Upcoming

Off Campus Writers’ Workshop, February 19, 2026, 9:30 a.m. to noon (CT). The Art of the Secret: Puzzle Boxes and Narrative Engines, single session class. Description: Secrets can drive plots and subplots, complicate relationships, activate slow moments, and reveal characters’ psychological make-up, as well as highlight the constant tension between who we wish we could be and who we are in reality. If not handled well, though, this fundamental fictional element can feel manipulative or unbelievable, turn readers against our characters, and call too much attention to the story’s machinery. We will discuss successful examples and have quick writing exercises to discover new secrets for our characters and make deeper use of those we already have. Our explorations will include secrets in long and short narrative arcs and in both stories and novels. We will consider what kinds of secrets can be left unexploded, how to nest secrets, and how to make the connections between secrets, yearnings, and satisfaction.

AWP Baltimore, March 2026 (Friday March 6, 3:20 PM - 4:35 PM EDT). Haints, Haunts, & Other Shape Shifters, panel with Beth Alvarado, Lillian Howan, Judy Juanita, and Mary Slechta. Description: What calls us to tell tales of spirits made restless by loneliness, passion, and personal or historical grievances and injustices? How, in today’s endangered world, do we find new ways to write speculative fiction about ghosts, the uncanny, haints and haunts, shapeshifters, and the dead who refuse to stay dead? Five fiction writers from varied backgrounds and storytelling traditions share work, literary models, and craft strategies for the fierce and sometimes playful art of writing the uncanny.

Selected Recorded Events

The Booksmith/The Bindery, San Francisco, CA, virtual, November 16, 2020. Launch for Ron Nyren’s The Book of Lost Light, conversation hosted by Evan Karp, with Ann Packer, Angela Pneuman, Ann Cummins, Lisa Michaels, Cornelia Nixon, Rafael Yglesias, and Vendela Vida.

Image Journal’s Summer Stage, Covington, WA, virtual, July 14, 2020. (Now available in archives, by subscription.) Reading and discussion with Melissa Pritchard: the intersection of art, politics, and theater.

Jewish Learning Works, StoryForward, "Exile at Home" series, co-presented by JCC of the East Bay, Jewish Community Library, and jewishLIVE Connect, San Francisco, CA, April 12, 2020. A conversation on creativity and humor with Dan Schifrin, Marika Brussel, and Caroline Kessler.

Selected Past Events

JCC East Bay, East Bay Jewish Writing Circle, Dec. 1, 2025, using the Jewish Studio Process to play with what it means to tell stories in dark times.

Off Campus Writers’ Workshop, Chicago, IL, virtual, Thursday, Feb 6, 2025. Class on unreliability in fiction.

AWP 2023, Seattle, WA, Saturday March 11, 2023. “The Other World in This: An Image Journal Reading (Scott Cairns, Joyelle McSweeney, Sarah Stone, Fady Joudah, Shane A. McCrae)” Poets, novelists, and essayists from Image journal upending our assumptions about religion.

Odd Mondays Reading Series, San Francisco, CA, virtual, Monday, January 11, 2021. In conversation with Ron Nyren: readings from The Book of Lost Light and Hungry Ghost Theater, with audience Q&A.

JCC East Bay and LABA, Berkeley, CA, virtual, Thursday, July 30, 2020. “Inappropriate Laughter” with Bruce Bierman and slide show by Sarah Wolfman-Robichaud.

JCC East Bay, Berkeley, CA, November 23, 2019. LABA East Bay Launch Party, “Drunk,” readings, performances, and multi-media work by Rachel Berger, Bruce Bierman, Marika Brussel, Sara Felder, Caroline Kessler, Kiki Lipsett, Jake Marmer, and Dan Schifrin.

Litcrawl, San Francisco, CA, October 19, 2019. “WTAW Press and Friends,” with Amber Butts, Olga Zilberbourg, Anita Felicelli, Meghan Flaherty, Ted Gioia, Louise Marburg, Ron Nyren, and Peg Alford Pursell.

The Story is the Thing, Kepler's Books, Menlo Park, CA, June 20, 2019. With Kate Folk, Julie Lythcott-Haims, Jaya Padmanabhan, Ari Rosenschein, and Michael Shewmaker.

Octopus Literary Salon, Inside StoryTime, Oakland, CA, May 16, 2019. “Quiddities,” James Warner, host, with Cheryl Ossola, Lynn Breedlove, Vincent Chu, and Linda Fiddler.

Bay Area Book Festival, Berkeley, CA, The Brower Center, May 4, 2019. “Quest: Journeys Through Generations,” panel: Joan Frank, moderator, with Michael Levitin, Katja Petrowskaja, stories of Jewish generations past and present.

AWP Portland, WTAW Press Offsite reading, Portland, OR, March 30, 2019. With Anita Felicelli, Jimin Han, Louise Marburg, Angela Mitchell, Barbara Roether, Naomi J. Williams, and Olga Zilberbourg.

AWP Portland, Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR, March 28, 2019. “Writing the Transcendent,” panel with Courtney Sender, moderator, Goldie Goldbloom, Rahul Kanakia, and Yehoshua November on writing the numinous or otherworldly and the relationship between the divine, the inspirational, the science fictional, and the fantastical.

Stories on Stage Sacramento, Sacramento, CA, March 22, 2019. Sue Staats, host, staged reading from Hungry Ghost Theater.

Word Week 2019, Umpqua Bank Noe Valley, San Francisco, CA, March 13, 2019. Rick May, organizer, Cara Black, host. Reading with Jon Longhi and James Cagney. Bookfair publishers: J.K. Fowler, Nomadic Press; Jennifer Joseph, Manic D Press; Emily Wolahan, Two Lines Press; Peg Alford Pursell, Why There Are Words Press.

Babylon Salon, San Francisco, CA, March 2, 2019. Laurie Ann Doyle, Ryan Sloan, and Maury Zeff, hosts, reading with Joe Loya, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, Maw Shein Win, and Irving Ruan.

The Racket Reading Series, Adobe Books, San Francisco, CA, February 28, 2019. “Shape,” Noah Sanders, host, reading with Brittany Ackerman, Hadas Goshen, James Cagney, Matt Carney, Kar Johnson, Laur A. Freymiller, and Michelle Schlachta.

WTAW LA, Los Angeles, CA, February 3, 2019., “This is Definitely Not the Superbowl,” Patrick O’Neil and Ashley Perez, hosts, reading with Dennis Cruz, Alex Espinoza, Anita Gill, Natalie Graham, and Lauren Marks.

Mrs. Dalloway’s, Berkeley, CA, January 27, 2019. Reading and signing.

Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Blue Ridge Center, Asheville, NC, January 5, 2019. “Eruption/Incandescence,” craft lecture.

Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Blue Ridge Center, Asheville, NC, January 3, 2019. Reading with Jane Hamilton, Reginald Gibbons, T. Geronimo Johnson, and Pablo Medina

Green Apple Books, Clement St., San Francisco, CA, November 29, 2018. Reading and signing.

Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA, November 7, 2018. Reading and signing

Litquake, Center for the Book, San Francisco, CA, October 19, 2018. “The Novel and the World,” panel (moderator) with Judy Juanita, Michael David Lukas, Nayomi Munaweera, and Ethel Rohan, discussing how novelists can work with political, social, and historical context in ways that feel true to the characters and story and also allow for iconoclastic reinventions of fiction.

WTAW Sausalito, Sausalito, CA, Oct 11, 2018. Book launch for Hungry Ghost Theater and Angela Mitchell’s Unnatural Habitats & Other Stories. Reading with Lisa Locascio, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Louise Marburg, Angela Mitchell, Natalie Singer, and Terese Svoboda.