A supper club connecting
Whatcom writers and industry speakers
Online meeting Dec. 9th
We had a bit of change up--our planned speaker is to have a talk with Village Books on Thursday the same week so as to not keep you from that talk, we have Cami Ostman coming to talk on Wednesday. Details for both talks are provided.
Join us online for a talk from the Narrative Project.
Cami and Anni will share some of their methods for ensuring that authors complete their book projects, including addressing self-doubt and creating space for writing and developing a support network. They will also give details about a free writing conference coming up in January.
Cami Ostman holds a B.Ed. in English from Western Washington University and an M. S. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Seattle Pacific University. In addition to her memoir, Second Wind, She is the co-editor of Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions, a contributor to Adventures Northwest, and to her own blog, 7marathons7continents.com. She is also one of the founders of Red Wheelbarrow Writers, a community of writers in Western Washington, and a blogger for psychologtoday.com. She has been profiled in Fitness Magazine and her books have been reviewed in O Magazine, The Atlantic, and Washington Post.
Anneliese (Anni) Kamola is an author and developmental editor living in Bellingham, Washington (anneliesekamola.com), as well as a coach and the executive assistant for The Narrative Project. She has published work in True Stories Volume I (2019) and True Stories Volume II (2020), as well as in WWU’s Fairhaven College literary magazine, Inkspeak (2010). Anni has written, produced, and performed two solo dance/theater/storytelling performances, This Is My Body (2011) and Filling the Void (2013), and a solo storytelling show, Stories of Strong Women from Around the World (2015). Anni’s writing is informed by neurobiology, attachment theory, and trauma/resiliency studies. She loves music, dance, good food, family, and international travel.
How to access the event:
1. Go to
2. On the front page, you will see “Next up at the Village.”
3. Click on the WWP event. This link will also get you to the right place. https://www.villagebooks.com/event/litlive-wwp-111120
4. Below the logo, you will see “CLICK TO ATTEND.” You need to do this ahead of time—now is a good time—but you can do it a few minutes ahead of the meeting.
5. The meeting will go live at 7pm, so if you get there early, you will not see a video. However, the chat box will be live, so you can start commenting. We encourage you to post links to your pages, news about your books, or simply your greetings to the group.
6. If you are attending your first-ever WWP meeting, we are looking into inviting you up to introduce yourself. Unlike Zoom, not everyone attending will be visible or audible.
Village Books -- Thursday December 10th
Gigi Berardi
We all eat – that makes us all experts on eating, doesn’t it? Yet dozens of times a day we struggle with tough decisions about not only what to eat (are eggs really as bad for us as smoking a pack of cigarettes?) but also how much (those low-fat diets don’t always shed pounds). Clearly, we live in a culture awash with advice on nutrition and eating—even during the holidays. Gigi Berardi’s FoodWISE instead, gives us a WISE view of food: Whole, Informed, Sustainable, and Experienced. It's a personalized tour through our entire food system, from farm to plate, reviewing up-to-date, sometimes surprising scientific insights into popular diets and how we make our decisions about what to eat. Offering seemingly counterintuitive lessons that challenge us to reassess many food beliefs, FoodWISE is one part memoir, one part research science, one part cookbook—it has just been awarded a silver medal in the Living Now Book Awards, and one part empowerment to revolutionize the way we think about food choices. Join us for what could be on the menu for this holiday season.
Gigi Berardi is a professor at Western Washington University and free-lance writer. She maintains the popular food blog “FoodWISE” and “Food and Resilience” vlog, and has written numerous articles for general and scientific audiences alike. Her work has appeared in outlets including the LA Times and BioScience among others, and her public radio features (for KSKA, Anchorage, Alaska) have been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists. Her most recent book, FoodWISE, has been endorsed by over 30 food thought-leaders (including food journalists Michael Pollan and Pulitzer awardee Michael Moss) and has been listed as one of “19 reads that inspire us and challenge us to be better activists, environmentalists, cooks, policymakers, protectors of the planet, farmers, supporters of pollinators and advocates for a better food system” (Forbes.com). In September, it received a silver medal, Living Now Book Awards.
To attend this talk follow the same directions as above but use this link
New to WWP
Welcome, Pacific Northwest Writers!
We meet every second Wednesday from September to June in scenic Bellingham, WA. Supper starts at 5:30, and the speaker starts at 7:00. Happy hour prices at Nikki's Bella Marina (see map below) apply until 6, if you want a drink to relax while you chat and have dinner upstairs in the Skyline room.
The 2020-2021 year Dues are suspended. Dues are 25 dollars a year or 40 for two years. We use the dues to pay for our speakers to come from around the region, and for an occasional table at local writer events. Our dues year runs from September to June, like our meetings, but will roll over if you pay late in the cycle. If you want to try us out first, feel free. Speakers in the past have included authors Cami Ostman and Robert Dugoni, and agent Donald Maass, covering topics such as social media, self-publishing, memoirs, mixed media, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. It is our goal to offer something for everyone, no matter your place in the writing journey-- just starting or long-published. Old school or new. If you have an idea for a speaker or topic, let us know, but if it has been covered recently it might not be picked up.
Pay your dues
25 for 1 year
40 for 2 years
40 for couples
To pay online, please provide name and email address on the form so we can keep track of you.
We have a paypal account if you would prefer to pay on line. You can also pay by check; just drop it off with the treasurer at a meeting.