In 2017, Kathy “Kanika” Marshall wrote The Ancestors Are Smiling! which is a collection of uplifting, funny, touching, maddening, and sometimes harrowing real life stories, creatively told by Marshall’s ancestors and their descendants.

In 2018, she published a research-oriented storybook investigating her enslaved ancestors from Maryland, entitled Finding Otho: the Search for Our Enslaved Williams Ancestors. These true stories are woven by Marshall with the African fabric of American historical events. Marshall has been exploring her family roots off and on since 1976 and is a self-avowed missionary for family history, encouraging others to write their own family history stories NOW!

Marshall was a researcher, analyst, and technical writer for the California Highway Patrol for 36 years. In addition, she has been the owner/artist for her Kanika African Sculptures business since 1993, sharing her love for African fabric, clay, welding, and ethnic-inspired, indoor-outdoor sculptures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sigrid Bathen was a staff writer for the Sacramento Bee for 13 years and has written for numerous publications, including the California Journal, an award-winning magazine about politics and government, where she was senior editor. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Capitol Weekly, California Lawyer, the American Lawyer Newspapers, California Medicine, California Republic, the Sacramento Business Journal, Comstock’s Magazine, the Sacramento (and Chico) News & Review and Sacramento Magazine, where she was a senior writer. She is a contributing writer for online health-care media published by the California Health Care Foundation. She has been an adjunct professor of journalism at California State University, Sacramento, since 1988. She served as Press Secretary to California Superintendent of Public Instruction Wilson Riles and to Attorney General John K. Van de Kamp, and was Media Director for the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

Her writing has won many awards: the Berton J. Ballard Press‑Bar Award for Distinguished Reporting on the Administration of Justice from the State Bar of California; the Catherine L. O’Brien Award for women’s interest reporting; Society of Professional Journalists awards for commentary and enterprise reporting, and California and National Mental Health Association awards for coverage of mental-health issues.  She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her Bee coverage of conditions in state mental hospitals. www.sigridbathen.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Derek Catron is a political scientist and student-journalist with a lifelong passion for stories whether they be from history, the news, or just a creative imagination. It is his goal to travel as much as possible, writing stories about real people and real issues while also working on other creative writing projects in his spare time. So far, his writing experience consists of various types of news writing, PR, policy and political analysis. However, he has recently begun two creative writing projects: a stand-up comedy routine and a fantasy-fiction story/universe. He joined the club to get professional insight, constructive criticism of his work, and to gain knowledge about publishing. When he is older (much older) and more accomplished, he looks forward to passing on what he’s learned and will learn to future generations of writers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karen Terhune writes fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. In addition to the California Writers Club, she is a member of SCBWI and the Authors Guild. As a volunteer for the East Bay Regional Park District, she was privileged to serve as a co-author with Traci Parent for Images of America: Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, highlighting the diverse mining and ranching history of this incredible park. Karen’s short story The Pickled Pepper Man appeared in the César Chavez Memorial issue of San José Studies under the pen name Louise Church. Additional creative pursuits include watercolor painting, mixed media art, photography and gardening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jim Guigli began writing with single sentence entries for the 2005-2006 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. From thousands, one of Jim’s 63 entries was selected as the Grand Prize winner. It was about a beautiful, mysterious woman visiting the small office of an impoverished private detective, Bart Lasiter. Benefits from winning the Contest included world-wide notice, print, radio, and TV interviews.

Though the Contest is about writing a bad opening sentence to a non-existent novel, people kept asking, “What about the rest of the book? What happens to Bart Lasiter?”

After hearing those questions too many times, Jim took that one sentence and created the Old Town Sacramento fictional world of Bart Lasiter, and Lasiter Investigations. Since then, Jim has published a Kindle novelette, Bad News for a Ghost, and written unpublished short stories and a novel. Many of these stories have won awards.

Jim lives nearby in Carmichael with his wife, two Labrador retrievers, and Bart Lasiter’s cat, Agamemnon.