The committee is an advisory board composed of writers strong-armed by
Adair Lara into lending their teeming brains and wit to this enterprise (for free!).
They will have a role in designing features, resolving disputes, judging contests, and
whatever else they decide is a good role for them to have. They almost all live in the Bay Area,
as that is where Matchwriters began.
Margee Robinson
My day job is to find the one photo that is worth a thousand words. At
night, shrouded in San Francisco fog, I collect words, along with notebooks, quotes and dictionaries, writerly stuff,
stuff to avoid writing. It takes a lot of effort to not write. Imagine my excitement at being asked to be on the Matchwriters.com
committee. I get to hang out with writers -- good writers, writers who
write, writers who publish, writers who enjoy a glass of wine and a lively
dinner party to talk about writing, editing, new web sites, writer's blogs,
the latest books and workshops.
What could be better than being surrounded
by writers talking about writing and the best ways to encourage writers to
write, to find partners, to start groups? This is just the best creative
stall ever. I made the mistake of taking a couple of Adair's classes,
hoping the term "writing" class meant talking about writing. But no, it
meant writing. Now I've found the perfect place to not write.
Matchwriters.com committee. Helping writers write. It's terrific. Almost
feels like writing.
Anne Sigmon
My love affair with writing began with my seventh grade essay on Gunga Din.
I parlayed my journalism degree into a 25-year career as a public relations writer and manager.
In January, 2002, on a rainy workaday Wednesday, I suffered a career-ending stroke caused by an obscure autoimmune disease I
didn’t knew I had. I could no longer remember my address, my husband’s name, or how to dial 911.
I was 48 years old. In the months after my stroke, I began writing creative non-fiction as therapy to regain language skills.
My personal essays have appeared in local and national publications including “Good Housekeeping.” I am currently working on a
memoir about my experience with stroke and autoimmune disease. I live with my husband, Jack, and two Siamese cats, Scotty Fitz and Maggie, in Lafayette, California.
Linda Kilby
After taking classes from Adair and Jon Carroll, I've had articles
published in Salon, Moxie, Pindeldyboz, and mcsweeneys.net. And I've
been in some great writing groups. But the past four years the
writing has sputtered, mostly lists - "Milk. AGAIN!?!" Despite this
lull, I have the best writing partner in my friend Holly, who gives
sharply honed critiques, makes me laugh like crazy, and proves
herself shockingly tolerant of Max and Tom, small persons who grow at
an alarming rate and actively contribute to my slow literary output.
My hope is that all of you find resources here to help you, be they
critiques, partners, or groups. Sitting down to write can be as easy
to avoid as sit-ups and flossing, but a community can encourage
regular practice and give great support.
Emilie Munger Ogden
If you want to find my published work, you will have to track down obscure legal journals, such as Federal Facilities Environmental Journal,
or back issues of the illustrious Daily Commerce, a Los Angeles-based business daily where
I once served as an editor and reporter. My more creative attempts have log-jammed in the recesses of
my closet. I have, nonetheless, completed a yearlong course in playwriting at the University of Washington, and
two courses with Adair Lara in first-person writing. When not trying to teach three young sons how to "go around the tree"
instead of doing "bunny ears" while tying shoes, I try to write poems, or the beginnings of stories.
Georgia Zweber
I’m a lapsed English major who went into technology in the eighties (calculate age here) as financial freedom is important to me. I have written and published
technical articles (don’t regard this as being “published”). My poetry has been lightly published. I want to strengthen my story and essay skills.
I need to concentrate on structure.
My favorite fiction is usually written in the first person, and writing in the first person is new, refreshing, and frightening for me.
Favorite recent reads:Truth and Beauty, Ann Patchett, Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion.
Some books that irritated me: The Da Vinci Code,Poisonwood Bible.
Robert Doane
I discovered my vocation as a writer while flunking out of sophomore English at Berkeley in the 1950's and spent
the next four decades roaming four continents and raising four children in search of material.
I am currently working on personal memoir and poetry in several writing circles in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I recently self-published 200 business cards on which I identify myself as a 'writer.”
Eva Williams
I have spent most of my adult life in the business world where for more than twenty-five years I worked up a good sweat on the
entrepreneurial treadmill, starting up and running companies (from finance businesses to digital video production studios),
raising money and learning to play nice with venture capitalists. Two years ago, against the advice of every other writers,
agent and publisher I knew (or knew of), I quit my day job to embark on a second career as a writer. I never looked back.
I am now crafting the final pages of a memoir about my decade-long journey with my daughter through her struggle with anorexia and
am beginning to lay plans for my first novel. I credit the near-completion of my memoir to the encouragement and advice I got from gutsy
writing partners and great teachers (most prominently, Adair). Now, to nail that final chapter ...
Lori Writer
Do not let my surname fool you: I am an accountant. My desk is blanketed with bank statements and invoices. My hand is cramped from signing
hundreds of checks-my signature is so automatic that, if I concentrate on my pen strokes, I forget how. Signer's block. I can hold a pencil
in my left hand and tick each entry in a column of numbers while tapping them into the adding machine with my right. Writers pursue degrees
in English, not Business, and get MFA's not CPA's. Perhaps I should cede this name to someone who can use it. Someone whose purse is overflowing
with scraps torn from newspapers because they remind her of stories she means to write.
Someone who, on her morning commute, imagines the life of the woman at the bus stop with the worn purple coat and the tattered red Macy's bag.
Someone who brings so many books to bed, she slides them under the bed before dozing off because the stack on the nightstand threatens to topple.
Someone who secretly welcomes the long Saint Paul winter so she can have an excuse to
stay indoors and write. I cannot help being a Writer. I was born one.