The Writing Mamas Salon is blessed to be based in the Bay Area of California, a literary hotbed of writers, editors and agents, many of whom are mothers.

Their words are profoundly inspiring.

Note: These are bonus sessions of the salon and are only open to salon members. They take place six to eight times a year, on the

fourth or fifth Sunday of the month, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

January 28

Bharati Mukherjee – National Book Critics Circle Award winning author of

Desirable Daughters, she has written numerous lyrical and evocative books, including

The Tree Bride and Jasmine, that convey a strong sense of characters, time and place.

February 25

Jacquelyn Mitchard – Author of the bestseller The Deep End of the Ocean,

Oprah’s first book club selection, and the new young adults book, Now You See Her, she is a

syndicated newspaper columnist and mother of seven- nope, not a typo.

March 25

Joan Blades – Political mover and influencer who puts her words where her

beliefs are, Web entrepreneur and dedicated mom, she is the co-founder of MoveOn.org, founder of

Momsrising.org and author of The Motherhood Manifesto.

April 29

Jane Juska – A former schoolteacher from Ohio, she wrote her first book at 70, which

became the best-selling memoir, A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance

and is a contributor to the anthology, The Mommy Wars.

May 27

Joyce Maynard – Published at 18 in The New York Times, she is the author of

nine books, including the novel, To Die For, a memoir, At Home in the World, and

non-fiction, Internal Combustion, as well as a journalist and syndicated columnist.

June 17

Jane Ganahl – Co-founder of Litquake, author of the new novelized memoir

Naked on the Page: The Misadventures of My Unmarried Midlife, editor of the anthology,

Single Women of a Certain Age, and a longtime journalist and columnist.

July 29

Meredith Maran – This societal observer and author has written the bestsellers,

Class Dismissed: A Year in the Life of an American High School; Dirty: A Search for

Answers Inside America’s Teenage Drug Epidemic and Ben & Jerry’s Double Dip.

August 26

Amy Nobile and Trisha Ashworth – These first-time authors took an idea about their

own motherhood experiences, interviewed other moms and now offer advice in their book, I Was a

Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids.

September 23

Kim Wong Keltner – Funny with wry observations about growing up Asian, this mother

has written two humorous novels, The Dim Sum of All Things and Buddha Baby and is

simultaneously watching her toddler while writing her third book.

October 28

Terry Gamble – A fifth generation descendent of the co-founder of Proctor & Gamble,

she writes knowingly and movingly of the divide between the haves and the have-nots in Good

Family and about familial changes in The Water Dancers.