Laurel Anne Hill joined the CWC in 2000 and almost immediately took the job of Secretary. After three years in that role followed by Treasurer for two, she organized and ran the Ask-a-Pro sessions at the Jack London Writers Conference that our branch used to put on, and also helped run the Jack London Writers Camp for Kids for three years.
She received the Louise Boggess Merit Award in 2006, for her service to the SF Peninsula Branch. But really she was just getting started! She’s been volunteering and reading at the Literary Stage since before there was an actual stage, and has been Stage Manager for four years, employing her carnival barker skills to announce countless speakers and readers, bringing in panels and audiences, and keeping the stage running with her unmistakable personality and love of writers and books. What else has Laurel done?
She’s been Editor-in-Chief of our Fault Zone anthology series for the past three years, and is jumping right back into editing work on that as soon as the fair is over. Laurel is active in our “Writers Helping Writers” series at meetings and local libraries, always willing to lend her writing skills and insights, of which she has many. Her second novel, “The Engine Woman’s Light,” won a total of 13 honors and awards, so far! She participates in science fiction/fantasy conventions nationally and internationally and attributes much of her success to the support of her CWC family. Laurel almost always has “good news” to announce at our meetings.
Laurel lives in Orinda, and it sometimes takes her two hours to get here, but she has never considered joining a branch closer to home, because, she says, “Members of SF Peninsula Writers are part of my family.”
We are very happy to honor Laurel Anne Hill today.
-Presented by Lisa Meltzer Penn and Carole Bumpus, June 15, 2019