Mendocino Coast Writers Conference: The Conference Board of Directors

Maureen Eppstein, Executive Director(director@mcwc.org) has worked as a journalist and for twenty years wrote and edited administrative documents at Stanford University. Her poetry has won many awards including a nomination for a Pushcart Prize. She has published two poetry collections, plus fiction and memoir. She joined MCWC in 2004, was interim co-director in 2005, and executive director since 2010.

Barbara Lee, Registrar(info@mcwc.org) has been the MCWC Registrar since 2005 after joining the board in 2003. As well as being a writer she worked for the Polaroid Corporation, as a hotel concierge and owned an interior design business.

Henri/etta Bensussen retired in 1999 from Stanford University Press, where she learned the elements of proofreading. Her poems and stories have been published in various journals and anthologies.

Tony Eppstein is an award winning nature photographer. On moving to Mendocino in 2000 he started a graphics design business. In 2006 he was hired to redesign the MCWC website and for other graphics work, joining the board in 2008.

Kate Erickson has been a financial consultant since 1985. She is also on the board of the Mendocino Coast Hospital Foundation and has worked as a volunteer with the Fort Bragg Unified School District. She joined the MCWC board in 2010.

Patty Joslyn returned to the Mendocino Coast in 2012. She is a writer, poet, photographer and collage artist. She has published seven chapbooks and has been published in VOYA, El Calendario de Todos Santos, and on poetsonline.com.

Jill Myers has worked as a technical writer and editor, as a pre-school teacher, a school director, and, later at Stanford University in the rare books department and then as an assistant to the President’s wife. She moved to Anderson Valley in 1993 and joined the MCWC board in 1997.

Katy Pye was the executive director of the Yolo County Resource Conservation District which included writing local, state and national grants for restoration projects funding. Since moving to the Mendocino coast in 2005 she has written a YA novel. Her website is http://katypye.com

Ginny Rorby, a retired Pan Am flight attendant, is the author of 4 novels for Young Adults, Dolphin Sky, Hurt Go Happy, which won the American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award, The Outside of a Horse, and Lost in the River of Grass, a 2012 / 2013 Sunshine State Young Readers Award nominee.

Fran Schwartz moved to Mendocino in 2005, studied creative writing at College of the Redwoods in Fort Bragg and participates in a writing group. Fran writes memoir and creative nonfiction, has published a memoir in Woman's World and is working on a novel.

Nona Smith was a social worker, a teacher, and the executive director of Oakland's first Business Improvement District. After moving to Mendocino, she has had success in editing and producing personal memoirs.

Norma Watkins has a Ph.D. in English and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. She teaches creative writing at College of the Redwoods in Fort Bragg. Her memoir, The Last Resort, won a gold medal in 2012, for best non-fiction published in the South by an independent press.

MCWC committee members put in over 1600 volunteer hours each year to make sure participants have a quality experience.

As well as hosting the summer writers conference, we support the Coast Slam and partner with community service organizations to sponsor writing workshops.

You'll recognize us at the conference by our red staff Tee-shirts.

February 2012