Event Description
IWOSC Reads Its Own – Online
Sunday, February 21, 2021
and again with a new group of readers
Sunday, February 28, 2021
2:00 – 4:00 p.m. (Pacific Time)
Free to all
It’s time for IWOSC’s biannual Reads Its Own program. Actually, because we aren’t bound to to physical limitations of geography while online, we have so many readers that we’re doing this twice this month! You may join us either of these days — or both.
IWOSC members come from all sorts of backgrounds. Ask a member what he or she is working on writing and you are bound to be surprised by some of their answers. You never know what will spring from their minds given all of their backgrounds, interests, and selected genres.
So, we invite you — encourage you — to join us for a couple of Sunday hours and let some of our talented members immerse you in their world of words for about 7 minutes each.
You’ll not only have fun and have your emotions stirred, but you’ll also be helping our readers to become better readers. It’s an enjoyable and rewarding way to spend the afternoon.
You don’t have to be a member to attend.
For this event, rather than register here, we ask that you head directly to Zoom and register there. You’ll then receive the Zoom link directly from Zoom.
Click to register (This link will open in a new tab or window so you can close it and be back here.)
One registration will get you into both day’s events, or either.
We look forward to seeing you there.
To learn about the February 21st reads visit this page.
Readers February 28
Flo Selfman is an in-demand copy editor-proofreader for books in many genres, scripts, business materials and websites, and conducts lively grammar/ punctuation review workshops for adults. She is a PR consultant for books, authors and arts events. A contributing author to Media Magnetism and Office for One, she is writing a memoir. President (pro bono) of IWOSC 2003-2016; writes the Grammar for Grownups column in the IWOSC newsletter.
Margaret “Peggy” York spent 40 years in policing, starting as a police “woman” and working her way up to become the first woman Deputy Chief in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department in 2000. She also served as Chief of the Los Angeles County Office of Public Safety from 2003 to 2009. She is now a writer and poet. Chief York lives in Pasadena with her husband, the Hon. Lance Ito.
Claire Naden was born and raised in Pasadena. She was a paralegal before turning her attention to writing full time. She writes romantic suspense, woman’s and historical fiction with an emphasis on World War II. Her first novel, Cache Under the Stacks, A Cate Wagner Mystery, was published in June 2018, followed by Starting Over in December 2019. Claire and her husband David reside in Pasadena with their fur babies, Minnie and Mandy.
Ron Vazzano – Writer/Poet/Spoken Word Performer, whose online MuseLetter containing his poems, essays, reviews, etc.
is now in its 17th year (www.ronvazzano7.wix.com). His poetry has appeared in several literary journals, and in his published collection Shots from a Passing Car. His next publication Muse Letters from the Front, will be published in the fall. He has been a featured poet at the Poetry Festival on Governors Island and the Lower Eastside Festival, among others.
Wanda Maureen Miller grew up on an Arkansas farm, got educated, moved to California, and taught college English. She has published six books—a historical novel, The French (1983), three textbooks, Reading Faster and Understanding More, Books 1, 2, and 3 (5 editions, 1976 to 2001), her slightly fictionalized memoir, Last Trip Home (2018), and now Book 1, Madeleine, Last French Casquette Bride in New Orleans. Retired, she plays pickleball and is writing Book 2.
Jody A. Forrester was born and raised in Los Angeles during the uneasy Fifties and tumultuous Sixties. She received an MFA from Bennington College in literature and creative writing. Her essays and short stories have appeared in multiple publications, including the Sonora Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, and Prime Number Magazine. Jody lives in Venice, California, with her husband, John Schneider, in the house by the beach where they raised their two daughters, Emily and Erin.
Art Shulman writes all sorts of stuff – short stories, long stories (aka novels), but mostly plays. He’s written about 100 plays, some of them good. Over the past 20 years he’s had original productions of over 20 full-length plays, including Old Broads Can’t Dunk, The Rabbi & The Shiksa, I Got Troubles, Whoopsie-Doopsie, Sex Is Good For You, and The Yentas Wear Red Hats. He challenges all IWOSC members to a 3-point shooting contest.
Marion Zola has two books to her credit. The first, “All The Good Ones Are Married, became a movie for Lifetime after 100 radio and TV interviews. Her latest book, Romancing the Dog, The Struggle To Make a Pound Dog Happy in Beverly Hills, is an Amazon bestseller and has just come out on Audible. Marion also writes screenplays, with TV sitcoms and movies to her credit. Occasionally, she also produces, having done one feature, one telenovela, and co-produces a series on shelter dogs for PBS.
Pat Kramer has built her company Writer For Hire over 30 years by writing marketing and publicity materials for business clients. She started her career as a broadcast journalist in radio for ten years, then wrote for PR and ad agencies for many years while also freelancing for the L.A. Business Journal, Variety, Boxoffice Magazine and other publications. One thing Pat really enjoys is writing memoirs for seniors to capture their legacy.
Shaun Adams, member of “People of the Quill,” a group of Canadian writers in Port Alberni, British Columbia, Canada.
Shaun has taken a number of classes and workshops at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and UCLA. At present he is working on a novel in a class taught by Mark Sarvas at UCLA.
Sara Bragin began writing as a teenager – poems of love (of course) and longing. She went on to work on the assembly line in her uncle’s rearview mirror factory. From there, to being a physical therapist. A Madison Avenue ad writer. An oral historian. A psychotherapist. A leader of Sensory Awareness classes. And a writer again, still longing, now to portray the love she feels for life’s most ordinary moments, how extraordinary they can be when expressed on the page. Case in point, her memoir, The Living In Her Dying: How a mother and daughter come to know each other and themselves so the mother can die and the daughter can live.
Dr. Judi Hollis has spent over half a century treating addictions. Her difficult message of promoting deep personality change along with developing spiritual connection was an innovative idea when she opened the nation’s first Eating Disorder Unit. She authored the best seller Fat is a Family Affair, along with Fat & Furious, Hot & Heavy, and From Bagels to Buddha. She is a frequent TV guest on news/talk shows and documentaries. www.judihollis.com
Charles Domokos has written six feature screenplays and has worked as staff screenwriter for suspense features for Showtime TV and independent features. He wrote documentary scripts for PBS / KOCE-TV and wrote the screenplay for Return to Vietnam, a Telly Silver Award-winning feature documentary. A former Active Member of Writers’ Guild of America, he has been Adjunct Assoc. Professor at USC School of Cinema (1988-2002) and LACC Dept. of Cinema-TV (2003-2017) in film production / screenplay writing.
Julie Parker has almost finished an intertwining memoir (case study and allegory) titled either The Heroine with Seven Faces or Hold Gently the Crack, a tale of the gift of psychosis. A graduate of Middlebury College with a year of studies at the Sorbonne and Institut de Phonétique, she holds a master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. She taught yoga for 40 years and French. She spends summers in Vermont and winters in Altadena near their three daughters and four grandchildren.
Kevin Yoder, a SoCal native, was raised by an Italian immigrant mother and a Mennonite father. His work focuses on how relationships can overcome cultural prejudice and thwart establishment efforts to marginalize outsiders. His debut novel The Griffiths of Amerige was nominated for the Allegra Johnson Prize and the James Kirkwood Prize in Creative Writing. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband, two children, and a golden retriever who thinks she’s a lap dog.
Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin was born and raised in Boyle Heights and currently lives in Pasadena. The city of Pasadena’s Mayor, Victor Gordo, has commended Vibiana for her intrinsic part of the artistic historic and intellectual life of Pasadena. Vibiana’s full-length poetry collection, Chicana on Fire, will be published this spring. Her current poetry is published in Mi Amor, International award-winning memoir; Beyond the Lyric Moment, a Beyond Baroque publication; and The Phi Kappa Phi Forum, academic literary journal.