Tag archives: author

Santa Barbara author Catharine Riggs launched her debut novel, What She Gave Away at a bijou bash at Tecolote, the bustling bibliophile bastion in the upper village. Catharine’s father, George Manset, was one of the organizers of the Knollwood Tennis Club. The book, one of psychological suspense, is set in our rarefied enclave and centers […]

Westmont researchers are using a new high-tech tool to understand human neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease. As part of a summer research project, Yi-Fan Lu, Westmont assistant professor of biology, and senior Heidi Pullmann used the new microelectrode array, purchased through the Westmont Provost’s Office, to detect and record the response of neurons to […]

National Review editor, Los Angeles Times columnist, speaker, Fox News commentator, author, and teacher (for nearly a year he taught English to Czech citizens after the breakup of the Soviet Union), Jonah Goldberg is a product of Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Jonah’s father was Jewish; his mother Christian; Jonah was brought up Jewish. Some may […]

Chloe Howard didn’t consider her deformity to be a disability before a horrible incident of bullying in high school left her ashamed and suffering from PTSD. But just a year later, the Washington State native living in Los Gatos found a new source of inspiration in the person of U2 lead singer Bono, whom she […]

Sharyl Attkinsson is smart. Really smart. And accomplished: previously a CNN anchor, then an on-air investigative correspondent for CBS until after 21 years with the company; the subject matter she chose to cover displeased her CBS bosses. She wrote Stonewalled, which became a New York Times best-seller, and continues to promote that and her 2017 […]

Lillian Carson has the kind of face that not only makes you smile but also makes you want to throw your arms around her. First of all, it is beautiful but it’s also a kind and loving face – and that’s why it’s no surprise she is the expert on grandmothering and how to love […]

Former society doyenne Beverley Jackson is going L for leather! The prolific Montecito book author and artist just had her first exhibition of her work at the Book Den during this month’s Art Walk. “I showed shadow box collages with historical scenes done on leather covers of vintage books,” says Beverley. “Eric Kelley, the shop […]

Antipodean author Leanne Wood celebrated her first book, The Power of Things Unseen: Tales of Choosing Crazy Over Normal, with a socially gridlocked bash at the Float Luxury Spa, just a tiara’s toss from the Lobero Theatre. Leanne, an editor for the Journal’s glossy magazine, spent six months writing the riveting true story about a […]

The title of Mike Lewis’s first book is not about jumping off bridges, but When to jump. If the Job You Have Isn’t the Life You Want. Mike now lives in San Francisco but his folks, Michael and Betsy Lewis, live in Montecito half the year. Mike’s publisher is Henry Holt. Not too shabby! Mike […]

Foodbank of Santa Barbara County chief executive Erik Talkin has published his first book, Hunger into Health, with a foreword by Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges. The former London filmmaker, who made movies in the 1990s starring Helena Bonham-Carter and Parker Posey, worked in in a community soup kitchen for six years before heading the food bank […]

Former Montecito beekeeper Rick Sawyer is waxing poetic. Rick, 66, who created the Hollister Ranch and Santa Barbara honey companies in the mid-1970s, has re-launched Within The Shells, a 210-page book he originally published in 1973 as a limited 100 copy leather-bound version. “It is the first of three poetry books I plan to complete,” […]

Czech children’s author Petra Malinova has won the silver medal in the annual Illumination Book Awards with her first book, Birth of an Angel. Petra, who works for Montecito art and car collector Michael Hammer, beat out hundreds of other entries in the competition honoring Christian books. “In a time of Nones, the award medalists […]

There are a lot of self-help books out there in the world, but Beth Amine‘s just-published Joyous Every Day Living is a lovely little gem. The 116-page book is a simple yet meaningful work that is organized in a straightforward but powerful manner, and represents the first published writing from Amine, a 40-years-plus Santa Barbara-based […]

Montecito marriage and family counselor Randi Rabin has launched her new book, Grab Your Miracle – The Magic of a Mother’s Love, which recounts her quest to find the meaning of love through the discovery of a great desire to have a child to cherish. As a young women in the early 1990s, Randi had […]

Santa Barbara author Elizabeth Gould writes from experience in her first book, Your Best Health by Friday: How to Overcome Anxiety, Depression, Stress, Trauma, PTSD and Chronic Illness. “It is not the first book I started, but it is the first one I’ve finished,” she told me a bijou book bash at Tecolote, the lively […]

Author and educator Dick Jorgensen, 92, has had quite the colorful life, volunteering as a teacher in China, India, Mongolia, Africa, Afghanistan, New Zealand, and Australia. Now, the Santa Barbara writer has written the second of his three planned memoirs, Yuko: Friendship Between Nations, which follows on from his vibrant first autobiography, O Tomodachi: Friend, […]

Montecito author Robert Eringer has been following in the footsteps of award-winning novelist Kurt Vonnegut, who died in 2007 aged 84. The odyssey to the writer of the darkly satirical best seller Slaughterhouse-Five, as well as 13 other novels, began when fellow Montecito writer T.C. Boyle suggested the trip to Robert when they bumped into […]

Journal writer Leanne Wood‘s new book, The Power of Things Unseen: Tales of Choosing Crazy Over Normal, about a woman whose inner voice leads her on an enthralling and nerve-wracking journey pursuing what’s written in her heart, is being released as a paperback in February. But the tantalizing tome is also available in an e-book […]

Montecito Journal columnist Hattie Beresford has published a new book called The Way It Was~ Santa Barbara Comes of Age. Beresford, a well-known historian and author, tells us the book chronicles the 50 years between 1880 and 1930, when she says our town threw off its Victorian cloak and donned the mantilla of a thoroughly […]

Longtime friend Andy LoRusso just came out with a new book, Sing & Cook with Andy LoRusso The Singing Chef. It’s the 25th anniversary of his career singing and cooking. Friends and fans met at Tecolote bookstore for his book signing. With the tome you not only cook, you can sing along at the same […]