CONTRIBUTORS |
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Charlene Anderson received an MA in English Literature from Purdue University and an MA in Research Psychology from San Francisco State University and spent most of her working life at the University of California San Francisco in grant administration. As a child, she always knew she would write, told stories to her friends, and even invented a pen name for herself, Charles Andrè. So, while working on budgets and submitting grant proposals at UCSF, she continued to write and, in 2001 published a novel, Berkeley’s Best Buddhist Bookstore. When Vistas & Byways was launched in 2015, she was pleased to be asked to chair the Editorial Board. She has served in that capacity ever since.
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Contributions to this issue:
V & B Editorial Board Chair Author of Focus-In This Issue Fiction: Cul de Sac Wild, Western Dreamland Poetry: Roads |
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Barbara Applegate received a BA at UC Berkeley, with a major in Spanish, and an MS in Education at CSU, East Bay. As an administrator of Early Childhood Education, she developed a program to teach parents in non-English speaking families the value of helping their children retain the home language while learning English. She is the mother of 3 daughters, a traveler and a contemplative. She loves taking writing classes - not only because she learns from them, but because they give her structure for writing.
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Contributions to this issue:
Editorial Board Member Accent Photos Nonfiction: El Machismo Maybe a Motorcycle Brace Cove, Gloucester, MA Poetry: Sea-worn Photo Essays: Twist & Shout Inside OLLI Book Review - The Emancipation of Emily Rosenbloom, by Elinor Gale |
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Joe Catalano practiced law for more than 30 years before he retired in 2018. He has since pursued his interests in photography, high performance driving, travel and writing. He has enjoyed his first OLLI as SF State courses in the spring semester 2019 and thanks the members of the OLLI at SF State Poetry Writing interest group for their input and support. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Joan.
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Bernard Catalinotto is a 70-something native New Yorker who emigrated to the Bay Area in the 1980s. He has lived in Italy and the Middle East and worked over the world as an urban planner for Bechtel and as GIS manager for Thomas Bros Maps. He is currently a map publisher; they publish the Marin Community Map Book. As a volunteer, he has a leadership role at the Mill Valley Community Action Network and conducts Italian and French conversation clubs at the Mill Valley Public Library. He lives with his wife in Tam Valley, has two married children and (so far) one wonderful grandchild.
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Thomas O. Davenport is an independent writer and business advisor. He spent 32 years as a human resource consultant for a global consulting organization. He has written three business books and many serious articles and now writes sardonic verse on business and social phenomena that amuse and bemuse him. His collection of humorous poems, Get the Hell to Work, was published in 2020 by Kelsay Books. In addition to Vistas & Byways, his work has appeared in Defenestration, WORK Literary Magazine and in the anthologies Love Affairs at the Villa Nelle (Kelsay Books, 2019) and Tales from the Classifieds (Blue Cubicle Press, 2020). You can also read his writings on his website, www.worklodes.com.
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Elsa Fernandez grew up in Asia. She has lived in San Francisco since 1970 and never gets tired of this lovely city. She has travelled the world and still gets excited flying back home and to finally land at SFO. Her family is scattered around the world—India, Australia, Dubai, England, Ireland and Argentina. She is a political junkie and majored in Journalism and Political Science. She loves music and plays the piano quite well (one of her dreams was to own a piano bar in upcountry Maui . . . she would probably call it the Maui Moon!). Writing poetry is an emotional outlet for her.
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Contributions to this issue:
Nonfiction: Back to Provence Poetry: The Night Sky Bay Area Stew: What Did Saroyan Say? Inside OLLI: Book Review - Inner Sunset - by Heather Saunders Estes Photo Essays: Pandemic . . . Sunrise, Sunset |
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Find your passion and follow it! - Oprah Winfrey
Cathy Fiorello’s passions are food, Paris, and writing. A morning at a farmers’ market is her idea of excitement and visiting Paris is her idea of heaven. And much of her writing is about food and Paris. She worked in publishing in New York, freelanced for magazines during her child-rearing years, then re-entered the work world as an editor. She moved to San Francisco in 2008 and published a memoir, Al Capone Had a Lovely Mother. In 2018, she published a second memoir, Standing at the Edge of the Pool. Cathy has two children and four grandchildren. Her mission is to make foodies and Francophiles of them all. |
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Diane Frank is author of eight books of poems, three novels, and a photo memoir of her 400 mile trek in the Himalayas. Her new book, While Listening to the Enigma Variations: New and Selected Poems, is forthcoming from Glass Lyre Press. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she dances, plays cello, and creates her life as an art form. Diane teaches at San Francisco State University and Dominican University. She plays cello in the Golden Gate Symphony.
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Richard Giardina is a transplant from the Bronx and has been a San Francisco resident for the past 45 years. For 30 of those years, he was an administrator at SFSU, retiring in 2006 as Associate Vice President for Academic Planning and Assessment. At present, he is a self-employed higher education consultant and also an accreditation evaluator for the WASC Senior College and University Commission. His joys are cooking, watching old movies, listening to opera, traveling internationally, and taking photographs.
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Kathy Gilbert received her MFA from San Francisco State University in 2013 after a career in public transport. She received the Marc Linenthal Poetry Award in 2012 from SFSU and won the San Francisco Browning Society Gita Specker Award three times for her dramatic monologues. She was commissioned to write a play for the 2015 San Francisco Olympians Festival. Her one act Delphin and the Children of Amphitrite was performed at the Exit Theater. She also tutors third graders, studies tai chi, practices yoga and swims. Her new book Aprils Three: Poems and Photographs is now available locally at Bird & Beckett, West Portal Books, Green Apple on Clement and on Amazon.
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Matt Ginsburg received an MFA degree in Creative Writing with a concentration in playwriting at San Francisco State University. His work often explores his interest in business, economics, and politics. Matt has written several short stories, monologues, and comedy routines in addition to his focus on playwriting. His plays have been read or performed at numerous theaters in San Francisco. He has had two works published in previous editions of Vistas & Byways: “Finding My Father,” a memoir piece was published in fall 2019, and “Midnight in Morocco,” a short story was published in fall 2020.
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Fred Goldman has been an OLLI member for eight years and a member of the Curriculum Committee for six. He has been interested in photography for over 40 years, but his interest accelerated after his retirement, leading him to become an avid digital photographer utilizing robust post-processing computer software. This combination of art and technology has been appealing, considering his long career in the computer software field. Fred has been a member and officer of the Peninsula Camera Club in San Mateo where he has participated in numerous photo competitions. He enjoys traveling and documenting those trips photographically. He looks forward to new travel experiences when the pandemic ends. More of his images are available at https://fredgoldmanphotography.smugmug.com/
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A native of San Francisco, Kathryn Santana Goldman’s interest in poetry began when she was working in ICU as a registered nurse. She used this practice to process the variety of stressful scenarios experienced. Over the years, she has continued to experiment with different types of writing such as short stories and plays. As an avid traveler, Kathryn has become skilled at capturing photographs about the diversity she encounters. Three years ago, she began to combine her love of photography with her writing by using the images she captures as seeds for her poems. She continues to explore new ways to use these two art forms to share her experience with family and friends.
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Contributions to this issue:
Bay Area Stew: goldmanks-Day Trippers, NapaDay Trippers, Napa, October 2020 Poetry: Falling, November 2020 |
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Roberta Greifer worked as a librarian with the San Francisco Public Library for 28 years in both the Main Library and its branches. For 5 and 1/2 years, after she retired, she lived in Pennsylvania where she took care of her ailing parents, returning to San Francisco in 2012. While in Pennsylvania she was a prizewinner in the Ardmore Public Library Poetry Contest in 2007 as well as receiving a 2010 award for one of her poems in Philadelphia Poets. In addition to being published in their 2008 and 2010 journals, her poems have been published in Room, Quixote, The Santa Clara Review and Porter Gulch Review.
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Mary Heldman is retired from a career in medical school administration, computer programming, and business systems analysis. She grew up in Los Angeles, but lived in Palo Alto, Washington D.C., Cambridge, and Stony Brook, New York before settling in San Francisco in 1974. She tutors at a local high school, studies piano, and designs costume jewelry. From time to time she writes sardonic prose for her friends. Mary wishes she lived with a chocolate lab or a golden retriever, but she doesn’t.
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Contributions to this issue:
Editorial Board Member, Publicity |
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Harry (Hari) Huberman is a retired high school teacher who worked nearly 30 years mostly here in San Francisco. He is married and has two grown children. He enjoys painting, swimming, tennis, travel, baking bread, rock n roll, and has even self-published a book on travel. Most recently for the last two years he has volunteered at an adult education class, for beginning English learners who are adults from 18-70 from all over the world.
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A native San Franciscan, Jane Hudson has a BA in Psychology and an MA in Library Science from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a second BA in Art History from San Francisco State University. She is retired from a 27-year career as a librarian at the SF Public Library, where she was a district manager. Prior to that, she was a government documents librarian, a children's librarian, and a branch manager. Since 2014, she has focused on writing, taking a variety of writing classes at OLLI at SF State. In addition, she enjoys making art, attending theater and opera, getting together with friends and family, and working as a volunteer with the Bay Area Book Festival.
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Contributions to this issue:
Accent and Banner photos |
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Vivian Imperiale has been writing since she was six. She now writes to process her emotions around homelessness, mental health, connections with the spirit world, and the loss of the Light of her Life to AIDS long ago. Her poems and prose have been published online, in magazines and in books. She has a BA in Psychology and an MA in Special Education.
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Mike Lambert is a long-time resident of San Francisco and led the effort to start Vistas & Byways in the fall of 2015. In an earlier life, he worked in the telecommunications industry for 35 years and taught at San Franciso State University’s College of Business for 15 years. He refutes the adage about old dogs and new tricks. He took up creative writing as a hobby at age 75. He recently self-published two novels and a collection of his short stories. His main fictional character is Jessica Jones, a single working girl in contemporary San Francisco. See his Author page at Amazon under the name of M. L. Lambert for more details.
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Carol Langbort was a Professor of Education in Mathematics for 30+ years at SFSU, teaching teachers how to teach mathematics. She was Chair of the Department of Elementary Education, and for 15 years directed the SF Math Leadership Project, a professional development program for classroom teachers. She developed a master’s degree program in Mathematics Education. She is co-author of several books, including How to Encourage Girls in Math and Science and Building Success in Math. Recently, she was a volunteer for the de Young and Legion of Honor Museums. She is currently on the Board of Nicaragua Children’s Friendship Committee. She has studied Spanish for many years in language schools in Mexico and participates in the OLLI Spanish conversation group.
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Contributions to this issue:
Proofreader, Theme Topic |
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Linda Zamora Lucero is writing a collection of short stories set in San Francisco’s Mission District. She recently won first prize in the DeMarinis Short Story Contest, “Speak to Me of Love,” (to be published in Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, August 2021). Among her published stories are: “When It Rains” (Yellow Medicine Review, 2020, Pushcart nominee; “Mexican Hat,” Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century (Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, 2020); “Balmy Alley Forever,” (Santa Clara Review 2016, reprinted in Yellow Medicine Review, 2016); and “Take the Money and Run—1968” (Bilingual Review, 2015). Linda has a BA in Spanish from SFSU. She is the Executive/Artistic Director of Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, an outdoor performing arts series.
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Dina Martin was fortunate to have earned a living through writing, first as a newspaper reporter and later as an advocate for public education. She found her husband of 34 years the same way, by writing a personal ad in the Bay Guardian. Now retired, she occasionally finds time to write in between folk dancing, OLLI classes and trying to do a little good. She and her husband reside in Bernal Heights, and are happy to have their two adult children living and working nearby.
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Born and raised in Colorado, Angie Minkin has lived in San Francisco for 40 years. She raised two children in the City and now shares her home in the Excelsior District with her husband and two playful cats. All of these gentle beings keep her grounded and happy. In addition to exploring her voice through poetry, Angie practices yoga, dances, and travels to Mexico whenever possible. Her work has been published in several journals and she is a coauthor of Dreams and Blessings: Six Visionary Poets, published by Blue Light Press in 2020. Angie recently won first prize for a prose poem in the 2020 Keats Soul-Making Literary Competition.
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Contributions to this issue:
Editorial Board Member Poetry: On Insurrection It's a Boy The Ouija Board Says Negative Space |
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MJ Moore lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her various incarnations have included technical writer and editor, grassroots environmental activist, first grade teacher, poet and flash fiction writer, wife, and mother. As a bicoastal being, she thrives on salt air, wind and waves, but also loves mountains, deserts, and forests. Writing, for her, is a source of vision and joy. She has recently published a book of poems, Topography of Dreams (Blue Light Press, 2020).
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Carla Pasion was born in San Francisco. Recently retired from all gainful employment, she now practices writing, gardening, and binge watching, most recently completing a total re-watch of The Sopranos. She has two adult daughters and one long-term husband.
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Contributions to this issue:
Poetry: Last Night I Dreamed of Dr. Fauci Bay Area Stew: Gardener's Notebook ( Santa Cruz Mtns.) |
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Mary Noel Pepys is a senior attorney with a specialization in the rule of law, specifically international legal and judicial reform, and corruption within the judiciary. Since 1993 she has helped emerging democracies develop justice systems that ensure the protection of citizens’ human rights, equal treatment of all individuals before the law, and a predictable legal structure with fair, transparent and effective government institutions. Mary Noel has worked in over 45 countries, lived five years in six former communist countries, and 20 months in Afghanistan as the Justice Advisor for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement of the U.S. Department of State. While in Afghanistan, Mary Noel focused on strengthening the criminal justice system and the correctional system.
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After becoming an attorney, Pamela Pitt graduated with an MFA (1990) from the San Francisco Art Institute. She showed her photography work nationally in group and solo shows. Seeking daylight after years in the dark room, she worked on collage with mixed media painting and photography. Ideas from social issues became the basis of certain collage series:
2014: ripped pages from a law book on the “Patriot Act” to use as collage elements. 2016: used tissue dress "Patterns" in a series about the place of women. 2017: produced a collage series based on the concept of making land a commodity. With her current focus on photography and scanner digital art, Pam works on achieving peace through creativity and beauty. |
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Lynne Rappaport moved to San Francisco at the age of 22 and never looked back. Born in New York City, she was raised in the rural Catskills in a village of 1000 people. She attended college in Buffalo but eventually transferred to SFSU, completing a BA in Humanities in 1978 and meeting her future husband in a class on Contemporary Culture. Lynne retired recently from a long career in ESL classrooms, teaching adult immigrants in Daly City. She is a student of Tai Chi Chih, a singer in an older adult community choir, and a 30-year resident of the Sunset District, where she seeks out nature at Ocean Beach, Stern Grove, and Golden Gate Park.
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Bernal Heights resident Karen Rhodes retired from UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering in 2017 as Executive Director for Marketing and Communications, following a 40-year career in higher education. She serves on the boards of Walk San Francisco and the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council and is a member of the city’s Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Advisory Committee. She loves to organize urban walks for OLLI, Walk San Francisco, the Crosstown Trail Coalition, and anyone willing to explore with her.
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Pat Skala is a native San Franciscan (only 3 generations) and a graduate of San Francisco State College. (Note the "C". Had she waited a year longer to graduate it would be a "U.") A retired City employee, Pat and her husband live in the house that her grandparents built in 1927. She is a gardener, a quilter and an avid jigsaw puzzle person. Although she would love to be a star on Moth Radio, she limits her storytelling to friends and family. Her stories are true and focus on what she thinks of as "angels:" people who come into our lives ever so briefly, but who give us something we need or point us in a better direction.
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Denize Springer's nonfiction and fiction have appeared in various publications and literary journals including The New York Times, Marin Independent Journal, East Bay Express, Pearl, Estero, Vistas & Byways, Please See Me and Ocean Realm. Her plays and theater adaptations have been presented in distinguished New York and San Francisco venues including the New York Theatre Workshop, the Public Theatre, American Conservatory Theater and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Her short story, “The Way We Say Goodbye,” was named a semi-finalist in the 2019 Tillie Olsen Short Story Award.
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Steve Surryhne was an Associate Lecturer in English Literature at San Francisco State University from 1993-2012. He is currently semi-retired and has recently returned to writing poetry. A native of San Francisco, he was a baby-beat in the sixties, knew some of the beat poets and is now a neo-beat. In his alternate career, he worked in Community Mental Health in San Francisco from 1979-2012. He took first place in the Jack Kerouac Poetry contest in 2015 and has published in The Blue Moon Review and Interpretations. He is currently working on a project with a photographer friend on poem-texts and photos.
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A retired physician, Corey Weinstein is a musician, poet, songwriter and clarinet player. He has published two CDs of original music inspired by the Klezmer and Yiddish stage musical traditions and led Umzist, a Klezmer band playing benefits for Jewish elders for more than a decade. He wrote and performed at various venues a singspiel, Erased: Babi Yar, the SS and Me to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the massacre at Babi Yar. He plays clarinet in the Or Shalom Jewish Community choir, with The Jamberries Jazz Band at Shabbat services at Rhoda Goldman Plaza, and with any chamber music group he can find. He lives in the Ingleside of San Francisco with his wife of 37 years, Pat Skala.
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Vivien Zielin was born in England and graduated in history and social studies at the University of Sussex. She was a history teacher in London, worked for an interior design company in Jerusalem, and was the owner of “The China Ware House Company” in Carnaby Street, specializing in fine English made giftware, dinnerware, and quirky teapots. She has worked for media companies on various projects. She has traveled the world. In 2005 she moved to California and became a citizen in 2012. She discovered OLLI at SF State in 2009 and is the Event Organizer for the annual Creativity Celebration. Eyeballing Big Croc: Chasing Dreams Around the World is her first book and was published in 2018.
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