ANNE SCHROEDER
"I write so that my handful of pebbles, tossed each day into still waters, can create a ripple."
About Anne
I'm a fifth generation Californian, whose love of writing was fueled by stories of my immigrant ancestors. (I evoke the drama of growing up in a close-knit Southern California farm community in my first memoir, Branches on the Conejo: Leaving the Soil after Five Generations.)
My interest in writing began at the age of ten, when I picked up a copy of Laura Ingall Wilder's Little House on the Prairie. and nearly singed my fingers with envy. In high school I discovered Zane Grey and fell in love for the first time. Later, in a college cultural anthropology class, I learned that the world had stories that were complex and strange and wonderful. After that I was hooked.
Over forty of my short stories and essays have appeared in national magazines such as Potpourri, Liguorian, Skipping Stones, Stitches, Mindprints, Lynx Eye, Western Digest, Romantic Hearts, Radiance and Christian Reader.
I’ve taught writing at community college and writers conferences, and I’ve won fiction awards. I write women's novels set in the West (watch for one in late 2008.) And I speak on women’s issues and California history.
Life has brought me great stories and great blessings--including a forty-year marriage to a man who has taught me to embrace adventure. (Like the 600-mile-day we spent on a BMW motorcycle riding from Boise to Yellowstone Park. We crossed the Continental Divide at midnight, in a hailstorm. (I have felt the grim reaper's breath and I live to tell!)
I consider exercise a necessary evil, but I enjoy sitting in the sauna after an easy workout, and walking our two Labs, Maggie and Sadee on the Central Coast of California where I live.
ANNE SCHROEDER
Books
Ordinary Aphrodite, essays on living and loving,Russell Dean and Company, 2007.
Branches on the Conejo: Leaving the Soil after Five Generations, a tribute to our farm heritage,Russell Dean and Company, 2001.
Scent of Cedars: Promising Writers of the
Short Stories and Essays (selected)
Potpourri, Skipping Stones, Radiance, Mindprints, Liguorian, Family Digest, Christianity Today, Grit, Central Coast Magazine, Lynx Eye, Motorcycle City News, Greenprints
Education
B.S. Social Science,
Post-Graduate—Business, Creative Writing, Screenwriting
Awards and Grants
2004: Writer’s Retreat,
2002: Mystery Time “Readers Choice” Award
2001: William Saroyan Persie Award, Non-Fiction
2000: NAAPW So. CA Chapter, Humorous Fiction
1999: NightWriters Short Story
Speeches and Presentations (selected)
2007: SLO NightWriters
2006: Scandinavian Festival,
2006: Women Writing the West Conference, Colorado Springs, CO
2003: Norwegian Banquet,
2002: Rotary Club of
2002:
2002: Women Writing the West Conference, Denver, CO
2002: Borders Bookstore,
2001:
2001: Classroom History Talks
2001:
2000: AAUW “Women in Herstory”
Professional Positions
2007: SLO NightWriters Contest Director
2006: WILLA Awards Historical Fiction Judge
2005: WILLA Awards Contemporary Fiction Contest Coordinator
2003: Friends of the Library Judge,
1999: President, SLO NightWriters
Affiliations
National Association of Baby Boomer Women
National Association of Women Writers
Women Writing the West
Western Writers of
“When I sit astride life’s moral fence, the grass seems to grow greener on the forbidden side; Part of me wants to offer succor to the universe, but the other part tells me to cinch up my corset and be a lady.”
From Ordinary Aphrodite
AUTHOR EVENTS
October 20, 21, 2007--Booksigning, Women Writing the West Conference, Marriott Hotel, Colorado Sprgs, CO
November 13, 2007
(Public is invited. No charge.)
November 17, 2003--Booksigning, Chelsea Bookshop, 721-12th St, Paso Robles, CA 7-9 PM. (Elegent Evening in Paso Robles)
December 8, Booksigning, Barnes & Noble, 894 Marsh, San Luis Obispo, CA
TBA (Local Writers Holiday Open House)
