This monthly salon, hosted by yours truly, features authors, literary agents, and others involved in the field of writing. Set in the atmospheric Scape Gallery in Corona del Mar, the salon is a mecca for literary devotees who listen to readings, take part in discussions, and attend book signings.

Our next event takes place Tuesday, November 17 • 7pm

An Evening with Memoirists

Join our salon on November 17 when two memoirists, Danzy Senna and Norman Ollestad join me in conversation.

Norman Ollestad is author of Crazy for the Storm, a Los Angeles Times bestseller and Starbucks pick. His book begins: I was in a plane crash with my father; his girlfriend, Sandra; and the pilot of our chartered Cessna. Sandra was 30. My dad was 43. I was 11. By the end of our 9-hour ordeal, I was the only survivor. The novelist Jim Harrison said, “Crazy for the Storm is an absolutely compelling book which I read in one long sitting. The fact that it’s true made me shudder, but then Norman Ollestad is a fine writer and every detail is convincing.”

Danzy Senna was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of two writers, an African-American father and a white mother who met during the Civil Rights Movement. She received her B.A. from Stanford University and MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine. Her first novel, Caucasia (1998), was an instant bestseller and received the Book-of-the-Month Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction. It also received the Alex Award, American Library Association, and has received praise from The New York Times and Newsweek. Her second novel was Symptomatic (2003). Danzy Senna’s latest work is the memoir: Where Did You Sleep Last Night?: A
Personal History (2009). In the book, she reconstructs a long-buried family mystery that illuminates her own childhood, her enigmatic father, the power and failure of her parents’ union and, finally, the forces of history. Senna lives in Los Angeles with husband, novelist Percival Everett and their two sons.

Our salon will take place at:
Scape Gallery
2859 East Coast Highway
Corona del Mar, CA, 92625

$15.00 includes nibbles and sips. ($16 if you pay using PayPal.) Advance tickets are required—walk-ins are discouraged as seating is limited.

Paying using PayPal is easiest. Visit www.paypal.com and once you sign in, it will ask to which email address you are sending. Please use penonfire@earthlink.net.

If you’d rather send a check, make it out to “BD Barrett” (with “memoirists” jotted in the lower left hand corner) and send to Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, 503 Larkspur, Corona del Mar 92625.

Please register soon as we expect this to be another sold out event (and we hate turning people away).

If you’d like to get on the email list to be notified of future events, enter your email address below. (Please note that this is a different e-list than the one you see at left.

Upcoming is crime writer T. Jefferson Parker (Jan. 26), another evening of literary agents, and more. On May 15, plan to attend, because the new anthology, Orange County Noir (Akashic Books), in which Barbara, Mary Castillo, Marty Smith, Gary Phillips, and others have short stories, will be out.

Two pics….Debra’s on the left, Wendy Mason, who won the raffle is in the middle, and Karen Karbo is on the right.

And the cake!

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett interviews Judith D. Schwartz , author of The Therapist’s New Clothes, and literary agent Sally Van Haitsma.

Download audio.

(Broadcast date: September 09, 2009)

Author Ethan Canin (America, America), on the show with my co-host Marrie Stone, says don’t think about you’re writing unless you’re writing.

I like that.

It’s so easy to trick yourself into thinking you’re working when you’re thinking, but you’re truly not working. Yes, thinking about your work has it’s place. But how much actually gets accomplished through pondering. Not a heck of a lot.

You can listen to the show in a few days when it will be available via podcast, right here.

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett interviews Debra Ollivier, author of What French Women Know: About Love, Sex and Other Matters of the Heart and Mind; Karen Karbo, author of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World’s Most Elegant Woman; and Jennifer Niven, author of Velva Jean Learns to Drive.

Download audio.

(Broadcast date: Sep 9, 2009)

Oct. 4, Sunday, all day in West Hollywood, the book fair I attend and take part in every year because it’s a mini-LA Times Festival of Books, with great panels and colorful scenes. This year I’ll be moderating a memoir panel with Rachel Resnick, Danzy Senna, Norman Ollestad and Michael Kearns from 2 – 3:15. Come by. Should be great. Click here to read more.