Authors and Events

Click on an author To see Details:

Tamim Ansary

Life and Times: How Memoir and History Intersect
Memoir Master Class

Reyna Grande 

In Conversation with Michelle Cruz Gonzales about Grande's A Ballad of Love and Glory

Brian Turner

The Landscape of War: Love and Loss

Paul Guay

The Art and Craft and Business of Screenwriting (Zoom Only)
Screenplay Outline Workshop (Zoom Only)

Jaimel Hemphill, Thaddeus Howze, Murphy Milburn, Shawn Taylor (Moderator)

Four Color Representation: Race and The Graphic Novel Panel
Graphic Novel Workshop: Your Story, Your Way (Taylor and Hemphill)

Michelle Cruz Gonzales

Inclusive Characterization

Gabrielle Meyers, Deborah Grossman, Steven Kent Mirassou, Sarah Cain (Moderator), David Everett (Wine tasting), Brandon Wood (Cheese Tasting):

Word of Mouth: Food and Wine Writing Panel
Wine and Food tasting (21+ Only)

Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, and Philip Wang:

RISE: A Pop history of asian america from the nineties to now (Zoom Only)

Bri and Tri

Poetry Slam Workshop 

LPC Poetry Slam

Havik, The LPC Literary Magazine, Publication and Awards Ceremony
(In Person Room 2401, Bldg 2400, and Online)

ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS FROM THE PLEASANTON, DUBLIN, AND LIVERMORE PUBLIC LIBRARIES

 

Click Here To Register
All Events Are Free but Seating is Limited

Tamim Ansary, Keynote Speaker, and Memoir Master Class

Keynote Address: Life and Times: How Memoir and History Intersect

Tamim Ansary is an Afghan-American writer of fiction, memoir, and history.  He became famous after 9/11 for a viral email condemning the Taliban but also warning of the dangers of a full-scale war in Afghanistan.  He also facilitated the SF Writers Workshop for over 20 years.

His work has won the 2010 Northern California Book Award, been selected for San Francisco’s One City One Book read, and broadcast on NPR. Ansary also edited and published a group of essays by young Afghans entitled, Snapshots: This Afghan American Life 

LPC English will be adopting his memoir West of Kabul, East of New York  as the Spring '22 Campus Read.  For more on Tamim Ansary, visit http://www.mirtamimansary.com/

Instructors: Extra credit, reading questions, essay questions, and video resources to use with West of Kabul, East of New York.

Life and Times: How Memoir and History Intersect

The well-written memoir doesn’t just tell someone’s story: it illuminates one person’s connections to other people, tracing how streams of story running through private lives merge to form the river of human history. Memoir is what history looks like from up close; history is what memoirs look like when one steps back far enough to see the patterns they form as the interweave. This talk will discuss the implications of these ideas for writers of memoir and of history as well as of fiction—since the underlying pulse of all these genres is narrative.

Memoir Master Class

This memoir writing workshop gives students a glimpse of practical methods for getting started on a memoir-writing  project, sniffing out story,  busting through writing blocks, and exploiting source material, memory, and  dreams to their fullest.  Workshop participants should bring a notebook and pen or pencil.  No one will be asked to read what they’ve written, but there will be some writing and there will be discussion. 

 

Reyna Grande: "In Conversation about A Ballad of Love and Glory"

Reyna Grande is an award-winning and best-selling novelist and memoirist. Her critically acclaimed memoir, The Distance Between Us, was a National Book Critics Circle Awards finalist. In that book, Reyna writes about her life before and after coming to the U.S as an undocumented child immigrant.  A Dream Called Home was the LPC Campus Read for 2020-21, and Grande was the 2021 innagural LPC Literary Arts Festival Keynote Speaker. We are excited to have Reyna Grande back!  For more about Reyna, visit: https://reynagrande.com/ 

In Coversation with Michelle Cruz Gonzales

Grande will discuss her newest historical novel, A Ballad of Love and Glory, with LPC professor and author Michelle Cruz Gonzales.  From Grande's Website about A Ballad of Love and Glory : A Long Petal of the Sea meets Cold Mountain in this sweeping historical saga following a Mexican army nurse and an Irish soldier who must fight, at first for their survival and then for their love, amidst the atrocity of the Mexican-American War—from the author of the “timely and riveting” (People) Across a Hundred Mountains and The Distance Between Us.

 

Brian Turner
The Landscape of War: Love and Loss

For Brian Turner, the landscape of his writing is war, but the subject is love and loss. And healing. Turner is the author of two poetry collections, Here, Bullet, which won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award, the New York Times “Editor’s Choice” selection, the 2006 PEN Center USA “Best in the West” award, and the 2007 Poets Prize, among others; and Phantom Noise, which was shortlisted for the 2010 T.S. Eliot Prize in Poetry. He is also the author of a memoir, My Life as a Foreign Country, which made Powell’s Best Nonfiction of 2014 list. Turner served seven years in the US Army, including one year as an infantry team leader in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Prior to that, he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000 with the 10th Mountain Division. In his poetry and prose, Turner conveys both elegant and devastating portraits of what it means to be a soldier and a human being. In addition to his poetry and memoir, he is the editor of the anthology The Kiss (2018), a diverse anthology of essays, stories, poems, and graphic memoirs.

“The day of the first moonwalk, my father’s college literature professor told his class, ‘Someday they’ll send a poet, and we’ll find out what it’s really like.’ Turner has sent back a dispatch from a place arguably more incomprehensible than the moon—the war in Iraq—and deserves our thanks…” —New York Times Book Review

“In Brian Turner’s extraordinarily capable hands, language is war’s undoing, in the sense that his words won’t allow absurdity and terror to be anything less than real.” —Mark Doty

“[Turner] is a writer who is less warrior than observer, someone whose curiosity, knowledge and tenderness allow insight into landscapes and people that terrify the rest of us….Turner shows us soldiers who are invincible and wounded, a nation noble and culpable, and a war by turns necessary and abominable.” —The Washington Post For more on Brian Turner, visit http://www.brianturner.org/

 

Paul Guay: The Art and Craft and Business of Screenwriting & Screenplay Outline Workshop
(Both Sessions Remote on Zoom)

Paul Guay’s movies have grossed over half a billion dollars.  He conceived and co-wrote LIAR, LIAR, at the time of its release the sixth-highest-grossing comedy in history.  He co-wrote THE LITTLE RASCALS and HEARTBREAKERS, polished THE NEVERENDING STORY, and co-polished MOUSE HUNT.  He teaches "Screenwriting:  What's the Story?" and "Screenwriting:  Adventures in Shorts" at ArtCenter College of Design, where he is the 2019 recipient of the Great Teacher Award. For more about Paul, please visit: http://screenmasterbooks.com/analysis/PaulGuay.html

Handouts for the Sessions

(Submit Outlines for consideration to apgp@aol.com using this outline format)

The Art and Craft and Business of Screenwriting

"This is the introductory talk I give to my students, partly written, partly improvised. I tackle the what-to-do, and more importantly the what-not-to-do, in the insanely competitive but potentially highly rewarding art and craft and business of screenwriting." 1 hour followed by 15-minute Q&A.

Screenplay Outline Workshop

This intensive workshop is a professional approach to story and structure for feature-length narrative film. There are three stages of writing a movie: creating a premise that is at a professional level; developing it in a way that ensures the story lives up to the promise of the premise via an outline; and turning the outline into a screenplay. In this workshop I focus on the second stage. I will choose 2 or 3 of the outlines submitted and give detailed and honest feedback. One hour followed by fifteen-minute Q&A. Note: If you would like to submit an outline for possible review during the workshop, instructions will be provided after you register.

 

Jaimel Hemphill, Thaddeus Howze, Murphy Milburn, Shawn Taylor (Moderator)
 Four Color Representation: Race and the Graphic Novel Panel

Hemphil and Taylor
Graphic Novel Workshop: Your Story, Your Way 

Educated at The Academy of Art in San Francisco, JAIMEL HEMPHILL has applied his unique style to the classic hero archetypes. Shadow, BlackJacks and Son-Lar have been with him since the age of 13, forming the lynchpins of his comic universe. Populated by diverse heroes and villains like Cyberwings, Kidogi, and The Round, Jaimel hopes that his heroes represent the best in all of us.   https://npccomics.com/creators/jaimel-hemphill/

THADDEUS HOWZE is an award-winning writer, editor, podcaster and activist creating speculative fiction, scientific, political and cultural commentary from his office in Hayward, California. Thaddeus' speculative fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals. He has published two books, 'Hayward's Reach' (2011), a collection of short stories and 'Broken Glass' (2013) an urban fantasy novella starring his favorite paranormal investigator, Clifford Engram. He is also the creator of a series of articles called Writing Craft: Mastering the Urge to Write . https://thowze.carrd.co/

MURPHY MILBURN is an Independent Cartoonist based in San Francisco, CA who creates self-published alternative comic books as well as cartoon illustrations.  https://www.eventeny.com/company/?c=10737

SHAWN TAYLOR is a writer and university lecturer. He strives to engage in critical pop cartography. This has taken the form of his hosting art installations exploring ideas of media representation, to being a founding author of www.thenerdsofcolor.org. He is also one of the founders of the Black Comix Arts Festival, a festival that highlights and promotes artists on the margins of the mainstream comic book industry. Recently, he has been acting as a creative consultant to several media companies. https://thenerdsofcolor.org/author/shawntca/

 

Michelle Cruz Gonzales: "Inclusive Characterization"

Inclusive Characterization: Writing ‘the other’ without Stereotypes or Appropriation

 

Gabrielle Myers, Deborah Grossman, Steven Kent Mirassou, Sarah Cain (Moderator):
Word of Mouth: Food and Wine Writing Panel

See less

 

Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, and Philip Wang: RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now (Zoom Only)

Bri and Tri: Poetry Slam Workshop and LPC Poetry Slam

Bri Blue is an Author, Orator, Poet, Spoken Word Artist, Women's Rights Advocate, and Motivational Speaker hailing from Berkeley, CA. A UC Berkeley graduate, Blue's unique, high-energy, tailored performances connect emotion, entertainment, and inspiration to the goals, vision, and experiences of her audience.

Natriece ( Tri) Spicer is an author, educator & owner of The Inspired Life, a wellness consulting company. She wears a hat rack of titles easily compiled into her preferred term as the people’s person. Her latest project is the release of “The Inspired Life Podcast hosted by Natriece” available on ApplePodcast, Spotify and everywhere things are being streamed! She often dreams of working from the coast of Africa someday. For now, she likes anything outdoors and lives in sunny California.

 

Havik Publication and Awards Ceremony
(In Person Room 2401, Bldg 2400, and Online)

Havik, the Las Positas College Journal of Arts & Literature, celebrates the release of its 2022 edition with live readings and presentations by contributors, as well as awards in the categories of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, visual art & photography, experimental work, and academic nonfiction. Founded by David A. Wright, the anthology has been published annually in various forms since 1978. Havik’s 2021 edition, Inside Brilliance, was recently awarded 1^st place Best of Show in Literary Arts Magazines by the Associated Collegiate Press. The in-person ceremony is open to all and will be streamed live online.

 

Activities for Kids at the Literary Arts Festival

(Some Events Will Be Recorded for Archieval Purposes)