Any Obligatory Hug or RRWG flyers out there?

Dear Open Huggers, if you have any Russian River Writers' Guild archives, please leave a comment. We are missing most Open Hug flyers for 1985. We suspended publication of the Hug for the summer of 1986 (and offered a quarterly rebate on $5—which no one took up, TG). But one more Hug appears in 1987—so the bitter demise of the Hug was greatly exaggerated. Otherwise, there are vast holes in the timeline. Checks fill in some gaps. We are missing most flyers from 1985 (but I have the poems from the flats)—and  we are missing flyers from 1987 onward to the last reading. When was it? It would be fab if someone actually knew when the series actually ended.....  Years 1991 to 1993 are MIA, was that when we were at Higher Grounds, then Mudd's? When did we move to the Johnny Otis Club? No flyers at all from those years...I was a long term emcee, then David Bromige, et al...

In January of 1982, the Russian River Writers' Guild began its journey towards becoming an official incorporated 501c3 Non-Profit Organization with the state of California in order to apply for California Arts Council grants. The RRWG wrote, and received a CAC grant in 1984-85. I have no idea what the CAC grant award was, somewhere between $2000 and 3500. But I do remember that it required a lot of paperwork, filing taxes, and ultimately the responsibilities required, foundered the organization. But during 1985, we were able to pay visiting poets decent reading fees—one of our goals. This was before Poets & Writers had reading stipend grants for visiting poets.

After years of inactivity, the Russian River Writers' Guild as a legal 501c3  non-profit entity, was officially and legally dissolved with the state of California on January 31, 2001.

I've created a database list below the year entries. It should pull up every event for each featured poet. See far right column.

RRWG VENUES

• 1976 (1) Odd Fellows Junction/Brothers

• 1978 (2) May, Garbo's

• 1979 (3) Garbo's

• 1980 (7) Garbo's

• 1981 (8) Garbo's

• 1982 (10)  Garbo's, March-Copperfield's

• 1983 (7) Copperfield's, Franklin St. Clubhouse

• 1984 (6)  Franklin St. Clubhouse, March-Burbank Activity Center

• 1985 (2) Burbank Activity Center

• 1986 (4) Burbank Activity Center

• 1987 (1) Burbank Activity Center

• 1988 (4) Burbank Activity Center

• 1989 (1) Burbank Activity Center

• 1990 (3) Burbank Activity Center

• 1994 (2) 91-93 MIA (Higher Grounds, Mudd's?), Johnny Otis Club 

• 1995 (3) Mudd's (Looks like we bounced around a bit

          1996 (1) Higher Grounds

 1997 (1) Copperfield’s

RIP Johnny Otis, RRWG Godfather

RIP Johnny Otis

Johnny Otis (Mr. "Hand Jive"), surveying his Sebastopol ranch in the early 1990s. After a leisurely latte interview in his sunlit kitchen, he walked me down to the barn to show me his paintings and sculptures. Johnny was our godfather benefactor for The Russian River Writers' Guild. He called me up one afternoon after I did a front page story on him for The Paper, and he asked if I'd be willing to host a poetry reading series at his Sebastopol cafe on blue Mondays. I asked him why he called me versus myriad other Sonoma County poets and he said, "I only work with the best people, I asked around and you're the best." The only catch is you have to book someone every Monday night." We only booked two events a month. For two years, I worked my ass off rounding up poets every week. Luckily I had help: David Bromige, Steve Tills, and other Sonoma County poets pitched in. Great PA sound system. Great ambiance. Great poets. Great man. RIP Johnny.

See Dan Taylor's Press Democrat obit: Sonoma County musicians mourn Johnny Otis
(I'm quoted in it).

Founding member of Russian River Writers Guild Marianne Ware dies from diabetes complications

‘Poet, novelist, and the grande dame of belles letters’

Marianne Ware

by Frank Robertson
Sonoma West Staff Writer
Jul 23, 2010

• 
  
  A celebration in the Sebastopol Community Center this Saturday (July 24) will pay tribute to Marianne Ware, the West County poet and teacher who died in Santa Rosa on June 21. She was 74.
  
  The cause of death was complications from diabetes, said friends.
  
  Ware was a founding member of the Russian River Writers Guild in the 1980s and became a beloved teacher and mentor to innumerable West County writers who praised her wit, passion, irreverence and progressive political activism.
  
  “She was an outspoken, flamboyant, creative person who really wanted to help other people find themselves through writing,” said Sonoma County writer Simone Wilson, who met Ware in the 1980s when the Russian River Writers Guild held weekly poetry readings at Garbo’s, a bar and community gathering place in a former bowling alley in Guernewood Park.
  
  A Marianne Ware Memorial Page is now accessible online where friends have posted messages in her memory.
  
  “Poet, novelist and the grande dame of belles letters — the epistolary packin’ mama and mentor of countless Sonoma County writers,” wrote writer and Russian River Writers Guild member Maureen Hurley.
  
  Ware was retired from teaching english and creative writing at Santa Rosa Junior College. Her most recent book, “The meaning of Water,” was published this year as part of a Redwood Writers project through the California Writers Club.
  
  The collection of stories “runs the gamut from intense childhood experiences to contemporary satire aimed at genealogists, would-be poetry contest winners and Vegan dietary diehards,” said a Redwood Writers Club description of the book that’s available online at redwoodwriters.org.
  
  The book “was something she was so proud of at the end of her life,” said friend and fellow writer Kate Farrell. “It was a special part of the last years of her life.”
  
  Ware moved to Guerneville with her husband and three daughters in 1969, organized and energized numerous creative writing groups over the years and produced several volumes of poetry and prose of her own.
  
  She received her MFA degree from Vermont College in 1984 and published poetry, fiction and non-fiction in more than a hundred literary magazines, anthologies and tabloids including “Red Diaper Babies: Growing up in the Communist Left” (University of Illinois Press); “Salt Water, Sweet Water” and Cartwheels on the Faultline” (Florient Press). Her work has also appeared in Iowa Woman, the Modularist Review, Green Fuse and many others. She was the recipient of an NEA grant for her fiction. Her poetry chapbook, “Bodies Nearly Touching,” was published by Doris Green Editions. A satiric novel, “The Warzog Era,” followed.
  
  Ware shared her love of writing, along with her enthusiasm and irreverent sense of humor with generations of students over her 21 years as an English teacher at SRJC.
  
  “The only things she loved more than a good book or a beautifully written poem were her seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren,” said her family. “Her lively wit and gift with words lives on in them.”
  
  She is survived by her husband of 55 years, David Ware; daughters, Laurie Celli, Wendy Whitson, and Carrie Ware-Kawamoto; grandchildren, Angelo, Vincent, Nicholas, Gabriel, Rosemary, Mia, and Carly; and great-grandchildren, Sofia and Dylan.
  
  She had wanted an “awake” before her death, rather than a wake, said friends.
  
  The July 24 memorial will be held from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at the Sebastopol Community Center Youth Annex, 390 Morris Street, Sebastopol.
  
  Note bene: I made a memorial blog for Marianne Ware at 
  marianneware.blogspot.com

Marianne Ware Obituary, Press Democrat

Marianne Ware
July 1, 2010 -- Brett Wilkison Press Democrat

Marianne Ware, a Guerneville poet and author who co-founded the Russian River Writers' Guild and taught English and creative writing at Santa Rosa Junior College for more than two decades, died June 21 in Santa Rosa.

The cause was an infection related to her long struggle with diabetes. She was 74.

A passionate if prickly figure in local writing and academic circles, Ware forged a late-blooming career as an author and teacher after she moved to Sonoma County in the late 1960s and joined the SRJC faculty as a part-time instructor in the late 1980s.

Ware's poetry, fiction and non-fiction were published in more than a hundred literary magazines, anthologies and tabloids. She wrote memorably of her childhood in New York state as the daughter of Communist Party members in the anthology "Red Diapers."

Her most recent published work was a 2008 collection of stories, "The Meaning of Water," on childhood, would-be poets and vegan dietary diehards. A longer work of fiction, "The Warzog Era," described as a satirical novel, is still unpublished.

Ware earned a reputation as a tireless and quixotic mentor at SRJC and in the numerous creative writing groups she participated in over the years. Former students and fellow authors praised her irreverent humor, quick wit and larger than life personality.

"She wanted you to experience her sense of things," said Kate Ferrell, a member of the locally based Redwood Writers club.

Outspoken by nature, Ware also took strong, public stances on the issues of her day. She marched against the Vietnam War, supported Cesar Chavez and the farm workers' movement and later took up a legal fight against the junior college for what she said was discrimination against her on the basis of her age and gender.

Ware said she was denied a full-time instructor position on both counts. A 1994 legal claim she filed against the college was later dismissed.

"She was dogmatic," said Wendy Whitson, one of Ware's three daughters. "She was always grabbing at a cause, picking it up and taking it too far. She certainly wasn't meant to be a stay-at-home mom."

Born in 1936 and raised in New York state, the former Marianne Horowitz spent summers at Camp Unity, which her father Max Horowitz managed for the Communist Party. Ware later described the spot as a paradise for kids.

"There was camaraderie," she said in a 1999 interview with The Press Democrat. "There was theater, folk music, dance. It was interracial, too. It felt safe there."

A notorious 1949 incident in Peekskill, N.Y. changed all that. A teenager at the time, Ware witnessed a right-wing mob attack at an outdoor concert and rally headlined by African-American singer, actor and Communist Party activist Paul Robeson. Audience members, Ware later recalled, were left with "busted and bloody heads."

"I realized we were in hostile territory," she said in the 1999 interview.

Her family later moved to Southern California where she met and married her husband David Ware in 1955.

In 1969 the couple moved to Rio Nido where they ran a riverside resort, the Stardust Lodge, for several years. They later relocated to Guerneville.

Ware started teaching at Santa Rosa Junior College in 1982. She earned a master's degree in creative writing from Vermont College in 1984 and retired in 2003.


Friends, former students and fellow authors said she was a gifted mentor.

"In her eyes, every person had worth, something to say, something to contribute," her friend Donna Champion wrote Tuesday in an online tribute to Ware.

In addition to her husband and daughter Wendy of Petaluma, Ware is survived by daughters Laurie Celli of Forestville, and Carrie Ware-Kawamoto of Pleasant Hill; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

A memorial service is planned from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. on July 24 at the Sebastopol Community Center Youth Annex, 390 Morris Street.


Note bene: I made a memorial blog for Marianne Ware at marianneware.blogspot.com

Dare I read? Glenn Ingersoll muses over the Russian River Writers' Guild

Dare I read?

Monday, May 23, 2005

Russian River Writers' Guild

As far as a social life goes I didn’t have much of one. Besides the rather distant Oz Club I did get to be around people at the Russian River Writers’ Guild reading series which ran for several years at a senior center in Sebastopol. It was in easy walking distance of my house and people would show up from around Sonoma County, mostly the west county, that is, west of Santa Rosa. Guerneville, Bodega Bay, Graton.

I would read at the open and had a few features. There were good poets and mediocre poets and crappy poets, like in every scene. Do I remember any names? Jayne McPherson, Joe Pahls, Marianne Ware, Ann Erickson … I have the RRWG anthology around somewhere. I’ll get to it in another post.

3 comments:

Steve said...

No kidding, Glen, there's an "RRWG anthology?"

You may recall that David Bromige, Maureen Hurley, and I were co-directors of the series in the early 1990's.

Steve Tills
theenk.blogspot.com

December 19, 2008 at 11:46 AM

Glenn Ingersoll said...

hi Steve,

A stone's throw : the Russian River Writers' Guild Anthology v. 1
Sebastopol, CA : Russian River Writers' Guild, 1990.

That's the cataloging information from the Sonoma County Library. The copy at the Rohnert Park branch is checked out! Was there ever a second volume?

I moved to Berkeley shortly after Stone's Throw was published so didn't keep up on the doings of the RRWG in 90s.

Are you still involved?

December 19, 2008 at 9:19 PM

Steve said...

Well, no, I moved "back east" to western New York in 1998, after 17 years in Sonoma County (I taught at SRJC for ten years, actually, also).

Possibly, you knew Marianne Ware, also a teacher at SRJC; she was involved with RRWG, also.

I see you posting at Silliman's blog every now and then. I did M.A. thesis called _A Primer to Language Poetry_ -- focusing primarily on Ron S., Lyn Hejinian, and Barrett Watten -- in 1988 under David Bromige's guidance. I have a blog at theenk.blogspot.com. Stop by some time. :)

RRWG dissolved Jan 31, 2001

The Russian River Writers' Guild was officially and legally dissolved with the state of California on January 31, 2001.

Maureen Hurley & Martin Hickle at Copperfield’s Cafe