Why do writers write?  My theory is they have no choice, unless misery is a choice, and I’ve given up on misery.  I mark my serious foray into creative writing at about 2012.  I’d like to say it was like being born again, but it’s been more like a slogging gestation.  Still, I’m getting better at it year to year.  I’m just trying not to run out of years too soon.

I write about questions I consider important.  I’ve written a detective novella in which the suicidal victim turns perpetrator.  I’ve written a sci-fi short story about nanotechnology used to implant programmed thinking into the President of the United States.  I’ve published a short story on the Palestinian – Israeli interminable conflict, and I’ve published a couple of poems in a small literary magazine.  Currently, I’m editing drafts of a first novel about a female L.A. lawyer who’s made a business of suing the Church for sexual abuse and ends up becoming Pope.  (Why not?).

My writing routine since March 2020 is to host a Zoom group each weekday from 6:15 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. in which we do nothing but write.  Reach me at 949-637-3360.

Bernard Wozny Je Suis un Ingénieur gives away my engineering slant. The English word ‘engineer’ has its root in the word engine. This stems from the industrial revolution. The French word Ingénieur has its root in the word ingenuity. I suppose because the engines of industry were already invented, the French had to figure ingenious ways to use them.

I am an engineer, but I do not invent engines. I am the ingenious one, who works with engines in new and novel ways. I have proved myself to be a person of unique ‘ingenuity’ in the world of software development. Therefore, I like to identify myself with the French root phrase of ingenuity.

I have left my lucrative career of engineering behind to explore the creation of stories. Being new to the literary world, I bring fresh ideas to challenge the mind while portraying the story in a clean, stimulating manner. I primarily write Science Fiction, or dare I say Science Thrillers.

Pidgeon holes were never my thing. I am also working on other novels – historical and dare I say a love story.

Find out more at bernardwozny.com

Sean Epstein-Corbin, Ph.D. (UC Riverside 2012) grew up in San Jose and has lived in the Sacramento area the past 10 years. He teaches literature, rhetoric, and academic writing at Merced College and UC Merced. His scholarship has been published by University of Massachusetts Press and Indiana UP. He is working on a book of poetry, 495 Lines, as well as a novel, FATSO, about his experiences coming out as bisexual later in life. He is also finishing an academic monograph, Haunted Pragmatism: Ghosts and Madness in the Gilded Age, which connects American pragmatism to tropes of haunting and utopia in fin-de-siècle literature. Sean’s lists of publications can be found on his college faculty webpages:

https://www.mccd.edu/academics/english-liberalstudies/profiles/epstein-corbin.html

https://writingprogram.ucmerced.edu/sepsteincorbin

Nancy Herman writes historical fiction and has published a well-received middle-grade book, All We Left Behind: Virginia Reed and the Donner Party. She finds extensive research, such as following the Donner Party’s route by automobile from Independence, Missouri to Sutter’s Fort (followingthedonnerparty.com) to be one of the most rewarding aspects of writing. She is currently writing a young adult book about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, entitled The Girl on Valencia Street, and has just begun researching a book for young readers about Stephen Olney, a lesser-known hero of the Revolutionary War. Nancy grew up in Watsonville, earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from San Jose State University, and worked as both a marketing communications writer and a technical writer in the Bay Area for several years before moving to the Sacramento area. She is also a member of Women on Writing and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. 

Linda Townsdin writes the Spirit Lake Mystery series, called “complex murder mysteries with bone-chilling thrills and a bit of romance.” Her short fiction has been published in the 2020 Bouchercon Anthology, received honorable mention in the 2021 Best American Mystery and Suspense Anthology, and others. She lives in Sacramento.

http://lindatownsdin.com/

https://www.facebook.com/LindaTownsdinAuthor

http://twitter.com/ltownsdin