Write On Mamas Write Again Author Panel

Join us for a special event with Write On Mamas Write Again. This event is free, but we appreciate your RSVP below so we can plan for your attendance.

The Write On Mamas was a beloved Bay Area Writing salon for over ten years. About 50 members, most with small children, met monthly in Mill Valley to write – having an hour of writing to start was a nonnegotiable – and then hear from an author or panel on the craft of writing. This group participated in many readings, most notably San Francisco's annual LitCrawl, and published two print anthologies. Although the group formally closed doors in 2019, there are still close connections among members.

Five Write On Mamas will discuss the value of a writing community and their paths to publication. The event is open to all readers and writers, and promises to be a reunion of the group.

Participating authors:

• Mindy Uhrlaub
• Jilanne Hoffmann
• Teri Stevens
• Janine Kovac
• Marianne Lonsdale

2026 International Book Awards Finalist in Autobiography/Memoir

One woman's story of confronting the monster under the bed

Last Nerve is much more than a trauma memoir. The story begins as Mindy Uhrlaub learns that she carries a gene for the fatal neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The news, while not surprising, is compounded by the fact that she is caring for her husband, who is undergoing chemotherapy for stage four lymphoma, raising a child with serious behavioral issues, and watching her own mother die of ALS. As she navigates the new territory of having three close relatives with life-threatening situations, she also has to come to terms with the fact that she may have passed the fatal gene to her two sons. Not one to fold, Mindy faces her circumstances head-on, realizing that her race for the elusive cure for ALS is not only for herself but also for her kids, her cousins, and the thousands of other carriers of the fateful gene.

Despite the incredible strain of all these challenges, Mindy manages them with amazing tenderness, persistence, and love. Far from a depressing story of misfortune, Last Nerve is as uplifting and witty as it is raw and real. It's a testament to hope, the endurance of family, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Mindy Uhrlaub’s debut novel, Unnatural Resources, was published in November of 2020, by The Permanent Press after receiving a starred review from The Library Journal and praise from Publisher’s Weekly. It also won Honorable Mention at the San Francisco Book Festival and Five Stars from Readers’ Favorite. Her novel received the 2021 NYC Big Book Award for the Cultural Heritage category. Mindy participates in more than a dozen ongoing longitudinal studies for C9orf72 ALS. For work on her ALS memoir, Last Nerve: A Memoir of Illness and the Endurance of Family, Uhrlaub was awarded residencies at Millay Arts, The Hambidge Center, Joyce Maynard’s Write by The Lake, Litcamp, and Ragdale for the Arts. Since learning she carries the C9orf72 mutation for ALS/FTD, she has testified before the FDA and the NIH about pre-symptomatic carriers of ALS’s need for medical treatment. In February 2023, Mindy was nominated onto a committee at the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine to make ALS a livable disease. The report, Living with ALS, was published in June of 2024. For co-founding the nonprofit, Genetic ALS&FTD: End the Legacy, Uhrlaub won the 2025 Harvey and Bonny Gaffen Advancements in ALS Award from the Les Turner ALS Foundation. She also won the 2025 ALS TDI Fran Delaney Challenge and Respect Award and the 2025 ALS Network’s Spotlight Award. For Last Nerve: A Memoir of Illness and the Endurance of Family, Mindy won the silver medal from the 2025 Nonfiction Authors Association.

Out of the Dust meets Me and Marvin Gardens in this coming-of-age novel about a young misfit searching for the truth of her family's past, set against the backdrop of an environmental cover-up.
Twelve-year-old Xyla is sick of two things: working on her family's sixth-generation Iowa farm and her mother's nagging words, "Pay attention!" But Xyla can't help getting lost in the thoughts that fill her head, which sometimes leaves a wake of costly mistakes. If only her mom would tell her something—anything—about her dad, who left when she was little. Then maybe she could run away to live with him.
Xyla's world gets even messier as a new family begins renting a vacant house on the farm, and the daughter is the kind of kid Xyla's mom clearly prefers—focused and motivated. But when the girls stumble across an environmental disaster right next door, Xyla must learn to trust her new friend and her own complicated mother to figure out how to stop it.
Told in alternating timelines between the past and present, this heartfelt story brings to life a funny, hopeful, unforgettable narrator as she unravels the mysteries of her family and farm.

Jilanne Hoffmann (she/her) is a former engineer with an MFA in creative writing and now writes books for the toughest and most fun audience—kids. Jilanne’s middle grade novel in verse and prose, HeartLand, received a starred review from School Library Journal and glowing reviews from Kirkus, Booklist, and Publishers Weekly. She’s also the author of the award-winning nonfiction picture books, The Ocean’s Heart and A River of Dust, a historical chapter book The Gold Rush: Shifting Sand and Dreams of Gold, and two board books, Happy Camper and The Honey Bear Hive. She lives in San Francisco and is repped by Lori Steel of SteelWorks Literary.

A mesmerizing story about the treasures we find, the secrets we keep, and learning when to let go.

For thirteen-year-old Makenzie Taylor, being a junior counsellor at Camp Baldwin means a whole summer of independence away from her overprotective parents. But when she discovers a mysterious ring at the bottom of Lake Tahoe, everything changes.

Though camp rules require turning in found items, Makenzie feels strangely compelled to keep the ring, despite its peculiar way of changing colours. She begins having vivid dreams of a young woman in vintage clothing, dreams that grow more unsettling with each passing night.

When an ethereal figure appears near the hundred-year-old Baldwin Manor and someone recognizes the ring, Makenzie realizes she has stumbled into a decades-old mystery -one that will force her to question everything she thought she knew about right and wrong.

An enchanting tale of summer friendship, hidden histories, and the magic that happens when past and present collide.

Makenzie’s Ring, a ghostly story of friendship and self-discovery, is Teri Stevens' debut novel. As a child, she devoured s’mores and loved creepy stories during summer camp at Lake Tahoe, the inspiration for the book. Teri is active in the San Francisco Bay Area writing community - she was a co-founder of Write On Mamas, a long-running salon, has read in San Francisco’s annual Lit Crawl, and her essays have been published in two anthologies.

Perfect for The Nutcracker holiday market and fans of work/life balance books, this memoir of a ballet dancer–turned–literary curator shares the real-life journey of a dancer, wife, and mother.
The Nutcracker Chronicles, a modern twist on the beloved holiday ballet, intertwines the story of Clara and her nutcracker prince with the true-life stories that unfold backstage.
The curtain rises on Ballet El Paso’s production of The Nutcracker, where young Janine Kovac is cast as Fritz, the boy who breaks the nutcracker. Her director is Ingeborg Heuser, a German woman who once performed for Hitler and who peppers her teaching with insults like, “Why can’t you just dance like a pretty girl?” At least it’s better than “You look like a cow on ice skates,” which is what the other girls hear daily.
Onstage, Janine wins the battle and embarks on a voyage through a snowy forest to the Land of the Sweets, where she serves as spectator to a beautiful dance. She also travels offstage, leaving El Paso to study at San Francisco Ballet before landing a job in Iceland and returning to California, where she rises through the ranks from soldier to snowflake to candy soloist. Eventually, however, she is relegated to watching other people dance—her husband, her children, her students—and her claim to the spotlight is replaced by the quest to find joy in her new roles.

Janine Kovac writes about power dynamics and women's bodies. A former professional ballet dancer, Janine is the author of three works of narrative nonfiction. Her book Spinning: Choreography for Coming Home was a semifinalist for Publishers Weekly’s BookLife Prize and her most recent memoir, The Nutcracker Chronicles: A Fairytale Memoir received the Eyelands Award “Writer’s Choice”, Greece’s International Book Award. Janine is a MacDowell fellow and serves on the board of directors for Hedgebrook. She lives in Oakland with her family.

When The Road Curves follows thirty-six-year-old Nora as she navigates love, friendship, and loss in the Bay Area in the 1990s. Returning home to Oakland after spending a decade working and playing hard in New York City, Nora is at a crossroads—evaluating career choices and wondering if she wants marriage and children. Then she meets Paul—a singer-songwriter who is gorgeous, attentive and great in bed—but struggles with anger issues. The road curves once more when her best friend Linda is diagnosed with AIDS forcing Nora to make life-altering decisions.

Marianne Lonsdale’s debut novel, When The Road Curves, was published by Sibylline Press in 2026. Her personal essays and poetry have appeared in several print anthologies and various online publications including The New York Times, Literary Mama and Pulse. She’s committed to youth literacy efforts , volunteering with 826 Valencia and the Oakland Literacy Coalition. She lives in Oakland with her husband and beloved dog, Ricky Ricardo.