A Celebration of Writers Around the Lake September 16 at Valhalla
Posted on September 1, 2010
Filed Under South Tahoe Events
Enjoy an evening of literature with twelve writers who call Lake Tahoe home or are inspired by Tahoe at the 2nd annual “Celebration of Writers Around the Lake.”
Presented by the Tahoe Writers Works, the smart, funny, and inspirational night of prose will take place Friday, September 16th at the Valhalla Grand Hall in South Lake Tahoe at 7pm. Toast the writers during the opening wine reception, followed by readings and book signings. Books will be available for purchase too.
The evening will showcase a new batch of writers, and a few favorites from last year, who will present a wide selection of poetry, nonfiction and even fiction.
Meet the Writers:
• Jeremy Evans, nonfiction, In Search of Powder: A Story of America’s Disappearing Ski Bum
Jeremy’s first book, In Search of Powder, follows an eight-year newspaper career as a sports writer. His sports and outdoors writing in the Lake Tahoe area garnered numerous awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association and Nevada Press Association.
An avid mountaineer and snowboarder, Jeremy grew up skiing in Arizona where, sadly, he wore jeans on the slopes. He switched to snowboarding after moving to Lake Tahoe. On powder days, you can find him at Kirkwood — or changing diapers. He’s traveled extensively throughout the mountains of North America, South America and Europe. Although he’s biased toward California’s Sierra Nevada, his favorite climbing spot is Peru’s Cordillera Blanca. He has an English teaching credential and is working toward his Master of Arts in Teaching degree from Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, Nevada.
• Scott Lankford, nonfiction, Tahoe Beneath the Surface:
The Hidden Stories of America’s Largest Mountain Lake
Tahoe beneath the Surface brings this hidden history of America’s largest mountain lake to life through the stories of its most celebrated residents and visitors over the last ten thousand years. It mixes local Washoe Indian legends with tales of murderous Mafia dons, and Rat Pack tunes with Steinbeck novels. It establishes Tahoe as one of America’s literary hot spots by tracing the steps of more than a dozen authors including Bertrand Russell, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Michael Ondaatje. Tahoe beneath the Surface reveals how the lake transformed the lives of conservationists like John Muir, humorists like Mark Twain, and Hollywood icons like Frank Sinatra.
Currently Scott is researching two books: Mindsurfing Lake Tahoe, a literary history of the Lake Tahoe region; and Mindsurfing Mount Everest, an ecological history of earth’s highest peak.
• Ann Ronald, fiction, Friendly Fallout 1953
Friendly Fallout 1953 is a hybrid work of literature that combines the actual history of atomic tests in the Nevada desert in 1953 with fictional vignettes that explore the impact of the tests on the people who participated in them and on civilian “downwinders.”
Told through the perspectives of military personnel, scientists, ranchers, and others, the stories bring to life a turbulent era when Cold War fears, patriotism, scientific ambition, and popular excitement often collided with the welfare of ordinary citizens and the environment. Ronald compellingly evokes the test explosions in all their terrifying magnificence and explores the diverse and sometimes conflicting emotions of a generation that saw atomic energy as its best protection against the horrors of another world war, even to the sacrifice of the innocent people, wildlife, and livestock that became the accidental victims of this search for national power and security.
• Janet Smith, poet, All of a Sudden Nothing Happened
Janet Smith grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California and St. Paul, Minnesota. At 18, she moved to Yosemite National Park and worked as a waitress and a bartender until her mid-thirties, when she returned to Minnesota to begin college. At the University of Minnesota she earned a B.A. in English summa cum laude and a M.F.A. in creative writing. The month she graduated, she moved to Carson City, Nevada. She is a faculty member in the English Department at Lake Tahoe Community College. She received an artist fellowship from the Nevada Arts Council in 2002.
• Michael J. Makley, nonfiction, Cave Rock: Climbers, Courts, and a Washoe Indian Sacred Place
On August 27, 2007, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier district court ruling that sport climbing on Cave Rock, a Washoe Indian sacred place in Lake Tahoe must cease. Cave Rock, a towering monolith jutting over the east shore of Lake Tahoe, has been sacred to the Washoe people for over five thousand years. 
Long abused by road builders and vandals, it earned new fame in the late twentieth century as a world-class sport rock-climbing site. Cave Rock: Climbers, Courts, and a Washoe Indian Sacred Place follows the history of the fight between these two groups and examines the legal challenges and administrative actions that ultimately resulted in a climbing ban.
• Suzanne Roberts, poet, Shameless, Nothing to You
Suzanne Roberts is the author of four poetry collections, Shameless , Nothing to You, Three Hours to Burn a Body: Poems on Travel, and Plotting Temporality.
Recently, Suzanne was named “The Next Great Travel Writer” by National Geographic Traveler Magazine. Read her travel blogs on National Geographic Traveler’s Intelligent Travel and her photo essay on the Traveler website about her trip to China and Mongolia with Travcoa and Traveler’s editor-in-cheif, Keith Bellows.
Suzanne holds degrees in biology and creative writing and a doctorate in literature and the environment from the University of Nevada-Reno. She currently lives in South Lake Tahoe, California where she teaches English at Lake Tahoe Community College and runs a successful Writers’ Series. She is the recipient of the NISOD Excellence in Teaching Award.
• Gailmarie Pahmeier, poet, New Poets of the American West
• Karen Terrey, Tangled Roots Writing
Karen Terrey teaches English and Creative Writing at Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, NV. She offers writing workshops in Truckee, CA through her business Tangled Roots Writing, as well as serving as poetry editor for Quay, a literary arts journal. 
Some of her poems have been published in Moonshine Ink, Sierra Nevada Review, Autumn Sky, Word Riot, Rhino and Edge. She earned her MFA from Goddard College and is the recipient of a Sierra Arts Endowment Grant in 2009 and a John Woods Scholarship to the Prague Summer Program.
• Jeanine Stevens, poet, Caught in the Clouds
• June Saraceno, poet, Altars of Ordinary Light
June Sylvester Saraceno is originally from Elizabeth City, North Carolina. She received a BA from East Carolina University and an MFA in creative writing from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Her work has appeared in various journals including American Journal of Nursing, California Quarterly, Ginosko, The Pedestal, Poetry Motel, The Rebel, Silk Road, Smartish Pace, Sunspinner, Tar River Poetry and The Village Rambler; as well as two anthologies: Intimate Kisses: the poetry of sexual pleasure and Passionate Hearts: the poetry of sexual love, now in a second printing.
Her chapbook Mean Girl Trips was published fall 2006 by Pudding House Press. Her first full length collection of poetry, Altars of Ordinary Light, was released by Plain View Press in 2007. She is currently English Program Chair at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe and founding editor of the Sierra Nevada Review.
She lives with her husband, Anthony Saraceno, and son, Dylan Victor, in Truckee, California.
• Krista Benjamin, poet, New Poets of the American West
Krista Benjamin recently completed her first novel and is in the process of seeking a publisher. Her poems and stories appear in New Poets of the American West, The Best American Poetry 2006; Creative Writer’s Handbook, 5e; Margie; The Sun; and other journals. She is the recipient of a 2007 Nevada Arts Council Fellowship and the 2008 Robert Gorrell Award for Literary Achievement from the Sierra Arts Foundation.
• Scott Lukas, nonfiction, Fear, Cultural Anxiety, and Transformation: Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy Films Remade
Scott A. Lukas received his Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Rice University. He has taught anthropology and sociology at Lake Tahoe Community College and at Valparaiso University. In 2005 he was the recipient of the McGraw-Hill Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching of Anthropology by the American Anthropological Association. In 2003 he was honored with the Hayward Award for Excellence in Education in the state of California. He frequently teaches on the subject of theme parks and themed spaces. He is the author of the volume The Themed Space: Locating Culture, Nation, and Self, as well as Theme Park, and Fear, Cultural Anxiety, and Transformation: Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy Films Remade.
The event will be held at Valhalla in the Grand Hall at 7:00 p.m.; a $10 admission includes a wine reception followed by a reading and book signing (books will be available for purchase).
Tahoe Writers Works is a nonprofit organization based in South Lake Tahoe. Each year, the group organizes events to create a stronger literary and arts community in Lake Tahoe, including Bare Bones Open Mic, Murder Mystery Theater, and the Captain Thunder Old Time Radio Play at Valhalla. The group also publishes the literary journal EDGE. For more information, please visit www.tahoewritersworks.com.
For general information about the group, contact founder and director Andrea Wexelblatt, 530-416-2666, or avantgardencollegestore@yahoo.com.
The Valhalla Grand Hall is located at the Tallac Historic Site on Highway 89, just a few miles north of the “Y”.
