In January I moved to the Sierra foothills: My husband and I bought a house in Nevada City. The little 49er-era mining town of 3,000 seemed a good place to be a writer: After all, I had met the novelist Josh Weil during a residency at the MacDowell Colony, and he seemed happy and productive living in Nevada City. And I knew that the organizers of the legendary Squaw Valley Community of Writers conference, which I had attended two summers earlier, lived in Nevada City, too. And of course, the TV writer and memoirist Heather Donahue lives here, and the poet Gary Snyder lives about 20 minutes outside town, way out on the famous North San Juan Ridge. And surely other writers I was yet to learn about.
I’ve been here seven months now, and I haven’t been disappointed: The tranquility of this place, the long walks down blackberry-entangled trails, the coffee shops, the abundant bookstores . . . It seemed the only thing this missing was a community reading series. Wouldn’t it be great to bring up Bay Area writers to read and mingle with the Sierra’s many talents?
And so, announcing a new reading series for the writer-rich Sierra foothills: Yuba Lit. We have a stellar lineup of readers for our first-ever event on September 24th at 7 p.m. at the Open Book in Grass Valley, CA. Novelist Joshua Mohr will be up from San Francisco to read with Auburn novelist Christian Kiefer and Nevada City poet-treasure Molly Fisk. The $5 cover benefits the Bear Yuba Land Trust, the amazing group responsible for the beautiful trails that ramble through these hills. Members of the audience are invited to read, too, by bringing one page or one poem to share during the opening round of flash readings, for which participants will be selected by lottery.
The plan is to hold Yuba Lit every other month. Future editions will always feature three readers: One Sierra writer, one Bay Area writer, and one emerging writer (a writer who has not yet published a book). We’ll have wine–and the intoxication of great writing. I can’t wait for the first Yuba Lit.
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