SLO NightWriters members are together a colorful, enthusiastic, and creative group of writers, photographers and artists of all stripes.

Writers want to be read. Please, then, click on each of the following links, visit our members' internet sites, read, enjoy and participate.

Happy reading!

Featured Members' Websites from :

Jim aarons

Marylu downing

Honey French

Sam Horn

Dianna Jackson

Kit Roberts johnson

C S Perryess

sara roahen

Judy Salamacha

Dennis Eamon Young

Jim Aarons

Website:  Welcome to my World

Marylu Downing

website: welcome to studio ML

I am a life-long artist working in several media. My work carries the spirit of playfulness and inner dialog. Often the pieces have an implied story.

I prefer strong color and layered techniques, using water-based paints and often enhancing with paper, pastels, graphite, beeswax, wire, fabric, yarn and found objects.

My art is used on CD covers, book covers, posters. and in graphics to promote fundraising events. I have styled galleries and curated shows. I have won awards and shown my work and been a partner in California galleries for 40 years.

I have a collector base world-wide.The process of making art is what captures me. It is a great joy to work as an artist.

Honey French

website: honey from the rock ministry

   

Sam Horn

Website: sam horn- the intrigue agency

Do You Want To . . .

• Create Communications that add value for all involved?

• POP! Your book, brand, business, TEDx talk or presentation?

• Clarify a meaningful NEXT for your career, cause or legacy?

• Scale your income and impact for good?

If so, visit Sam’s website for more information - https://samhorn.com/

Sam Horn’s Bio & partial list of credentials includes:

Founder of the Tongue Fu!® Training Institute, a conflict resolution / prevention consultancy hired by hundreds of companies, associations, government agencies, nonprofits and schools.

CEO of the Intrigue Agency, a branding, positioning, messaging company working with global executives, entrepreneurs and organizations to create intriguing offerings.

Executive Director and Emcee of the Maui Writers Conference, named “The Best Writers Conference in the world for 17 years by Writers Digest.

International speaker addressing more than 500,000 people in 12 countries including China, Germany, Greece, Canada, Mexico.

Hired by NASA, Richard Branson’s New Now Leaders, TED Fellows, and EO to train Executives and PM’s in media and public speaking.

Former Pitch Coach for Springboard Enterprises whose grads have generated $26 billion in funding/valuation.

3 TEDx talks with 500,000+ views. Her talk on INTRIGUE is often shown at staff meetings to help employees turn speeches into conversations.

Dianna Jackson

website: travels with the rayman 

Years ago I decided to blog and it opened up my entire life to writing. With more than 400 blogs, I decided to then try my “pen” and write some books. So the blogs have been very important to me.

My bio includes a husband, a fluffy labradoodle,and great kids.  

As a graduate of San Jose State I followed my grandmother’s footsteps who also graduated from San Jose Normal School in 1917. Eventually graduating with a major in Political Science degree, I then went to work at the phone company and after 26 years of service, took a buyout in lieu of an annuity. Only 46 years old, I started a new career as a stockbroker. Then I retired after successfully building a financial services business with my husband. Finally, I retired for good in 2000.  

Now, I’m writing a book about my family which starts in 1850 when my great great grandfather left Beloit to go to California during the gold rush. My great grandfather and mother ended up living in Paso Robles, raising a family and farming on a 3,000 acre ranch known as the Dresser Ranch. It is a very fun project. Perhaps 2024 it will be ready to publish. I’m working really hard to make it so..  

Recently, I joined Anne Allen’s group of writers to hon my skill and learn from others. And I am now submitting writings to the monthly meetings.So happy I found them!!

In addition to writing, I paddle on a dragon boat, I golf poorly, cooking is my hobby, and reading is something I enjoy.   

Kit Roberts Johnson

Website:  frozen voices

Facebook: kit Roberts Johnson

I was born in Seattle, Washington, but raised in Pasco, on the dry side of the state, on the Columbia River. I lived the life of a farm girl with three brothers who liked to fight, yell, and torment me when they had the chance. Things like throwing spiders at me and bossing me around were some of their favorite things. I loved swimming in the summer and playing in the snow in the winter. When I was twelve, we moved to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California. My little brother and only sister were born there. I attended Junior high school through college, receiving my master's degree in communication disorders in 1974.

My path to speech-language pathology was quite mysterious and it began in the fourth grade. I think many children experience something in their childhood, which eventually leads to their future work life. I never imagined that I would be working in Alaska. I practiced for 37 years, 31 of those years in Alaska.

Working in Alaska as a speech therapist was an amazing adventure. I never thought I would have such an exciting, adventurous, and historical career. Very few speech therapists had been out to the villages when I started working there. The law requiring speech therapists in schools had just passed the year before. It was so remarkable, I had to write it down.

I have retired to California and live with my husband, two dogs, and a cat. I have a lovely stepdaughter. For fun, I play and sing in an all-ukulele band and continue with the meditation practices I learned in Alaska.

CS Perryess

Website: wordmonger

Here you'll find the short story that won the 2012 Ingrid Reti Award and a lot more from this very talented writer.

"I mostly write teen fiction, though I occasionally dabble in adult & middle grade short fiction. My short stories have appeared in Highlights for Children, READ, Pangolin Papers, Eureka, Short Story, & others, & have made it into anthologies four times, once in a Darby Creek publication to rub elbows with stories by Joseph Bruchac, David Lubar, & Terry Trueman, & once with Heinemann to slip between the covers with the likes of Vivian Vande Velde, Avi, Gloria Skurzynski, & Neal Shusterman. Under the tutelage of fellow Nightwriter, Anne Allen, I'm in the process of pulling together a short story collection I hope to make available as an e-book, & I'm still trying to get a traditional publisher to buy one of my completed teen novels. I've been in a Nightwriters critique group for 17 or 18 years & I'm an avid member of SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators), & co-coordinator for our county. Oh, & I teach middle school. Just in case all that doesn' keep me busy enough, I've launched myself into the world of audiobook narrating. To date I've narrated two Scottish zombie books for Crossroads Press & hope to finish my third in a couple of weeks. At that point, I'll start in on what will be my fourth audiobook, which is a middle grade book for Do Life Right, Inc.
Life is good."

Judy Salamacha

Website:  judy Salamacha's blog

Judy Salamacha covers the Central Coast communities of Morro Bay, Cayucos and Los Osos/Baywood for her Monday column in the San Luis Obispo Tribune (www.sanluisobispo.com). She is the Director for the Central Coast Writers' Conference, scheduled during the 3rd weekend of September for 28 years (www.communityprograms.net & FaceBook: CentralCoastWritersConference). And she is active with the Cayucos Seniors and the Commission on Aging.

Formerly from Bakersfield, California, her latest all-consuming project is co-writing a book about the city’s namesake, Colonel Thomas Baker, titled Colonel Baker’s Field with Sandy Mittelsteadt and Chris Brewer, the great, great grandson of Colonel Baker. Jody Salamacha Hollier is illustrating the book due out late spring 2012.

Sara Roahen

Website:  sara roahen

Sara Roahen writes, edits, coaches, teaches, and otherwise dabbles in storytelling—for fun and for hire.

Her memoir, Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table, was the chosen reading for the One Book One New Orleans reading initiative in 2009, and it received the Louisiana Library Association’s Louisiana Literary Award in 2010. Sara co-edited and contributed writing to The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook. Her work has additionally appeared in Saveur, Bon Appetit, Tin House, Oxford American, and Garden & Gun magazines, and in/on a host of other magazines, newspapers, books, and websites.

Sara honed her listening, documenting, and backroad-driving while conducting extensive fieldwork for the Southern Foodways Alliance’s extraordinary oral history initiative.

She holds a copyediting certificate from UCSD and currently teaches life story writing in San Luis Obispo, California, through Cuesta College’s Emeritus program. Sara finds great joy in helping others express themselves; to that end, she offers private editing and manuscript coaching services.

Sara is currently working on two book projects: Memories on the Page: A Primer for Writing Your Life Stories, release date early 2024, and Memories on the Page: A Year of Tips and Prompts for Memoir and Life Story Writers, release date Fall 2024.

Tony Piazza

Website: author tony Piazza 

In the 1970s Tony worked in the film and television industry with such stars as Michael Douglas, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, & Clint Eastwood.

He is the author of seven mystery novels, “Anything Short of Murder,” “The Curse of the Crimson Dragon,” "A Murder Amongst Angels," "Murder Is Such Sweet Revenge," "Murder Will Out," "Murder in the Cards, and "A Murder, Well-Scripted, all in print, Kindle, and audiobook editions through Amazon and Audible. His non-fiction work “Bullitt Points,” from SansTree, provides a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the classic Steve McQueen movie “Bullitt” and the involvement of the Piazza family in the production. He has also authored numerous short stories for periodicals and anthologies.

Dennis eamon young

website:  Dennis Eamon Young Photo

Dennis is a writer and professional photographer living in Shell Beach. Though he photographs everything, he specializes in portraits and commercial photography, and works on his stories and novels between photography sessions. Dennis began his photography career in New York City in 1969, with magazine and advertising assignments. He is a genuine people person and enjoys being a member of SLO NightWriters as both a writer and as staff photographer. You can email him at: photodennis44@gmail.com; or write to him at PO Box 3438, Shell Beach, CA 93449