Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing

Posts tagged “Life

Bay Area Book Festival

Posted on May 1, 2019

What I am doing these days? Getting ready for an exciting, if not thrilling Bay Area Book Festival, for which I put together the children’s and young adult program. A stellar lineup of authors and illustrators, from the quirkiest picture books to the most gripping young adult novels: Cindy Derby, Andrea Tsurumi, Tania De Regil, Mylo Freeman, Rana DiOrio, Andrew Smith, Benny Lindelauf, Gennifer Choldenko, Innosanto Nagara, Laura Atkins, Steve Bramucci, Justina Ireland, Lee Wind, Cindy Pon, Zoraida Córdova and many many more. Two days of amazing panels and interviews and hilarious contests. New this year? Most of our middle grade and young adult panels moderators and interviewers are all local students! They come from Malcolm X Elementary School to Albany Middle School to…

To Be or Not To Be?

Posted on March 17, 2016

There’s some Shakespeare in the novel I’m working on. I’ve mentioned it before. Hamlet, to be precise. He pops up in the more troubling scenes and every now and again the bard and his word play throw me off course and make me loose track of what I want with this story (well, not entirely, just a little).   In any case, I needed a bit of guidance and I needed it quick – I have my crit buddies pounding on my door. What better solution to force a breakthrough than to meet up with one of the bard’s greatest interpreters, the playwright George Isherwood. We had a riveting conversation about death, which is a big thing in the story, and about life. Equally big in the story, I…