| The High Desert Branch of California Writers Club will celebrate its twenty-first year late in 2006. Founded by former President and member John Beyer, our current Patron member Ruth Theodos alongside other High Desert notables, High Desert Branch has enjoyed a steady, strong membership with mostly active status members over the years with many long-standing memberships to date. At present, High Desert Branch is made up of twenty-eight members. As most social clubs go, High Desert Branch has experienced over the years its share of triumphs, heartaches, politicizing, and prevail, surviving into the 21st century an intact and shining part of the whole of California Writers Club. With the support and friendship of our other current fourteen branches, High Desert Branch will write its story into the next century. We are proud of our extended club history and look forward to many more years of erudition and camaraderie. Documents relating to the High Desert Branch of California Writers Club beginning in late 1989 have been preserved and are currently being professionally archived. Sorting through these documents, many of them program press releases and speaker profiles, it is amazing and impressive the historical caliber of many of our past guest speakers, all of whom are not just “heard of” but literary household names such as Charles Champlin, Jack Smith and Al Martinez all of LA Times fame, USC’s Professor of Writing Dr. James Ragan (also, as it is stated, a CWC member), Ray Bradbury and Dale Evans Rogers. These documents also contain past membership rosters, semi-bi-annual Conference programs, financial reports and musings that are quite utterly fascinating and will be made available to interested parties when proper archival preparations are done. High Desert’s Ruth Theodos, founding member and present Patron member, holds one of only two Ina Coolbrith Lifetime Achievement Awards given by Central Board of California Writers Club. Aside from being the driving force behind High Desert Branch for many years, Ruth also holds the unofficial title of being our most colorful member, friend and mentor, and with her many years working for producer Chuck Barris as a Dating Game chaperone a wonderful storyteller in her own right. High Desert Branch meets every second Saturday of every month of every year since it’s beginning without fail and produces writer’s conferences every three years, give or take availability and membership dedication.
|
2005 marks the 96th anniversary of California Writers Club whose origins date back to the San Francisco literary movement around the turn of the last century. For almost one hundred years, California Writers Club has fostered, supported and educated writers in their endeavors, beginning in essence when the then-Oakland librarian, poet Ina Coolbrith, befriended a grubby little boy named Jack London and gave him his first books to read. In the early 1900’s in the old Montgomery Block in San Francisco, a small but passionate group of literary artists met, at first informally but then became The Press Club of Alameda. The coterie included Jack London, George Sterling and Herman Whitaker. Like the Algonquin Roundtable in New York City, these “meetings” usually ended in fiery debates and a small faction of The Press Club split and formed The California Writers Club with English civil libertarian, Austin Lewis, as our first President in 1909. In 1912, under the leadership of Dr. William S. Morgan a quarterly bulletin began and in time was published monthly. The Club incorporated in 1913, choosing the motto “Sail On!” from Joaquin Miller’s poem, Columbus. California Writers Club now had a clear focus: “The association and inspiration of men and women creating art and literature on the Pacific coast.” By 1914 the membership had grown from 60 to 80 members and early honorary membership status was awarded to Joaquin Miller, John Muir, California’s first poet laureate (and the first official Oakland Librarian) Ina Coolbrith, and Charles Fletcher Lummis. An occasional speaker at the Club, Jack London and his friend George Sterling were also awarded honorary memberships. Through the influence of Dr. Morgan, the Club began to publish members’ works and a hardcover collection of fiction, West Winds, went to print in 1914. Illustrated by California artists, Jack London and Rebecca Porter are among its contributors. The tome went to print eight times. Banquets and elegant soiree’s characterized the glamorous 20’s and 30’s for the Club. In the early 1920’s, Berkeley poet, playwrite and naturalist Charles Keeler served as President, bringing an emphasis on poetry and the dramatic arts to the Club. California Writers Club expanded in the North during these years and Gertrude Atherton and Kathleen Norris were admitted as honorary members. A second West Winds; A Book of Verse went to print with the poetry of Ina Coolbrith, George Sterling, Edwin Markham, Charles and Ormeida Keeler, and seventy other members inside its covers. Six years later a third West Winds; A Book of Fiction was published with stories by Agnes Morley Cleveland and Charles Caldwell Dobie. Small paperback volumes of poetry followed in the 1930’s. In 1930 a Club tradition established itself in the form of tree-planting in honor of California Writers and poets with the first planting taking place in the “Writers Memorial Grove” at Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland. The land originally belonged to Miller who had wanted to establish a memorial for artists and writers and on October 15, 1930, eighteen years after Millers death, a first solemn and formal ceremony marked the tradition he’d wanted with the planting of nine trees honoring Miller, Bret Harte, Charley Stoddard, Edward Roland Sill, Ina Coolbrith, Jack London, Mark Twain, Charles Fletcher Lummis and Edwin Markham. Taking the name “Woodminster,” the site expanded to include an amphitheater in the 40’s. Every June, the Berkeley Branch of California Writers Club honors writers with the planting of trees in the grove. In 1939, at the Golden Gate International Exposition, California Writers Club gained recognition with weekly seminars and as a direct outgrowth of these sponsored its first Writers Conference in 1941. A smashing success, another was held the following year and by 1950 these erudite meetings became another tradition. |
