazel Ave. at the northeast end of the Nimbus Winery complex along Highway 50. Cattlemens offers CWC a spacious meeting room with free WiFi, quality AV equipment, free off street parking and excellent food.


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Karen Durham

Karen Holladay Durham grew up (sort of) in Livermore, California. She lives and writes in Sacramento. After toiling in the nonprofit world for many years, she decided to follow full time her vocation as a writer of fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry.

As a Club member she has participated on a California Writers Week speaking panel and won an award for the Sacramento Branch short fiction contest (honorable mention). She attends writing conferences several times per year. She hosts a Sacramento Shut Up And Write session (meetup.org), participates in a critique group, and takes poetry as well as memoir/creative non-fiction classes.

Her work has been published in the American River Review, Writers on the Air radio show & blog, and California Update.  When not writing, Karen rejects advice to “Act your age.” She runs, bicycles around town, swims, practices yoga & pilates, eating & drinking with friends & spoiling her pets. She’s thankful every day for all the wonderful people in her life.

 

Marcia Ehinger

Marcia Ehinger, M.D., is a California native and recently retired physician (pediatrics, women’s health, medical genetics), who has been scribbling since she was a small child.  Her interests in poetry and fiction were mostly pushed to the background while writing, editing, and publishing in medicine and public health took precedence.  Now, she is concentrating on her series of stories set in a dystopian world, and the website to accompany her work.  She also continues to write poems and research intriguing topics for historical fiction and memoir.

Marcia was a member of the team which produced the memorable 2017 through 2019 CWC holiday parties.  In 2020, she participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Now, she is one of the CWC Sac Anthology team members, and has been sending short works (about 600 words) to the online magazine, California Update (caupdate.com).

For more than three years, she has been the content editor of the CWC newsletter, Sacramento Writer.  Newsletter submissions may be sent to mehinger@comcast.net.