Tahoe Writers Works was proud to host its first annual Celebration of Writers Around the Lake. The audience enjoyed an evening of literature at the lake with eight writers who call Tahoe home or are inspired by Tahoe.

The event was held at Valhalla in the Valhalla Grand Hall at 7:00 PM; a $10 admission included a wine reception followed by readings from award-winning writers. The event showcased South Shore writers Todd Borg, winner of the Ben Franklin Award for Tahoe Silence, who just released the latest in his Owen McKenna thriller series, and poet Suzanne Roberts, whose 3rd collection, Plotting Temporality, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press.

Other writers included Ellen Hopkins, award-winning author of Crank, Burned, and Tricks. Jennifer Woodlief, author of the recently released Wall of White, a gripping account of the 1982 Alpine Meadows avalanche, also read. Locals rounding out the line-up included North Shore poets June Saraceno (Altars of Ordinary Light) and Karen Terrey, just back from a poetry fellowship in Prague. Nevada Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts winner Gailmarie Pahmeier has a collection of poetry forthcoming from Red Hen Press, and University of Nevada Press author Michael J. Makley read from his book about Cave Rock.

Ellen Hopkins
Ellen Hopkins is a poet and the award-winning author of twenty nonfiction books for children and six NY Times bestselling novels-in-verse. She lives in Washoe Valley NV with her husband, 12-year-old son, two dogs, one cat and four ponds (not pounds!) of fish.

Michael Makley
Michael Makley's book, The Infamous King of the Comstock, won ForeWord Magazine's Silver Award for biography in 2006.  He has written three other books on Nevada history.  The latest, published by the University of Nevada Press in 2009, is John Mackay: the Bonanza King in the Gilded Age. Makley's video "Cave Rock: the Issue" was used as a source document in the court case between rock climbers and the Washoe Indians recently settled in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  He has co-authored a book on Cave Rock that is currently being evaluated by jurists for the University of Nevada Press.  He lives in Woodfords, California with his wife Randi.

Gailmarie Pahmeier
Gailmarie Pahmeier’s work has been widely published and anthologized (most recently in Passager and The Pedestal Magazine and in the anthology Literary Nevada (University of Nevada Press, 2008). She is the author of the poetry collection The House on Breakaheart Road (University of Nevada Press, 1998). After a decade of publishing individual poems, working on prose manuscripts, and assisting her husband in his design/build business, a new book of her poetry, West of Snowball, Arkansas, and Home, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2010.  Her literary awards include a Witter Bynner Poetry Fellowship and two Artists Fellowships from the Nevada Arts Council. In 2007, she received the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts (state of Nevada).

Suzanne Roberts
Suzanne Roberts is the author of three collections of poetry, Shameless (2007), Nothing to You (2008), and Plotting Temporality (forthcoming from Red Hen Press). She is the recipient of numerous awards, including "The Next Great Travel Writer" award from National Geographic's Traveler magazine. She holds a doctorate in Literature and the Environment from the University of Nevada-Reno, and she teaches English at Lake Tahoe Community College where  she runs a successful visiting writers' series and edits the Kokanee literary journal For more information, please visit her website at www.suzanneroberts.org

June Saraceno
June Sylvester Saraceno is author of Mean Girl Trips, a chapbook published by Pudding House Publications and Altars of Ordinary Light, a collection of poetry published by Plain View Press. She is English Program Chair at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe and founding editor of the Sierra Nevada Review. Her work has appeared in various journals including The American Journal of Nursing, California Quarterly, Ginosko, Moonshine Ink, The Pedestal, Poetry Motel, The Rebel, Silk Road, Sierra Journal, Smartish Pace, Sunspinner, Tar River Poetry and The Rambler; as well as two anthologies: Intimate Kisses: the poetry of sexual pleasure and Passionate Hearts: the poetry of sexual love, now in a second printing. Saraceno earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State in Ohio. Originally from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, she currently lives in Truckee, California.

Karen Terrey
Karen Terrey teaches creative writing at Sierra Nevada College and is poetry editor for Quay, a literary arts journal. Her poems can be read in Sierra Nevada Review, Poet's Espresso, Pitkin Review, upcoming in Rattlesnake Review, and elsewhere. For more information, go to www.karenaterrey.blogspot.com.

Jennifer Woodlief
Jennifer Woodlief has worked as a reporter for Sports Illustrated as well as an assistant district attorney and a CIA case officer with a top-secret clearance.  Her first book, Ski to Die:  The Bill Johnson Story, was published in 2005 and optioned by Warner Bros. for a movie.  She lives in Tiburon, California (as well as part-time in Truckee) with her husband and three children.