Are you a local writer interested in becoming a featured author?
Contact us! We want to hear from you!
Contact us! We want to hear from you!
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Join Napa Valley writers with new books for readings, book signings and Q&A.
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UPCOMING 2025
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Are you a local writer interested in becoming a featured author? Contact us! We want to hear from you! |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rob Bundschu is the Orchestrator of Happiness (a tour guide) at his family winery Gundlach Bundschu Winery in Sonoma, CA, and author of his new memoir Everyone Gets In: My journey from wine to the Divine. The book chronicles his wild, perilous, and sometimes hilarious journey through alcohol addiction (and recovery), mental illness, and finally onto healing through the modern spiritual path of A Course in Miracles. In his free time Rob enjoys watching movies, baseball, and football, and taking drives with his wife (not necessarily in that order). |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised in Tucson, Butler received his Bachelor of Arts in History at the University of Arizona. He has walked the Camino de Santiago twice, both in Spain and Portugal. He recently completed the Via Francigena, the holy pilgrimage to Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. He lives in Napa Valley and continues to work in the wine business. This is his first book. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marilyn Campbell is a former social worker who began writing after retirement. She has published two historical novels: Trains to Concordia and A Train to Nowhere which dealt with the orphan train movement. A co-founder of Napa Valley Writers, she enjoys contributing short stories and poetry to anthologies and small journals. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, James Conaway is the author of three previous novels, The Big Easy, World’s End, and Nose. The late tv anchor, Jim Lehrer, wrote of it, “Conaway’s prose is as gorgeous as the northern California he describes.” His twelve books of non-fiction include The Far Side of Eden, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year described in the New York Times Book Review as "an important story, emblematic of our time.” Of Conaway’s The Kingdom in the Country Stegner wrote: “He got into places and activities that most Westerners never get close to, and he reports them with verve, wit, irony and a very sharp eye.” _______________________________
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I have been practicing meditation for more than twenty years and am known for merging the art of creative writing with the evolutionary practice of mindfulness meditation. My latest nonfiction book, Writing as a Path to Awakening, is based on my popular writing workshops by the same name. I currently teach writing and mindfulness workshops at The Omega Institute, The Esalen Institute, Spirit Rock Meditation Center and literary conferences nationally. I currently live in Northern California. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynn Downey is an award-winning historian, novelist, and short story writer. She got interested in the history of the dude ranch while working as the company Historian for Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco. In addition to her nonfiction book, American Dude Ranch, Lynn set her two novels, Dudes Rush In, and Dude or Die, on an Arizona dude ranch in the 1950s. She is currently working on a memoir of how she tracked down the life of a forgotten 19th century writer by following the trail he took on a western expedition in 1871. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s fourth collection of poems, West : Fire : Archive was published by The Center for Literary Publishing in 2021. Her biographies include, Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020) and Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb (University of California Press, 2024). Dunkle teaches at Napa Valley College, UC Davis and Dominican University and is the Poetry and Translation Director of the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anne Matlack Evans has published fiction in The Bennington Review, Eclipse and Memoir (and); and nonfiction in The Ruminator Review and the San Francisco Chronicle. She received an M.A. in Comparative Literature from U.C. Berkeley, an M.F.A. in fiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. A professor of English and creative writing at Napa Valley College, she also directed the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. She lives in Napa, California where she teaches comparative literature and writing and enjoys playing the piano and walking her unruly Portuguese Water Dog. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Melinda Briana Epler has more than 20 years of experience elevating brands and developing business innovation strategies for startups, Fortune 500 companies, and global NGOs. As CEO of Empovia (formerly Change Catalyst), Melinda works with her clients and partners to drive inclusive and sustainable change. Using her background in storytelling, behavioral science, and large-scale culture change, she is a strategic communications advisor and culture change partner for organizations around the world. Melinda is a TED speaker, award-winning documentary filmmaker, and former marketing and culture executive. She speaks and writes about allyship, empathy, equity, and sustainability. She has spoken on hundreds of stages worldwide, including the World Bank, the White House, the Clinton Foundation, Google, Indeed, Capital One, UC Berkeley, and McKinsey & Company. You can follow her on social media at LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NapaLife is the insider's guide to Napa Valley. The weekly newsletter is published by insider Paul Franson. Paul Franson: I moved here in 1996 and during that time, I have written extensively about it (and wine and the wine business) for publications and online for local newspapers to international media. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Debra Green, author of The Convention of Wives, has always been drawn to good storytelling, especially historical novels and Broadway musicals. While motherhood, hospital administration, and community volunteering were all rewarding, none fulfilled her creative longings. A graduate of Rutgers University and Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, she lives with her husband, David, in Scotch Plains, New Jersey where they raised their three children. Debra's been lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time in Napa in the past few years and some of her best writing and editing has been done at the Black Bear Diner. When not writing, reading, or traveling, Debra can be found working in her ever-expanding vegetable garden. The Convention of Wives, published in September of 2022 by She Writes Press, is her first novel. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ray is a Napa native who grew up in the Little Italy neighborhood. He attended Alta Heights Elementary School, Silverado Middle School, and is a proud 1964 Napa High School graduate. After graduating from Napa Valley College, he left Napa to attend U.C. Berkeley and law school at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. After a brief stint as a public defender in San Joaquin County, Ray returned to Napa to establish his law practice, Guadagni, Gasper and Flax. Following a varied and successful private practice, he was appointed as Napa’s first Superior Court Commissioner. In 2001, Governor Gray Davis appointed Ray to the Napa Superior Court bench. Retired since 2012, Judge Guadagni continues to work part-time with the Temporary Assigned Judges Program. He lives in Napa with his wife Ann, a retired Napa schoolteacher. His two daughters and their families also reside in Napa. He enjoys spending time with his grandchildren, writing, and music. You can visit him on his Facebook page at: Raymond Guadagni |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Luisa grew up on the east coast, but hit the road in her 20s, eventually visiting and sometimes working in 43 states and 39 countries. She's had stints at running an ice cream parlor in Puerto Rico, as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica, as the advertising director for Kitchen Bazaar gourmet houseware stores, and as head of the editorial committee for the NVV Wine Auction catalog. She enjoys snorkeling, reading, cooking, and spent 10 years as part of a hot air balloon crew culminating in a cross-Australia race to celebrate their bicentenary. She currently lives in Yountville with her husband and a couple of rescue dogs in an area they call "rural lite” because although they have a well and septic, are only eight minutes to Whole Foods. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lenore Hirsch is a retired educator who writes in many genres, including poetry, memoir, humor, and travel. Many of these stories in her first collection have been previously published in journals and anthologies. She lives in Napa, California with her eight pound canine buddy, Chewy. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Kerns retired two decades ago from his role as Chief Medical Officer at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, CA and Adjunct Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford to devote himself full-time to writing. For the past twelve years he has been a columnist and feature writer for the Napa Valley Register. Born and educated in Chicago, his inspiration for his 2018 novel, Fortnight on Maxwell Street, was his own two-week Northwestern medical student rite of passage at the Chicago Maternity Center on the city’s West Side. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeffrey Kingman lives by the Napa River in Vallejo, California. His poetry collection, BEYOND THAT HILL I GATHER, was published by Finishing Line Press in June of 2021. His poetry chapbook, ON A ROAD, was published by Finishing Line Press in December of 2019. He is the winner of the 2018 Eyelands Book Award (Greece) for an unpublished poetry book, a finalist in the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk poetry book competition, and a finalist in the 2022 Prime Number Magazine Award for Poetry. He has poems published in PANK, Clackamas Literary Review, Visitant, and others. Jeffrey is a copy editor at Omnidawn Publishing. He has a Master’s degree in Music Composition and has been playing drums in rock bands most of his life. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
One of the first Grand Canyon boatwomen in the 1970s and 80s, Rebecca Lawton found her muse on rivers. She has lived a water-driven life as a fluvial (stream) geologist and writer passionate about science, river culture, and water in peril. Her essays, poems, and stories have been published in her ten books, many anthologies, and journals like Audubon, Orion, and Terrain.org. She shares her love of nature and writing through Literary Bird Walks for people of all ages and abilities |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Rebecca Levy-Gantt is a Board Certified ObGyn and a certified menopause practitioner who has been practicing for the last 15 years in Napa. She is originally from New York City, where she grew up and went to medical school at the NY College of Osteopathic Medicine, graduating in 1992. She practiced on Long Island for 11 years before moving to Napa. Her special interests are menopause management, including hormones and alternative management strategies, as well as vaginal and vulvar pain syndromes. She owns a solo private practice which has been growing for the past 5 years, teaches medical students from Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, and spends her free time teaching, traveling, running and writing. She writes articles for various online publications as well as on medium.com. She has self-published 2 books of memoir over the past 2 years. Womb With A View, and Motherhood, Medicine and Me. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Claudia Hagadus Long is the author of six novels, including the new mystery series featuring Zara and Lilly: Nine Tenths of the Law (Kasva Press 2020) and Our Lying Kin (Kasva Press 2023). Her books span centuries and topics, but all are fueled by history, family secrets and hidden scandals. They are also funny. Claudia is a lawyer by profession, a dedicated weaver and a passionate cook. She lives in the far reaches of Napa Valley, California. Find Claudia at www.facebook.com/ClaudiaHLong and at www.claudiahlong.com . |
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This February, enjoy poetry readings by Napa County's 2021 Poet Laureate.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marianne Lyon has been a music teacher for 39 years. After teaching in Hong Kong she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews. Nominated for the Pushcart Award 2016. She has spent time teaching in Nicaragua. She is a member of the California Writers Club, Solstice Writers, Witness Protection Program Poets. She is an Adjunct Professor at Touro University Vallejo California. 2021 Napa County Poet Laureate. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian R Martens has always been a poet, his first book Three Raven Gate, (2019) consists of Haiku and poems, his upcoming book is, Merlin’s Wing. His podcast is “The Spoken Symbol.” He offers workshops on Creativity and is a CA Poet In the Schools instructor. He co-hosts the Santa Rosa Arts Center, “Speakeasy” poetry/music/open-mic event. brianrmartens.com |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sandra V. McGee honed her writing skills as a publicist for the performing arts. In 2004, she ventured into the world of Nevada divorce ranches and collaborated with her late husband, Montana cowboy-turned-award-winning author William L. McGee, on The Divorce Seekers, a photo memoir of Bill’s years on Nevada’s exclusive Flying M E divorce ranch for the wealthy. Sandra’s ongoing dedication to preserving this slice of glimmering history when Reno was the “Divorce Capital of the World” has earned her the reputation as an expert on the subject. Sandra and Bill enjoyed twenty years as a writing team and collaborated on nine nonfiction books. Sandra holds a B.A. in Music from the University of California, Berkeley. Her passions are ballet, film noir, and Reno when it was the “Divorce Capital of the World.” McGeeBooks.com |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Henry Michalski was born in Kazakhstan, and arrived in the United States with his family as a four-year-old on August 29, 1949. The following year, the family settled in San Francisco. Michalski had a long, successful career as a high school history teacher in Napa, and is most proud of his two children and three grandchildren. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
One of Jessel's most precious moments as a child was story time with Mom. Mom was a poet and performer and it took her encouragement to bring the shy child she was out into the world. Growing up Jessel became a songwriter and artist and wrote her first children's book The Calico Cat in 1979. She followed this with 5 other books. "All my books are dedicated to wrapping loving arms around the reader leaving them with the feeling of comfort and caring concerns." Jessel is now working on her first "grown up novel" One Moment More. She hopes to have this book published in 2023. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Carroll Moore was born in Cleburne County, Arkansas, and moved with his family to the Central Valley of California at the age of ten. He holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of California at Berkeley and a master’s degree in urban planning from Athens Technological Institute in Greece. He now lives in the Napa Valley of California |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aletheia Morden M.A. is a prolific letter writer and journal keeper. She's authored plays, screenplays and short stories (Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea), is a member of the California Writers Club and Foundation Vice-Chair for the art and rare books of The McCune Collection. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Lenore Myers' award-winning poems and essays have appeared in LIT, Southern Indiana Review, One, The Collagist, The Ekphrastic Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Regards to Balthus, was published by Seven Kitchens Press in 2023. Her first full-length book will be published in 2026 by Sixteen Rivers Press. Lenore lives in Napa, where she teaches ESL, Citizenship Preparation, and writing. @lenimo.bsky.social lenim0@instagram https://www.facebook.com/lm.myers.10 |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bruce Overby is a native of San Jose, California, with an MFA in Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. He is also a veteran of a 35-year career in Silicon Valley. His story “Bookmarks” won First Prize in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, and his debut novel, The Cyclone Release, published in November 2022, was a finalist in the Madville Publishing Blue Moon Novel Competition. He has been interviewed on a number of writing podcasts and his short fiction has appeared online, in print, and in audio in several literary magazines. Learn more about Bruce at bruceoverby.com. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sasha Paulsen is a long-time journalist and features editor at the Napa Valley Register. Paulsen has worked as a journalist since graduating from the University of California at Berkeley's School of Journalism. She lives and works in the Napa Valley where she grew up. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Angela Pneuman is the award-winning author of a collection of short stories and a novel, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt--now Harper Collins. She teaches creative writing at Stanford University and Sarah Lawrence and her work has been widely anthologized, including twice in Best American Short Stories. She is at work on two more books. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Linda Sheehan, an author, golfer and horseback rider, has just published her second novel, Fore Play, which Kirkus Reviews calls "a seamy, steamy, comedy of errors." Her first book, Decanted, a Reader's Favorite 2022 Bronze Medal award winner is described as "a rag to riches, grape to wine saga." |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Todd L. Shulman worked in law enforcement his entire adult life; he began as a military police person in the US Army, serving during the First Gulf War. Later Shulman became a police officer in California; he worked for 20 years at the Napa Police Department before retiring in 2020. He held numerous positions within the police department including sergeant, detective, training officer, crime scene specialist, corporal, and cold case investigator. Shulman formed the non-profit Napa Police Historical Society in 2006 and continues today as its President. Shulman has written three other books, all chronicling various aspects of Napa history. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author and artist, A. Cort Sinnes is a Napa Valley native. Author of more than 18 books on gardening and six cookbooks, including The Grilling Encyclopedia, which was nominated for a James Beard Award. Along the way he has been editor-in-chief of three national magazines and author and illustrator of a nationally syndicated newspaper column titled In Your Own Backyard, appearing in more than 250 newspapers. His most recent work of geographically- and historically-correct fiction – The Silverado Journals – is an illustrated trilogy, largely set in the Napa Valley. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amber Lea Starfire is an award-winning author and editor in Napa, California. Amber’s first memoir, Not the Mother I Remember was a finalist for the Indie Book Awards for 2015 and the Sarton Memoir Awards in 2016. Her latest memoir, Accidental Jesus Freak: One Woman's Journey from Fundamentalism to Freedom, explores the tensions between genders and between beliefs and reality. She also co-edited the groundbreaking anthology, Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the '60s & '70s. In addition to memoir, Amber has authored several books on journaling, including Journaling for Dummies, Week by Week: A Year's Worth of Journaling Prompts & Meditations, Journaling the Chakras, and Journaling through Relationships. Website: https://www.writingthroughlife.com. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara Toboni has published three collections of poetry, Undertow, Water Over Time, and Light the Way. In 2018, The Bunny Poets, a children’s picture book was published. Soon to be released is new picture book, The Bunny Poets and the Library Book. She’s a member of Napa Valley Writers Club, Redwood Writers Club, and Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I began making poems when I was learning, awkwardly, how to make words. I wanted to say how the sunlight in the kitchen garden bounced off the grass blades and made them shine. That impulse led to poetry submersion in Berkeley in the sixties and an MA from Stanford in Creative Writing in 1978. Then I forgot about the whole thing and became a psychotherapist. A friend challenged (or bullied) me back into writing when he noticed that I thought like a poet. So I plunged back into poetry in the 90s. Favorite teachers have been Seamus Heaney, Jean Valentine, Jane Hirshfield, Terri Ehret and Kim Addonizio. I’ve appeared in various publications including The Nation, The Hudson Review, the anthology WOMANPRAYERS, Marin Poetry Center Anthologies IV and, I believe, the current one. |
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AUTHOR NOTES
Thank you all for having me be a reader at tonight's Salon. It was nice, not only to be a reader there, but to interact with other writers and readers. Being relatively new to the county, I've longed for that kind of event! I will happily attend future salons as an avid reader.
Thank you again for welcoming me to your lovely Salon and Gallery. Claudia Long _________________________________ I’d like to deliver my profound thanks for allowing us to have the forum at your Gallery. I was delighted at the attendance and reaction. Aside from selling some books, I talked to many interesting people and think I signed up some subscribers, too. I felt guilty leaving when I saw all you had to deal with in the aftermath. On the other hand, the meeting solidified your prominent place in supporting the arts in Napa and look forward to lots of announcements of the upcoming Mustard Celebration! And to announcing future writers’ salons. Paul Franson _________________________________ Yes, thanks so much, Jessel for making it happen! The two Pauls, Sasha, Lenore and Michael all were terrific onstage and the gallery was such an inviting and cozy site for the gathering. A big congrats to you all! - Linda Sheehan |
