Hi Everyone! We've missed you!

We are getting amped up for this year's festival...taking place June 12-20 this year at the San Mateo Fairgrounds! We want to hear from YOU!! Send us your reflections from last year's festival.........

We will be posting photos and reflections of our own in the coming days but would love to hear yours!

There are also lots of new exciting things taking place within the Creative Arts Department and we want to share!

Keep your eyes peeled for updates on this blog... and follow us on Twitter- we'll be tweeting about the fair and also about other interesting things to do in the Bay Area!!


Looking forward to another great year at the Festival...this time in JUNE!!!


-Creative Arts Department

Friday- Sunday Schedule

Here is the lineup for the next few days! Come to the Festival with a purpose! We are in the large Expo Hall, amidst the Floral Department, Home Arts Department and the vendors......
Come grab a drink and join us at the Creative Arts Stage!


Friday, August 21:
12:00-1:30- Geri Spieler : Telling True Stories
3:00-4:00- Red Desert Dance Company
4-5:30-Laurel Anne Hill: Breathing Life Into Your Writing
6-7:30 Literary Winners Readings

Saturday, August 22:
12-1:30- Inés Villafañe-León: The Foreign Challenge- The Dream of Becoming a Writer
1:30-2:00- Peter Gin: author on stage
2:00-3:00- Floral Department's Second Judging/Tasting
3:15-4:00- Peter Gessner: author on stage
4:30-5:30- Angel Simmons: Harpist

Sunday, August 23:
1:00-3:00- Luisa Adams, Martha Alderson and Teresa LeYung Ryan: Three Stories, Three Writers, Three Paths
4-5:30- Laura Weinbach, experimental folk artist
5:30-6:30- Jonathan Tomczak, an author reads.

Red Desert Dance Troupe

Back to enchant us at the Festival for the second time is the Red Desert Dance Troupe!! Four of the lovely ladies will be on the Creative Arts Stage from 5-6:00 THIS evening!


They will also be on stage this Friday from 3-4!

Don't miss the sword balancing, poi, double veil, duets, drum solos... and join us for audience participation and learn to shimmy along with the Red Desert Dance Company!


Fore more info on Marie and her Dancers, visit them online!: Red Desert Dance Company

Foxtails Brigade @ Chasing The Moon 8.06.09 from Scott McDowell on Vimeo.

Laura Weinbach, half of the duo 'Foxtails Brigade' will be on the Creative Arts Stage today from 6-7:30. She will be sharing a set with Bay Area acoustic-metal group, Judgement Day.

"...Weinbach's lyrics never fail on the storytelling front, whether she's channeling a scary doll that comes alive in the dark of night or writing about a psychotic student. In the latter song, "For Leo," she sings, "But I have known your kind before / You're linked by paper cuts and sores / Rotten green banana eyes / With chocolate milk and hungry flies." Creepy yet compelling, Foxtails dare you to turn away." -Kat Renz, SF Bay Guardian.

Author Spotlight: Diana Orgain

Diana Orgain was born in San Francisco, CA. As a child she loved Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries and dreamed of being a writer one day.

She went on to earn her B.A and M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University with a minor in acting.

Diana has acted professionally in many theater roles and national commercials. She wrote several plays, which were produced at San Francisco State University, GreenHouses Productions, and PlayGround in San Francisco. But then a funny thing happened – on the way to becoming a mystery writer, she went and had a baby…

Bundle of Trouble: A Maternal Instincts Mystery was inspired by the transformational experience that motherhood brings. Battling sleep deprivation, diaper blowouts and breastfeeding mishaps Diana muddled through the creation of her first manuscript, Mommy style. Bundle of Trouble is her debut novel, the first in this humorous series published by Berkley Prime Crime. Diana continues to live in the beautiful city by the bay, San Francisco, with her husband and their children.

Diana will be presenting her workshop "Write a great scene in 6 easy steps" on Wednesday, August 19 from 12-1:30 pm!

To check out more about Diana, visit her online at: dianaorgain.com

Author Spotlight: Joyce Robins

Joyce Robins says, "I have been writing stories and poems since childhood and have just completed a manuscript, a memoir in episodic style of growing up in Toronto in the 1920’s and i930’s. My earliest influences were my grandmother, my mother, six aunts and two uncles, a large co-operative, creative, story telling family who all lived together. My mother was the oldest of grandmother’s nine children and I was the precocious child in their midst- an observer and participant. Men were scarce in our family as men tended to die early. My stepfather was a teacher, folklorist, a writer who in spite of everything had a profound influence on my development as a writer.

"My first piece of literary writing “An American Wife in Madrid” was published in ‘The Reconstructionist’ in 1959. In the mid 1960’s I wrote a series of articles for 3 Peninsula newspapers based on my experiences at W. & J. Sloanes’s on El Camino in Los Altos and Breuners Design Studios on Sutter Street in San Francisco. I had a by-line and the editor dubbed the column “Decorator’s Casebook.”

Joyce will be on the Creative Arts Stage today from 4-5pm, sharing with us her memories and ideas about writing memoir.

Tory Hartmann and Chris Wachlin: Demystifying Fiction

What IS fiction?

Tory Hartmann and Chris Wachlin are here to approach the genre of fiction in a new and accessible way during their workshop Demystifying Fiction- Tuesday August 18 from 1-2:30 pm.


Tory Hartmann
is a freelance writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her non-fiction has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Mateo County Times, and Parenting on the Peninsula. Her fiction has been published in The Sand Hill Review, Descant, The Hurricane Review, The Homestead Review, Ship’s Log: Writings at Sea, Tattoo Highway,
San Francisco Peninsula Review as well as many others. Her screenplays include Castro Confidential and three episodes of The Powerhouse Kids.

Chris Wachlin
Born and raised in Grand Chute, Wisconsin. Chris attended the University of Iowa, where he missed a lot of classes but did meet his beautiful wife, Jennifer, in French Composition. He has also lived in Vermont, New Hampshire, and the city of Boston, and currently lives in Redwood City, California. “Talking WriteMax!®” is his first published story.

Bring your pens, pencils and a ready and eager brain on over to the Creative Arts Stage THIS Tuesday!