Charlene Anderson - Immigration: A Fable (Fiction); Another Side of the Convention (Nonfiction)
Charlene is a San Francisco resident and an OLLI member. She received a Master’s degree in English Literature from Purdue University. After working at the Indianapolis Public Library for some time, she moved to San Francisco and worked at UCSF for over 30 years, most recently as a grant analyst managing a large NIH grant. She wrote and co-published a novel entitled, Berkeley’s Best Buddhist Bookstore, and recently completed a novella, The Only Road in Sight. She has been a member of the OLLI Writers’ Circle for several years. |
Polly Richards Babcock - My Other Mother (Nonfiction)
Polly is also a photographer, although her book has taken over her creative life for the last couple of years. She has lived in San Francisco for forty years and says this has been her favorite decade so far as her creative life is concerned. Polly thinks Jerry Seinfeld said it best about why he does what he does: It's joyful, difficult and interesting. |
Alan Brewer - Two Poems
Alan has lived in San Francisco for over 40 years, and been an OLLI member for a decade. He graduated from Northwestern and received a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from John F. Kennedy University. He's had many different jobs, from house painting to alcohol/drug rehab counselor to legal secretary. He has been writing poetry for 40 years, has written feature articles for The Richmond Review and The Sunset Beacon, and for the last 15 years has written mostly memoir. He has trekked in Nepal (Annapurna, later Everest), sailed as passenger/crew member on an 18th Century square-rigger in French Polynesia, and has taken many trips to all continents with the exceptions of Australia and Antarctica. |
Kaaren Strauch Brown - The Garden of Ambiguity (Fiction); Book Review: Seven Brief Lessons in Physics (V&B Forum)
Kaaren is a lifelong student. She has been a social worker, working with chronically and seriously mentally ill individuals. She is a Professor of Social Work, author of some (not many and not just a few) articles and monographs on homelessness, psycho-social rehabilitation, and working with traumatized women. She is a recent transplant to San Francisco from the Midwest. |
Juanita Callejas - Jabberwocky (Fiction)
As a universal traveler in both mind and body, Juanita has explored a variety of destinations to get to her current “port” of creative writer. Her passport has been stamped as a Mexican-Nicaraguan First-Generation native-born San Franciscan mother of three, amazing visual artist, Alumna of SFSU (BA in Spanish; BS in International Business and Accounting) and UC Berkeley (MBA), Finance and HR professional, and grandmother of one amazing grandson. She continues to add pages to her passport for trips to all continents and more visual art and creative writing projects! |
Richard Chackerian - The Wave, San Onofre 1957 (Nonfiction)
Richard was born in San Francisco and received a BA from UC Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington, Seattle. He retired from Florida State University after 34 years of service as Professor Emeritus of Public Administration and Policy. He is a member of Sixty Plus at SFSU and co-chair of the Education Committee. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and near their children Ara and Cynthia. They have three grandchildren. |
Elsa Fernandez -The Black Dog (Nonfiction)
Elsa grew up in Asia. She has lived in San Francisco since 1970 and never gets tired of this lovely city. She has travelled the world and still gets excited flying back home and to finally land at SFO. Her family is scattered around the world—India, Australia, Dubai, England, Ireland and Argentina. She is a political junkie and majored in Journalism and Political Science. She loves music and plays the piano quite well (one of her dreams was to own a piano bar in upcountry Maui… she would probably call it the Maui Moon!). Writing poetry is an emotional outlet for her. |
Cathy Fiorello - Hidden Haven (Bay Area Stew); A World Without Why (Nonfiction)
My passions are food, Paris, and writing. A morning at a farmers' market is my idea of excitement. Visiting Paris is my idea of heaven. And much of my writing is about food and Paris. I worked in book and magazine publishing in New York, freelanced for magazines during my child-rearing years, then re-entered the work world as an editor. I moved to San Francisco ten years ago and published a memoir, Al Capone had a Lovely Mother. I have two children, one on each coast, and four grandchildren, two on each coast. My mission is to make foodies and Francophiles of them all. |
Carol Flanagan - Poem
Carol is a retired tax accountant who recently received her M.A. in teaching English to speakers of other languages from San Francisco State University. She now spends her time tutoring English online, reading and writing - an excellent retirement! Inspired to try writing poetry by Mary Winegarden’s Experimenting with Memoir class at OLLI at SF State early this year, Carol was thrilled to have one of her poems published in the fall issue of Vistas & Byways. |
Kathy Gilbert - Poem
Kathy received her MFA from San Francisco State in 2013 after a career in public transport. She received the Marc Linenthal Poetry Award in 2012 from SFSU and won the SF Browning Society Gita Specker Award three times for her dramatic monologues. She was commissioned to write a play for the 2015 SFOlympians. Her one act Delphin and the Children of Amphitrite was performed at the Exit Theater. She also tutors third graders, studies tai chi, practices yoga and swims. |
Judy Goddess - Oatmeal and Contact Paper (Nonfiction)
I've taken many classes since I joined OLLI at SF State about 10 years ago. I particularly enjoyed Carey Pepper's journalism class which propelled me into a new career writing for several San Francisco neighborhood newspapers. In my earlier life, I was a grant writer. That career supported my passion - defending families whose children were suspended or expelled, or who faced other problems in the public schools. I have two sons, both of whom live in the Bay Area, and four grandchildren, three of whom live in the Bay Area. The fourth grandchild attends college in Southern California, and seems to be building a home there. |
Michael Gordon -Rocker of Ages (Bay Area Stew) Michael grew up in East Los Angeles and after serving in the U.S. Army attended and graduated from the Cal State University at Los Angeles. He moved to Berkeley in 1965 to work with the Mayor, City Manager and City Council on issues of the day. He worked on Montgomery Street for E.F. Hutton and retired from Morgan Stanley forty years later. Married to Martha Hoover, he raised a daughter in the Russian Hill neighborhood. Post retirement, he discovered OLLI and San Francisco City Guides. He takes about ten OLLI classes a year. SF City Guides offers more than sixty walks a week and are free. He leads the Murals of Coit Tower, The Landmark Victorians of Alamo Square and Fort Mason to Aquatic Park. |
Roberta Greifer - Two Poems
Roberta worked as a librarian with the San Francisco Public Library for 28 years in both the Main Library and its branches. For 5 and 1/2 years, after she retired, she lived in Pennsylvania where she took care of her ailing parents, returning to San Francisco in 2012. While in Pennsylvania she was a prizewinner in the Ardmore Public Library Poetry Contest in 2007 as well as receiving a 2010 award for one of her poems in Philadelphia Poets. In addition to being published in their 2008 and 2010 journals, her poems have been published in Room, Quixote and The Santa Clara Review. One of her poems was also included in Prompted, an anthology published by Philadelphia Stories in 2010. |
Stuart Habley - Poem; Watercolors
Stuart was born in Van Nuys, California, the youngest of a flock of four. Two years later his family moved to Dayton, Ohio, then Atlanta, Georgia, San Diego, California and finally, to Palo Alto, California. He left to go to college at Oregon State, got a B.S. in Zoology and then went into Art. After taking stock of himself and the world, Stuart thought the best thing he could do was to become a carpenter. And he did, for 40 years. He likes being a carpenter. He likes making things and when asked, to share what he knows. |
Marian Hart - Photographs
Marian lives in Portland, Oregon and is an amateur photographer drawn to San Francisco's flowers and building landscapes. She holds a bachelor's degree in business management from Marylhurst University. Her career was primarily as an outpatient clinic manager. She is now retired. |
Mary Heldman - What's in a Name (Fiction)
Mary is retired from a career in medical school administration, computer programming, and business systems analysis. She grew up in Los Angeles, but lived in Palo Alto, Washington D.C., Cambridge, and Stony Brook, New York before settling in San Francisco in 1974. She tutors at a local high school, studies piano, and designs costume jewelry. From time to time she writes sardonic prose for her friends. Mary wishes she lived with a chocolate lab or a golden retriever, but she doesn’t. |
Jane Hudson - Poem
A native San Franciscan, Jane has a BA in Psychology and a Master's in Library Science from UC Berkeley, as well as a 2nd BA in Art History from SFSU. She recently retired from a 27-year career as a librarian at the SF Public Library where she was a district manager. Prior to that she was a government documents librarian, a children's librarian, and a branch manager. For the past two years, she has focused on writing, taking a variety of writing classes at OLLI. In addition, she enjoys making art, attending theater and opera, getting together with friends and family, and working as a volunteer with the Bay Area Book Festival. |
Mary Hunt - Siege at City Hall (Bay Area Stew); Interview-Science, Fiction and Culture Class (Inside OLLI)
Mary worked at SFSU for twenty years, first in the College of Business as Graduate Office Coordinator and then in the Office of Research as Administrator for the Human Subjects committee. Previously, she worked in the music business in London and Marin County, then moved into film and television production. During her tenure at SF State, she raised a delightful daughter and also earned an MA in humanities, focusing on comparative culture. She has been an OLLI member for two years. After taking an OLLI course, she started writing articles for neighborhood papers. Currently, she is a volunteer on the Editorial Board of Vistas and Byways. Her interests include yoga, dance, writing, and looking things up in the Chicago Manual of Style. |
Patricia Koren - Photographs
Patricia has been absorbed in the visual arts for the past 40 years. After receiving an MFA in photography, she became a graphic designer and worked for several different magazines, then founded Kajun Design, where she still works part time. The last few years she has reconnected to her earlier passion for photography. Three of her photo series may be viewed at camerawalks.com. |
Mike Lambert - A Clean Well-Lighted Spa (Bay Area Stew)
Mike is a San Francisco resident and a new OLLI member. He led the effort in the fall of 2015 to start Vistas & Byways, the online Literary Review publication to showcase the creative writing products of the OLLI community. In an earlier life, he worked in the telecommunications industry for 35 years and taught at SFSU’s College of Business for 15 years. He refutes the adage about old dogs and new tricks. He recently self-published his first novel, i, Jessica-Finding My Way. It is the story of a young working girl in San Francisco and her struggle to find confidence and love. His book is available for purchase in paperback at Amazon.com. He also writes short fiction pieces and has several alter-egos for those stories. |
Margaret Liddell - Creature from the Black Lagoon (Nonfiction); Geometry Daze (Nonfiction); Poem
After retiring from teaching elementary school, Margaret decided to take classes at OLLI San Francisco to try writing. Her memories of growing up in Chillicothe, Ohio turned into pages and pages of stories. Margaret has a great love of traveling to distant places with her family and also enjoys returning to her hometown to reminisce with lifelong friends. Her stories have appeared in Eleven Voices, the OLLI Journal, and a chapbook. |
Bruce Martin - Poem
Bruce grew up in Boston, MA, one of three brothers. He received a BA degree at Keene State College, Keene, NH in 1967 and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of MA, Amherst, MA in 1969. He has worked in Planning and Management, mostly in housing, in Portland OR. He moved to San Francisco in 1986 and primarily worked for a financial industry publishing company. He has always loved poetry and, since stopping work five years ago, has focused his time on reading, and recently writing, poetry. |
Valerie Menager - Night Running (Nonfiction)
Valerie is an attorney, mother of three young adults and oversees the care of her 93 year old mother. She lives in San Francisco where she is a volunteer history guide for City Guides of San Francisco. In her spare time she enjoys reading and writing nonfiction and fiction, hiking and international travel. |
Marsha Michaels - The Letters (Nonfiction)
Marsha has been a student at OLLI at SF State for the past six or seven years. She took her first writing class with Barbara Rose Brooker who helped her self-publish a memoir called Pulling at Straws. She also took a class with Dave Casuto, and they developed a website, where many of her stories can be found, along with cooking recipes. One of the “aerobics” Barbara used to stimulate stories was to write about a dream. Her story in this issue of Vistas & Byways came out of that exercise. She followed up with other writing classes at OLLI, along with other diversified subjects. At 69, she finally feels she’s been educated where she missed out in her youth and thanks OLLI for the enormous difference it has made in her life. |
Hank Miller - No One Could Dive Like Myrtle (Nonfiction)
Hank is a photographic artist who holds a BS in Business Administration from Auburn University, a Certificate from the New York Institute of Photography and Lifetime Teaching Credential, California Community Colleges, in Art and Design including Photography-U.C.S.D. He is a world traveler, instructor, and professional photographer for clients in Marin County, CA , and in Hawaii. Hank also instructs classes for the local community college and continuing education. Hank's passion is photography. Hank has published a book on Digital Photography for Travelers, available online. Hank was recently selected to be Artist in Residence, Hubbell Trading Post National Monument, AZ, and Ghost Ranch, NM. |
Don Plansky - Death Warrant upon a Noteworthy Person (Nonfiction); Homer's Odyssey (Nonfiction)
Don has been an active member of the OLLI at SF State interest group, the Writers Circle, for the past few years. He has also participated in many writer workshops at OLLI. In a former incarnation, he worked as a freelance journalist, contributing more than 200 articles to The Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, as well as book reviews for The Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies. |
Michele Praeger - Amber Alert (Fiction)
Michèle was born in England and brought up in France. Now she resides in the USA. She wrote two essays on fiction and culture. Now she writes fiction herself. Michele was published in 11 Voices and last year published a collection of flash fiction, Baby,You Can Drive My Car, Blue Light Press, 2015. |
Peter Richmond - Joey - Like Cancer He Never Goes Away (Nonfiction)
A graduate of Norwich University, Peter has a law degree with a specialty in international law. He has had careers in international banking and finance, and in real estate, and has traveled and resided in Europe, Asia and Africa. His writing experience has included a column for the magazine, REO MONTHLY; writing an op-ed column in a newspaper; publishing essays in literary journals; and authoring five books including, The Unofficial Guide to Flipping Properties, Save Your House from Foreclosure! and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buying a Home. Peter writes blogs on real estate, foreclosures and his beloved Red Sox. He lives in Mill Valley and is working on his second novel. |
Rodney Shapiro - Two Poems
Rodney was born and raised in South Africa. After High School he worked as a journalist and published several short stories and articles. He also taught English Literature as a part-time school teacher, but ultimately decided on psychology as a career. He graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, with a Ph.D. in 1965. He emigrated to the USA in 1966. His professional career included faculty positions as Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester, NY, and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. While dedicated to his profession of clinical psychology, his recreational pursuits have included long distance running, travel, devotion to pets, and amateur photography. His primary reverence is for writing prose and poetry. |
Pat Skala - Encounter in Istanbul (Nonfiction)
Pat is a native San Franciscan (only 3 generations) and a graduate of SFSC. Note the "C". Had she waited a year longer to graduate it would be a "U". She is a retired City employee and she and her husband live in the house that her grandparents built in 1927. She is a gardener, a quilter and an avid jigsaw puzzle person. Although she would love to be a star on Moth Radio, she limits her story telling to friends and family. Her stories are all true and focus on what she thinks of as "angels": people who come into our lives ever so briefly, but who tell us or give us something we need or point us in a better direction. |
Denize Springer - Neon Promises (Fiction); Shadows and Light (Nonfiction)
Denize's plays have been presented in distinguished New York and San Francisco venues including the New York Theatre Workshop, the Public Theatre and The Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Her nonfiction and fiction have appeared in various publications and literary journals including the Marin IJ, East Bay Express, Pearl, Estero and Ocean Realm. She earned an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University, and has taught two courses OLLI at SF State (Make a Scene – Summer 2014, Find Your Genre – Fall 2013). |
Steve Surryhne - Three Poems
Steve was an Associate Lecturer in English Literature at San Francisco State University from 1993-2012. He is currently semi-retired, and has recently returned to writing poetry. A native of San Francisco, he was a baby-beat in the sixties, knew some of the beat poets and is now a neo-beat. In his alternate career, he worked in Community Mental Health in San Francisco from 1979-2012. He took first place in the Jack Kerouac Poetry contest in 2015 and has published in The Blue Moon Review and Interpretations. He is currently working on a project with a photographer friend on poem-texts and photos. Steve was an associate lecturer in English Literature at San Francisco State 1993-2012. He is a native San Franciscan. His poem "Vulture Elegy" took first place in the Jack Kerouac Poetry Contest in 2015, and his poem "Live Fast" took second place in 2016. He has published in The Blue Moon Review and Interpretations. |
Laurie Taylor - I Fall to Pieces (Fiction)
Laurie has recently moved to San Francisco from Berlin where she wrote for and performed in This Berlin Life, and worked as a research biologist. She has published a forensic detective novel available on Amazon entitled, Said the Fly. |
Diane Vickers - Two Poems
Diane holds a master’s degree in public health from UCLA. She also studied for over 15 years with Rosalyn Bruyere, an internationally acclaimed healer, clairvoyant and medicine woman. Professionally, Diane has provided health education and energy work for two decades, helped to found the Rising Phoenix Integrative Medicine Center in San Francisco, assisted in the writing and editing of a book for a psychologist, been a director of a non-profit, and created worldwide events within the software industry. Diane finds great joy writing fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She enjoys travel, hiking, and making a positive difference. She is on the Board of the California Writers Club—Marin Branch, and is working on her first novel. |