Mari Capon Acting, Artisan, Arts Administration, Ballet, Ballroom, Children's, Choreography, Dance, Directing, Fiber Art, Fiction, Folk Art, Hip-Hop & Funk, Illustration, Improvisation, Improvisation, Latin, Literature, Media, Modern, Muralist, Music, Non-Fiction, Other, Other, Other, Painting, Performance Art, Poetry, Printmaking, Puppetry, Sculpture, Storytelling, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth, Theatre, Video, Visual Arts, Vocal Mari has been professionally involved in the arts world for over twenty years. As a child, she was a creative dancer at Virginia Tanner's Children Dance Theater, and she oil painted and sang in choirs. As a teen she acted, and was a make-up artist, poet, essayist, and ballroom dancer, and in young adulthood, she was a tango dancer and professional performing artist as an Art Model for artists working for Disney, EA, and countless Universities, Ateliers, Institutes, and Studios, and especially enjoyed set, costume, and lighting designs for painters and illustrators. Upon realizing that she most enjoyed coaching artists through their process, she began teaching, first creating art curriculum for a K-12 after-school program while becoming bilingual in Peru, before returning to the U.S. to become a certified cognitive movement, creative dance, and preschool music instructor. She began providing, teaching, and consulting for bilingual preschools and Summer Camps, tutoring, and coaching gymnastics, and continued to teach the arts and sports. She also taught inclusive sex education and spiritual development for children at interfaith, non-denominational churches, and facilitated somatic processing, while attending weekly classes in various forms. As an undergrad, Mari authored an Interdisciplinary Arts Curriculum Program for Pre-K through 12th Grade and became credentialed. She will research, publish, and offer her program while continuing to teach Interdisciplinary Arts.

Leilani Clark Literature, Non-Fiction Raised in Hawaii and Los Angeles, Leilani Clark received a bachelor’s in English Literature from the University of California San Diego. She played in indie bands and traveled for a few years, before settling down to teach middle and high school English in New Mexico and Oakland. In 2008, she received an MFA in Writing and Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Her writing has appeared at The Guardian, Mother Jones, Civil Eats, The Press Democrat, The Rumpus, and other publications. A former staff writer at the North Bay Bohemian, she was a 2014 California Endowment Health Reporting Fellow, and her feature story about a federal crackdown on Northern California cannabis dispensaries won a California Newspaper Publishers Association award. She currently makes her living in nonprofit communications and as the editor of a regional food magazine. She lives in Santa Rosa with her family.

Jen Hyde Creative Sonoma Grantee, Literature, Media, Non-Fiction, Other

Jen Hyde is a writer, editor, and storytelling expert. Her essays have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Longreads and elsewhere.

A 2016 finalist for the Creative Capital Grant in Literature, and Jen has received fellowships from Yaddo, The Millay Colony, and the Asian American Writer's Workshop. Most recently she has been a 2023 scholar at the Sonoma County Writer's Camp and a 2023 Creative Sonoma ACE grantee. She is currently at work on a memoir about chronic illness and Chinese diasporic identity.

Amanda Janik Literature, Non-Fiction, Other, Performance Art Amanda Janik (yes, going for third person here, folks) lives in Sonoma County and spends her days writing, editing, proofreading, posting, cooking, drinking, saying 'no' to children, and trying to figure out who or what is pecking her chickens' eggs apart. A Cultural Ambassador for Out There Santa Rosa, Amanda's writing has also been published in The Sun Magazine, on Chacos.com, Silver Birch Press and throughout the Sonoma County Visitor's Guide, to name a few. She has also read her personal writing at Get Lit!, Lit Crawl, Lyrics & Dirges and more. In 2015 Amanda brought the hit stage show Mortified - which also has a documentary on Netflix and a popular weekly podcast - to Sonoma County. When not producing the local chapter, she can still be found performing on Mortified stages in San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Los Angeles and New York, with more to come. She has participated on behalf of Mortified at SF SketchFest, SF ImprovFest, and at private events she's not allowed to talk about.

Chelsea Rose Kurnick Creative Sonoma Grantee, Literature, Non-Fiction, Performance Art, Photography, Poetry, Visual Arts Chelsea Rose Kurnick (she/her) is a writer and artist from southern California living in Sonoma County. She earned a BA in Linguistics in 2010 from the University of California Riverside, where she was also editor-in-chief of Mosaic: A Journal of Literature and Art. In 2013-14, she created and hosted The Casserole, an online literary reading series that aired live on Youtube featuring remote guests from all over the world. Chelsea began studying the craft of poetry at age 15 and began curating literary arts events at 20. She attributes most of her education in writing to community workshops and weekly open mics, which she has sought out since 2005 in every city she’s lived. Chelsea believes that poetry and storytelling are powerful tools for building empathy and are at their most vital when experienced in person. Chelsea’s work explores longing and loss, sometimes personal and sometimes global in scope; she writes of messy partnerships and humankind’s tenuous relationship to the material world we inhabit.

Leslie M. Levy Acting, Artisan, Audio, Composition, Crew, Directing, Fiction, Film, Film Office, Folk Art, Improvisation, Literature, Media, Mixed, Multi-Media, Multimedia, Music, Non-Fiction, Other, Photography, Poetry, Production, Storytelling, Talent, Technical, Theatre, Video, Visual Arts, Vocal I am a developing multifaceted creative based in Sonoma County, offering a breadth of knowledge and growing experience. Currently a senior at Sonoma State University in Communication and Media, I am looking for collaborative and mentorship opportunities within Sonoma County primarily and the Bay Area at large. A writer to the bone, I have experience with video work of all kinds (mostly camera, lighting, and directing/producing, some with editing) as well as some audio experience (ever-expanding because it is my second passion next to writing). I believe I have a lot to offer in a wide range of areas and love helping creative juices flow like watersheds into a project.

Eileen Nagle Acting, Artisan, Children's, Choreography, Directing, Fiction, Film Office, Folk Art, Improvisation, Jewelry, Literature, Non-Fiction, Other, Other, Other, Other, Performance Art, Poetry, Puppetry, Storytelling, Talent, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth, Theatre Eileen Nagle M.Ed is an elementary/ middle/ high school teacher who specializes in Children's Theatre. A native of West Sonoma County, Eileen writes and directs children's plays and teaches acting classes. Shakespeare for Children; Musical Theater, Improv and Playwriting all for children are at the center of her creativity. She would love to go to your space and direct during school, after school drama clubs, teach playwriting and work with the home school community, having homeschooled her own children. At the university level she taught teachers how to integrate the arts into their regular lesson plans; enhancing the enjoyment and retention of the core subjects. Eileen leads workshops for adults and older children to teach Script and Text Analysis based on Character Roles, a way to look at your own or other's work and evaluate how sound the structure of the story is. Playwriting/ Screenwriting At the University level Eileen taught Public Speaking, Interpersonal Communication and Theater For Elementary Teachers courses. She was the Outreach and Workshop Coordinator for the Noorda Theater for Children and Youth. Eileen would love to partner with home school groups, afterschool programs; mixed adult children groups would be fun. She has worked in most locations so a 'stage' is not necessary. The time of day and week is workable.

Jennie Orvino Ballroom, Dance, Latin, Literature, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Teacher/Instructor As a freelance content provider, I offer you the benefit of my life experience an engaged, passionate citizen-artist. I received my first diary at the age of 14 and have been a writer ever since. I have worked as an elementary school teacher, journalist, radio producer and on-air host, and for community television, advertising agencies, newspapers, publishers and non-profit organizations. In my career, I have learned the art of active listening and creative collaboration… and I work diligently, with complete respect for deadlines, to earn the respect of my colleagues and clients. It may not be practical for your business or organization to employ an in-house writer for newsletters, fund-raising letters, blogs, eBlasts, press releases, ads, brochures, catalogs, web content, reports, case studies, feature stories, bios and profiles. I can help! I also have six years’ experience in writing successful grant proposals and grant reports submitted to private foundations and government funders. (see writing samples section) My intention is to assist you with language that is clear, organized, intelligent, deep or light-hearted as appropriate, geared to its audience, and that speaks with the values and in the voice of you, your business, or the group you represent.

About Jennie Orvino

Jennie Orvino’s commercial writing credits include 11 years in the Marketing Department of the Santa Rosa Symphony, where she provided copy for press releases, brochures, print ads, newsletters, postcards, flyers and solicitation letters, as well as all the organization’s eCommunications and web content. In addition, she wrote grant applications and grant reports for the Symphony over a 6-year period. (Among grants received include the NEA, Hewlett Foundation, Irvine Foundation, Community Foundation Sonoma County, Santa Rosa Sunrise Rotary, Heller Foundation and Target.) Orvino has written and/or edited newsletters for Hillel at Stanford, Face to Face/Sonoma County AIDS Network, Actor’s Theater, Santa Rosa Church of Religious Science (now the Center for Spiritual Living) and other non-profit organizations. She also worked as production coordinator for Campbell & Associates Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations, and the Santa Rosa Business Journal (now North Bay Business Journal). Orvino has been a Literary Arts Producer for KRCB radio (NPR affiliate, 91.1 FM Sonoma County), where she contributed on-air interviews and book reviews (more than 20 shows of “Come Said the Muse” and “Word by Word”). She has had features published in Rohnert Park’s The Community Voice, Petaluma’s Argus Courier, the North Bay Bohemian and Sacramento News & Review. Jennie Orvino is the author of the book Poetry, Politics and Passion: memoir, poems, personal essays (2012) and a Grammy-nominated spoken word CD, Make Love Not War (2002). Her literary awards include: first prize poetry in Copperfield’s The Dickens contest; second prize poetry in the North Bay Bohemian Java Jive contest and the Don L. Emblen Award from Santa Rosa Junior College. In April 2012, Orvino was one of 10 women honored at the 6th Street Playhouse Women in the Arts Showcase. In 2014, she read in, and co-produced, the Steamy Sonoma County Erotica Salon series.

Roy Parvin Fiction, Literature, Non-Fiction Roy Parvin is the award-winning author of two books of fiction, The Loneliest Road in America and In the Snow Forest. He has recently completed a memoir entitled My Year of Sleeping Dangerously and is also the author (under the nom de namaste of Yoga Matt) of Yoga for the Inflexible Male, forthcoming this fall from Ten Speed Press, a division of Penguin Random House. His work has been selected for inclusion in the Best American Short Stories series, has been nominated many times for the Pushcart Prize, and has been widely anthologized. He has also been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Bread Loaf Fellowship, the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in fiction, and a Ucross fellowship. Roy is an accomplished teacher, having taught in the MFA program at San Francisco State University and at numerous workshops around the country.

Elizabeth Stark Literature, Media, Teacher/Instructor Elizabeth Stark co-directs and teaches at BookWritingWorld.com and SonomaCountyWritersCamp.com, co-hosts Story Makers Podcast (StoryMakersShow.com), is author of the novel Shy Girl (FSG, Seal Press), and co-director and co-writer of several several films, including FtF: Female to Femme, a creative documentary and Little Mutinies, a short (both distributed by Frameline). She earned an M.F.A. from Columbia University in Creative Writing and has taught at the Pratt Institute, UCSC, St. Mary’s, where she was the visiting distinguished writer, and elsewhere. She is currently producing a feature film called Lost in the Middle, and finishing a novel.

Nicholas Valdez Fiction, Literature, Non-Fiction, Teacher/Instructor I write and edit for those who need help finding their way through words. As an editor, I specialize in developmental editing, helping writers create, organize, and improve their work. Whether I'm writing or editing, I infuse my work with the awe I feel when I consider the structure, the complexity, and the beauty of the English language. I hold a Ph.D. in English from UC Riverside, where I studied film and visual culture, American literature, and rhetorical theory.

Charles Versaggi Literature, Non-Fiction, Photography, Visual Arts Like an insatiable moth, I've been a light chaser for many years. I love photography for its science, craft, art, and power to expand our vision. But most of all as a tool that enables us to see and share novel perspectives, informing stories that evoke feelings of awe, empathy, and community with the world around us. Charles Versaggi is a native San Franciscan of Italian heritage, who now lives in Petaluma. Earning a doctorate in marine biology, he learned to appreciate the wonders of nature both under and above the water — often with camera in tow. A mass-media science fellowship writing for the Milwaukee Journal paved the way to science writing, life science communications, and photojournalism. He has participated in juried group photo exhibitions and has published numerous articles and photoessays. He is currently working on North Beach Light (© 2018), a collection of photoessays that reflect on his early years of living in North Beach when it was the City’s “Italianita” and the center of Beat lifestyle, topless bars, and jazz clubs, leading to flower power and the Summer of Love.

Asherah Weiss Arts Administration, Creative Sonoma Grantee, Folk Art, Illustration, Improvisation, Mixed, Multi-Media, Muralist, Other, Other, Other, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Puppetry, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth, Theatre, Visual Arts Asherah Weiss is an educator, community artist, and organizer. Since graduating from California College of the Arts in 2011, she has helped start many projects that bring people together around arts and placemaking, in Sonoma County and the Bay Area, including the PLACE for Sustainable Living in Oakland, and womb space collaborative arts in Santa Rosa. Her belief in the democracy of the arts has inspired her to bring creativity to people of all ages and abilities, including as a credentialed art teacher at Healdsburg Junior High through the first school years of the pandemic. In 2022, she co-created the globally known project Peptoc, a hotline and series of posters with uplifting messages from kids (call 707-8PEPTOC), and is now continuing the project with Jessica Martin in the form of a book full of young people’s wisdom and humor from around the world. Her excitement lies in what creativity can do for the world— making things more collaborative, sustainable, beautiful and meaningful. Current Projects include:

Co-creator of the Peptoc Project, currently taking submissions for a book of uplifting messages from young people around the world. See peptoc.net
Programs Director at Artstart
Coordinator of Earth Protector Parade at the 1st Climate Fest on April 22nd, 2022 in the Healdsburg Plaza
Artist in Residence at West Side Elementary School

Amy A. Whitcomb Artisan, Fiction, Functional Art, Holidays Shop Local, Literature, Non-Fiction, Other, Other, Poetry I create fine art, functional art, and opportunities for myself and others to observe, reflect, discover, and build community through the written word. Please consider supporting my paper and book arts by purchasing blank journals for yourself and your loved ones. Each journal is unique -- made from repurposed, locally sourced materials -- to encourage reflection and creative expression. Please visit www.amyawhitcomb.com/artist to learn more about me.

Nicole R. Zimmerman Creative Sonoma Grantee, Fiction, Literature, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth

NICOLE R. ZIMMERMAN is a recipient of the 2019 Discovered Award for Emerging Literary Artists Grant, made possible, in part, with funds from Creative Sonoma and the National Endowment for the Arts.

She holds an MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco, which nominated her essay to the AWP Intro Journals Project. Her literary work is published in Creative Nonfiction, The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Los Angeles Times, The Rumpus, Hypertext Review, Sonora Review, The Dewdrop, About Place Journal, Halfway Down the Stairs, Toho, Cagibi, Ruminate, Noyo River Review, Birdland Journal, Origins, and South Loop Review, which nominated her work for a Pushcart Prize.

Nicole has freelanced as a reporter for Petaluma Patch, as a Towns correspondent for The Press Democrat, and as a copywriter for Viator/TripAdvisor. She is an alumna of Lit Camp, a juried writers conference. She designed curriculum and taught in K-5 at Sonoma Country Day School and led creative writing workshops in after-school programs in Petaluma.

Born in Brazil and raised (mostly) in Northern California, Nicole lives with her wife in Penngrove where she hosts Shut Up & Write!™ sessions and facilitates creative writing workshops (see Writing From Memory or Imagination on the creative calendar). She is an AWA affiliate, certified to lead workshops in the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) method.

CREATIVES

About Jennie Orvino