Rose Black (President)
Rose Black lives and works at Renaissance Stone, a sculpting studio in East Oakland. Her poetry has been widely published and she is the author of three books: Clearing, Winter Light, and Green Field. Her first two books, Clearing and Winter Light, are included in Yale’s Beinecke Library for the Yale Collection of American Literature. Rose has been editor of the Marin Poetry Center Anthology, and she currently teaches poetry at Salinas Valley State Prison. Her extensive article about the workshop there is featured in Red Wheelbarrow 2015, Literary Magazine.
Hannah Sward
Hannah Sward holds a BA in Creative Writing from Antioch. Her work has been widely published in literary journals in the US, Canada and the UK. She was editor and columnist at Third Street Villager in LA and contributing writer at TheFix.com, Erotic Review (UK) and YourTango.com. Hannah has written a collection of linking short stories, Queenie Goes to Bosnia and Other Stories About Love, Jealousy and Affairs, and a memoir, Angel Down The Drain. She lives in Los Angeles where she is currently working on her next book about the opioid crisis.
You can read selected stories at hannahsward.com
Lisa Charnock (Secretary / Treasurer)
Lisa Charnock is an MFA student in the Solstice program at Pine Manor College. Her poetry has appeared in Southern Poetry Review, Grist, Zone 3, Red Wheelbarrow Literary Magazine, among others, and won first place in the 2008 Powell’s Books Portland Poem contest. Lisa has studied under Ellen Bass, Danusha Laméris, Sharon Olds, Mark Doty, Tony Hoagland, Frank Gaspar, and Marie Howe. She teaches a bimonthly poetry workshop at the Salinas Valley State Prison. Lisa currently resides in Aptos, California.
Ken Weisner
Ken Weisner teaches English at De Anza Community College in Cupertino. He both advises and edits Red Wheelbarrow, their literary journal. He also coordinates, with Poetry Center San José, the annual Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize. For fifteen years, Ken edited Quarry West out of Porter College, UCSC. Ken has published two volumes of his own poetry with Hummingbird Press, including Anything on Earth (2010). He has an Iowa MFA in poetry writing and a UC Santa Cruz PhD in comparative literature. Ken’s poems have appeared most recently in Perfume River Poetry Review, Catamaran, Caesura, Nine Mile, Porter Gulch Review, Riverbabble, Monterey Poetry Review, DMQ Review, and Phren-Z. He teaches poetry writing at Salinas Valley State Prison.
Julie Murphy
Julie Murphy, an adjunct professor at JFK University, developed Embodied Writing™, a somatic approach to creative writing, and taught poetry, as a volunteer, in the Salinas Valley State Prison. She has worked as a psychotherapist and has trained mental and behavioral health professionals internationally for over thirty years. Julie’s poems appear or are forthcoming in CALYX Journal, Common Ground Review, The Louisville Review, Pennsylvania English, Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Red Wheelbarrow, and The Alembic, among other journals. Julie lives and works in Santa Cruz, California.
In Memoriam – Leila Rae
Right to Write Press is mourning the loss of Leila Rae, founding Board member. Leila was the editor/publisher at Pandemonium Press in Berkeley. In 1993, she was one of the founding writers and editors of Doorknobs & BodyPaint, a flash fiction ezine. Recently, she edited Doorknobs & BodyPaint: An Anthology. She curated the monthly reading series Pandemonium Press Presents at The Octopus Literary Salon in Oakland. Leila has been a guide, a beacon, and a powerful voice for the Press. She was an incredible and savvy advocate for poetry and publishing – and believer in communities of the imagination. She is deeply missed.