Lisa Dominguez Abraham’s poems have appeared in journals such as Southern Review, North American Review and Poetry East. Her collection Mata Hari Blows a Kiss won the 2016 Swan Scythe Chapbook Contest, and her book Coyote Logic came out from Blue Oak Press in February 2019. She works at Cosumnes River College.
JoAnn Anglin has published more than fifty poems and has taught poetry writing in schools, a hospital, senior center, and, currently, at a maximum-security prison. She has presented to the California Writers Club (Sacramento), to a church group, to a college class, and to a Renaissance Society class. She is a member of the Sacramento Poetry Center, California Poets in the Schools, and Writers of the New Sun.
Marcus Crowder has been a professional journalist for over twenty years including seventeen years as a senior writer and theater critic at the Sacramento Bee. Selected publications include the San Francisco Chronicle, California, 7×7, Sacramento News & Review and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. He has a bachelor’s degree in English/Writing from UC Davis and a master’s of fine arts in screenwriting from the American Film Institute.
Dale Flynn has taught writing at UC Davis for over thirty years, including advanced composition courses for students in health and biology studies, Journalism, and Medical Humanities. For many years she was the director of writing workshops across campus. In 2002, she became a Master Gardener. She frequently writes for the master gardener monthly newsletter, a welcome change from her academic writing. She grows over one hundred rosebushes in her front yard.
Jessilyn Gale teaches English and Communications studies at Cosumnes River College. Her pedagogies employ play theory and emerging social media. She has worked as a reporter and editor and contributed to an award-winning series on young adult anxiety. She has published articles related to post-traumatic stress and mindfulness.
Lesley Gale teaches composition and literature at Cosumnes River College. She leads workshops for faculty and church groups on mindful meditation.
Bob Stanley has organized poetry events in California for nearly fifty years. He has served on the board of the Sacramento Poetry Center since 1997 and currently teaches English Composition at CSU, Sacramento, where he co-directs the Writing Center. Bob has edited two anthologies and published two collections of his own work: Walt Whitman Orders a Cheeseburger (2009), and Miracle Shine (2013). Bob served as Sacramento’s Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2012, and he lives in Sacramento with his wife, Joyce Hsiao.
Kate Washington is the author of the recent book Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout In America and the dining critic for The Sacramento Bee. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, Eater, Catapult, and many other publications. She holds a Ph.D. in Victorian literature from Stanford University and lives in Sacramento with her husband and two daughters.
Publishing Panelists
Maryellen Burns is a cultural historian, author, editor and publisher of books on food and regional history including Lost Restaurants of Sacramento and Their Recipes, A Taste of History, and The First History of Sacramento City. She has been involved in indie publishing, academic and trade publishing since 1973 and has helped hundreds of writers get their work published and marketed. Owner of Morning Coffee Press she is also an advisor to the I Street Press, and regional and statewide historical societies involved in publishing.
CSUS Emeritus Professor Dr. David Covin, is the Founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of Blue Nile Press. Headquartered in Sacramento, California, BNP is an imprint of Path Press, of Chicago, Illinois. BNP targets Black writers and the Black reading public, creating a venue where they can meet. Blue Nile Press publishes only adult fiction in the form of novels or short story collections. A prolific writer, Dr. Covin has penned five novels as well as many scholarly articles and books for his academic disciplines, which are Government and Pan African Studies, most notably, Black Politics After the Civil Rights Movement, Activity and Beliefs in Sacramento, 1970-2000; The Unified Black Movement in Brazil 1978-2002; and The African Race in California, Darkness Visible. In 2014, Dr. Covin founded and launched the annual Sacramento Black Book Fair.
Cecily Hastings is the founder and publisher of Inside Sacramento, a website and four monthly community news publications with a print circulation of more than 81,000. Engaging 100% local content is featured.
Hastings founded the East Sacramento Chamber of Commerce in 1996 and has served on the board for more than 24 years.
She is also the author and publisher of Inside Sacramento: The Most Interesting Neighborhood Places in America’s Farm-to-Fork Capital, Sacramento’s first photo-driven guidebook featuring 101 places organized by 8 city neighborhoods. First and Second editions had a print run of 11,000.
Hastings is also the co-founder, Friends of East Sacramento, a volunteer-led nonprofit organization that saved the Clunie Community Center from closure in 2012, raised more than $125,000 and renovated the historic building and her group assumed nonprofit management of the facility. Their group also restored the McKinley Rose Garden, raised more than $125,000 and managed the restoration and operation of the city-owned 1,200 rose bush public garden. Recruited and coordinated more than 100 volunteers annually to maintain roses year-round.
Emmanuel Sigauke teaches English at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento, California. He is the founder and editor of Munyori Literary Journal. Educated at Gwavachemai Secondary school in rural Zimbabwe and High Field High school in Harare, studied English at the University of Zimbabwe and California State University, Sacramento. He has been published in poetry and fiction anthologies, and his collection of short stories, Mukoma’s Marriage and other Stories, was a finalist in the 2015 NAMA awards, Zimbabwe. In 2015 he co-edited Roses for Betty and other Stories, published by the Centre for African Cultural Excellence (CACE) and is the sole editor for Sundown and other stories, the 2016 Writivism Annual anthology and Transcending the Flame, the 2018 Writivism mentoring anthology. He has edited various other anthologies, notably the African Roar series.
Books for Sale
Take a look at some of our presenters’ books.
