Welcome to the Mendocino College Literary Festival

Sheldon Siegel is the New York Times bestselling author of six critically-acclaimed, best-selling courtroom dramas featuring San Francisco criminal defense lawyers Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez. His books have appeared on the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle best seller lists. His books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into eight languages. Sheldon began writing his novels on a laptop computer during his daily commute on the Larkspur ferry. A graduate of Boalt Law School at UC-Berkeley, Sheldon has been in private law practice in San Francisco for more than twenty-five years, and he specializes in corporate and securities law with the international law firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton. He lives in Marin County with his wife, Linda, a computer graphics artist, and their twin 17 year-old sons, Alan and Stephen. His seventh novel, Perfect Alibi, will be released in the summer of 2009.

	Hal Zina Bennett Hal Zina Bennett is an author and writing coach who has published a dozen books that include: Writing Spiritual Books, Write from the Heart, Spirit Animals & The Wheel of Life, Zuni Fetishes, Spirit Circle, White Mountain Blues, Follow Your Bliss, and more. Website		Marc Bojanowski Marc Bojanowski graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and received his MFA in creative writing from The New School. His writing has appeared in The Literary Review. He lives in northern California. His first novel, The Dog Fighter, was highly acclaimed and received critical attention, with some critics comparing him to a young Ernest Hemingway. He recently completed his second novel.
	Molly Dwyer Molly Dwyer has been a transformational educator for twenty years. She earned an MA from Sonoma State University and a PhD from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Her debut novel, Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, was nominated for the 2009 Northern California Book Award in Fiction-one of "the Bay Area's Best and Brightest." Website		Jody Gehrman Jody Gehrman is the author of five novels, Summer in the Land of Skin, Tart, Notes from the Backseat, Triple Shot Betty, and Triple Shot Bettys in Love. Tart was a Booksense notable in 2005, won an RT Book Club critics' award, and has recently been optioned for film. Her plays have been produced in Ashland, New York, San Francisco and L.A. She has two new novels due out in 2008: Notes from the Backseat (January, Red Dress Ink) and her first young adult novel, Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty (April, Penguin's Dial Books). She is a professor of English at Mendocino College. Website
	Kim Green Kim Green is the author of several romantic comic novels, including Is That a Moose in Your Pocket?, Paging Aphrodite and the upcoming Live a Little. Her writing has appeared in Los Angeles Magazine, Mother Jones, and The San Francisco Business Times, among other publications. Her requisite stint in dotcom included editing and managing projects for Women.com and other Silicon Valley companies. Kim earned an MA in International Relations from the University of Amsterdam, which qualifies her to create exotic settings for her books and little else. She lives in San Francisco with her family. Website		Charlotte Gullick Charlotte Gullick is a novelist, essayist, poet, editor, and educator who grew up in Mendocino County. In 2000, she received a Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship for her collection of poetry, The Midwifery of Dreams. Her first novel, By Way of Water (Penguin Putnam), was chosen by Jayne Anne Phillips as the Grand Prize Winner of the Santa Fe's Writer's Project for 2002. In November 2007, Charlotte was awarded a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship. Charlotte teaches Memoir, Novel, Short Fiction, Poetry, and Composition, and she has taught in a variety of settings, including College of the Redwoods, the Sebastopol Art Center and Sacramento City College. She has been the director of the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference since 2005.
	Jean Hegland Jean Hegland is the author of a book of nonfiction, The Life Within: Celebration of a Pregnancy, and two novels, Windfalls and Into the Forest. Into the Forest has been translated into a dozen languages and been chosen for a number of college- and community-wide reading programs; Windfalls is often book group pick; and portions of The Life Within have been excerpted in a college English textbook, a high school science textbook, and a book about journal-keeping for pregnant women. Her third novel, Rapids, is currently with her agent, and she is at work on another novel, tentatively titled So Quick Bright Things. Jean Hegland has taught creative writing at Santa Rosa Junior College for many years, as well as teaching at the Mediterranean Center for Arts and Sciences in Sicily, and the University of York St. John in York, England. She lives in the hills west of Healdsburg. Website		Rebecca Lawton Rebecca Lawton is an author, writing guide, and natural scientist. Her written work has received literary honors that include Pushcart Prize nominations in nonfiction and poetry as well as the Ellen Meloy Fund Award for Desert Writers. She has been a workshop leader at the Wellspring Retreat for Writers. Website
	Jordan Rosenfeld Jordan E. Rosenfeld is a fiction writer, freelance journalist and editor. She is the author of the books, Make A Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time (Writers Digest Books, 2007) and Write Free! Attracting the Creative Life with Rebecca Lawton (Wavegirl Books/Kulupi Press, 2007). She also edited Zebulon Nights: An Anthology of LiveWire Readers (Word Riot Press, 2002). Website		Richard Schmidt Award winning artist and author R.V. Schmidt is a long time resident of Lake County and has been involved in several local writing projects including Reads (i-Universe 2006), an anthology of writings from the Lakeside Writers Guild and the play "Lakeside Stories" (weaver Auditorium, Lower Lake, January 2005). The co-creator and former editor of Creative Expressions, a bi-monthly venue for local writers in the Lake County Record Bee, has recently published Single Tree: A Collection of Stories (Tenacity Press 2008). Website
	Terena Scott Terena Scott is the owner/publisher of Medusa's Muse, a Small Press in Northern California. She started the press because she loves everything about books, from the story to the font, from the cover design to the paper. Now, thanks to Medusa, when she isn't chasing her 12-year-old daughter, she can completely immerse herself in book production and editing. Combined with chocolate, she's in heaven. Website		Sheldon Siegel Sheldon Siegel is the New York Times bestselling author of six critically-acclaimed, best-selling courtroom dramas featuring San Francisco criminal defense lawyers Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez. His books have appeared on the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle best seller lists. His books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into eight languages. Sheldon began writing his novels on a laptop computer during his daily commute on the Larkspur ferry. A graduate of Boalt Law School at UC-Berkeley, Sheldon has been in private law practice in San Francisco for more than twenty-five years, and he specializes in corporate and securities law with the international law firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton. He lives in Marin County with his wife, Linda, a computer graphics artist, and their twin 17 year-old sons, Alan and Stephen. His seventh novel, Perfect Alibi, will be released in the summer of 2009.
	Amy Wachspress Amy Wachspress recently self-published The Call to Shakabaz, a middle grade fantasy book with a twist it is set in an African-American cultural context, with all brown characters and it offers a refreshingly different perspective on adventuring in make-believe lands. Website