Tag archives: writer
It’s been more than a quarter-century since Jeff Arch’s first produced screenplay Sleepless in Seattle arrived in American multiplexes. But the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy — which broke the genre’s meet-cute mold in that the leads don’t actually meet in person until the end — gave the then-struggling writer his first success, […]
Shortly after moving to Santa Barbara more than four decades ago, Steven Gilbar found he spent a lot of his off hours from his day job as an attorney doing things that are all about authors and writers. An avid reader, Gilbar has also published more than 20 books over the course of his writing […]
OPEN, the newest book of poetry by Susan Read Cronin, explores issues of love, life, death, and family. Sometimes written as seen through the eyes of a child, Cronin’s poems remind the reader of what it is like to try to make sense of the world around us. Weaving steadily between dark and light, her […]
Prolific Santa Barbara-based children’s book author/illustrator Bruce Hale, whose 60-plus books include the Clark the Shark and the award-winning Chet Gecko mysteries series, kicks off four straight afternoons of conversations with writers about their new books hosted by Chaucer’s. The Edgar-nominated Hale, whose books also include Snoring Beauty, one of Oprah’s Recommended Reads for Kids, […]
It is every parent’s nightmare. Their child goes missing. It is 1993 and young girls are disappearing in Northern California. The New York Times bestselling author Paula McLain (The Paris Wife) makes an abrupt departure from her popular historical novels to delve into the world of suspense and crime mystery in When the Stars Go […]
From the very first paragraph in Bonnie Marcus’ Not Done Yet!, the Santa Barbara author leaves no doubts about the attitude readers can expect from her new self-help book subtitled “How Women Over 50 Regain Their Confidence & Claim Workplace Power.” “Okay. Right from the get-go, I’m gonna be straight with you. I’m pissed,” Marcus […]
Creativity comes in many forms, yet is unique to each individual pursuing it. However our own unique creativity cannot be expressed until we explore it. The illustrious career of Darryl Hickman represents a lifelong pursuit of creativity and discovering the unknown. Darryl has been called the “the ultimate Hollywood hyphenate” with an over eighty-year career […]
Our childhood shapes who we become and for Josie Levy Martin, it has led to a lifetime of studying childhood experiences. Josie is a teacher, school psychologist, writer, and author of Never Tell Your Name, a book that captures her own experiences as a German Jewish child being hidden around France during the Nazi occupation. […]
All of the UCSB Arts & Lectures House Calls and Race to Justice virtual events have been recorded specifically for the Santa Barbara community and every program concludes with a live Q&A session with one of the A&L staff or a member of the local area arts or education community. But perhaps none of the […]
Santa Barbara stockbroker and former TV executive Howard Jay Smith is facing the music again! Howard, a member of the board of the Santa Barbara Symphony, wrote his third book, Beethoven in Love; Opus 139: Concerto Quasi Una Fantasia, five years ago, and has now penned a suitable follow-up, Meeting Mozart: From the Secret Diaries […]
Former California State Assemblyman Brooks Firestone is giving paws for thought! Brooks, 81, who will be moving with his wife of 62 years, Kate, a former Royal Ballet dancer, into Casa Dorinda from their Santa Ynez Valley home in the New Year, has just published his second volume of animal stories from the valley. The […]
On a personal note, I mark the passing of the prolific author John le Carré, who has died at his home in Cornwall aged 89. For six decades his 25 gripping thrillers dominated the bestseller lists and review pages using his pseudonym, although his real name was David Cornwell. His enormous body of work goes […]
Retired Montecito attorney David Gersh has just completed his new novel Pot Luck, the sequel to his laugh-out-loud award-winning book Desperate Shop Girls, which is being published by Open Books in the New Year. It is the Harvard Law School graduate’s sixth tome, to be closely followed by his seventh, The Whisper of a Distant […]
Movie lovers might only know Cheryl Strayed from the film version of her bestselling memoir Wild, which starred Reese Witherspoon in the adaptation of the book that offered alternating harrowing and hilarious stories from Strayed’s solo 1,100-mile trek on the Pacific Crest Trail as well as the personal journey that led her there. But the […]
To say that 2020 has been a challenging year is the understatement of the century. We’re approaching a full year of being held hostage by a global pandemic that’s brought face-to-face social interaction to a near standstill. And with sheltering in place comes more reliance on gathering information and news from the internet, where the […]
High Five, Santa Monica suspense writer Joe Ide’s latest action-packed thriller in his IQ series of books that Time Magazine calls “an electrifying combination of Holmseian mystery and SoCal grit,” will be dissected in a virtual conversation with the author at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, November 18. Ide will talk about the series, which rapper […]
Prolific local author Philip Myers, 68, has published his latest book, Squished: Jackie Kennedy, Espionage, Murder and Me. The revelatory tome combines facts Myers gleaned from working with former First Lady Jackie Kennedy, whom he got to know through his work with the Santa Barbara Committee on Foreign Relations. Myers is a Stanford University Phi […]
My birthday happens to be in December (on the 9th), so my numerical age stays the same practically all through the calendar year. On my tenth birthday, in 1943, one of the presents I received was a “Five-year Diary,” with each small page representing the same calendar date on five succeeding years. So, each day […]
Chaucer’s Books continues to confront the coronavirus crisis with an increasing number of virtual events, bringing authors online to read from and talk about their works. The first of three such talks this week takes place at 11:30 am on Sunday, November 8, the early hour due to the fact that the writer in question, […]
Acclaimed author Jon Meacham addresses “The Architecture of Endurance: Building a Republic that Stands the Test of Time” on Friday, November 6, from 12 pm to 1:30 pm in a special virtual event from Westmont. The live broadcast opens with remarks by Westmont President Gayle D. Beebe and includes a question-and-answer session with Meacham, presidential […]
