I’m Speaking at the California Writers Club

I just received my second invitation from the California Writers Club. I’ll be speaking to the Redwood Writers branch in Sonoma County.

Nov. 2, 2008. Cotati, CA
California Writers Club, Redwood Writers
Star’s Restaurant, 3-5 pm
8501 Gravenstein Highway, Cotati
GUEST SPEAKER: Molly Dwyer presenting, Syncronicity and Sensibilité

The California Writers Club holds a special place in my heart. I didn’t know it was the nation’s oldest professional club for writers—founded in 1909—until I read about it, but I did know that Jack London was credited as its founder.

Early honorary members included George Sterling, John Muir, Joaquin Miller, and California’s first poet laureate, Ina Coolbrith. I know about these people because last year I started researching the literary history of San Francisco with the idea of writing a novel about the city’s 19th century Bohemian scene. Having lived in San Francisco during the 1989 earthquake, I also wanted to write about the events of 1906.

I got particularly interested in Ina Coolbrith—I’m always looking for the women who disappeared into history without fanfare. London credits Ina with guiding him into books and writing. She was a librarian in Oakland and became London’s mentor. She also influenced Isadora Duncan. Ina has a dramatic story: she came to California by wagon train (crossed Donner Pass as a child) and was recognized early on as a poet. She moved in the most significant literary circles in San Francisco, with the founders of the Bohemian Club, and was friends with Mark Twain. At sixty-five, she watched her lifework, a literary memoir of the period, turn to ashes in the fire that followed the 1906 earthquake. It’s one of those scenes I SEE: Like so many, Ina had to evacuate. The earthquake damaged her home, but she managed to corral and rescue her two Persian cats (of course that would get my attention) and get out. Standing on the street with others, she was directed by the military to take refuge down by the waterfront, which she did. It was from there that she watched as the fire moved toward her home at 1406 Taylor Street, eventually destroying it and the manuscript she had just completed. My God—what a difficult thing to witness! “San Francisco is gone,” Jack London wrote later. “Nothing remains of it but memories.”

So. It’s a personal connection, something I take pleasure in. In fact, I think it’s synchronistic that I’ve been invited to present my talk on synchronicity to the California Writers Club! I’m very happy to bask for a moment in the shadow of legends like Ina and Jack and feel my connection to them. The novel, which I named, Poetic Justice, beckons. (So many ideas, so little time!)

The California Writers Club is “dedicated to educating writers of all levels and disciplines in the craft of writing and in the marketing of their work.” I’m headed to their writers conference, the East of Eden Conference in Salinas. It’s the first week of September, and one of my goals in going there, is to join the California Writers Club and begin the work of establishing a Mendocino Coast branch. If you’re interested in helping me get a branch going—in time to celebrate the club’s 100th anniversary (2009)—please get in touch with me.