The current CWC quarterly bulletin features my spotlight on Joan Didion – in advance of speaking on a special panel dedicated to her life and art at the upcoming 29 Palms Book Festival.
I taught Joan Didion’s magnificent memoir The Year of Magical Thinking for years at Los Angeles City College in the classrooms of adult students primarily from East Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Surprisingly, or not, despite the wide gulfs in socioeconomic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds, my students connected with her.
As a memoirist, I am deeply influenced by her writing, as in my own memoir, I tell a story of a modern, i.e., multicultural LGBTQ California family facing a zeitgeist brought on by fundamental dysfunctions in California’s child welfare system. Like Didion, I spotlight deep social issues via personal experience and extensive research.
You can read my CWC article here. (It is a shorter version of the article I wrote for the book festival catalogue.) This is my third article published by the club quarterly.
Founded in 1909, California Writers Club is one of the nation’s oldest professional clubs for writers. With 22 branches throughout the state offering workshops, contests, and conferences, CWC “is dedicated to educating writers of all levels and disciplines in the craft of writing and in the marketing of their work.”
