Our Writing Instructors
Mark Konkel is primarily a short story writer, although he has written articles, essays, poems, humor, theater plays, and comic strips, and is working on his second novel. His stories, as well as his novels, spring from anecdotes, half remembered jokes, overheard conversations, tantalizing canards, and outright misunderstandings. He explains: “I can write a story about almost anything that anyone tells me.”
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Julia Kressig
Julia Kressig is a verbivore who loves sharing this passion with students of all ages. She has a Bachelor’s degree in English; after college she studied English at the graduate level, and then studied law for three years. After graduating from law school and practicing law for ten years, she returned to her first love—the study of the English language, grammar, and literature—and studied to become an instructor at a private, competitive college-preparatory school.
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Becky Levine
I have been writing since I was a child, even going so far as to submit very not-ready stories to Redbook and Cosmopolitan magazines. I got a bit smarter after that and did a concentration in Creative Writing, along with my English major, when I headed off to college at the University of California, Irvine. I was lucky enough there to study with Oakley Hall, who taught his writing workshops in a critique format.
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Carol Luce
Carol Luce’s first novel, Night Stalker, was also her first sale. “A dandy read,” wrote author Tony Hillerman. It went into three printings and became the flagship for the sub-genre “Woman in Jeopardy” at Kensington Publishers—strong heroines pitted against evil opponents. Reviewers have said of her villains: [Night Prey] “Luce’s portrayal of a psychopathic mountain man is chilling…” [Night Game] “The villain is evil personified.”
Steve Mertz
During high school and college, Steve Mertz regularly scandalized his “literary, well-intentioned” creative writing teachers with “thud and blunder melodramas.” Throughout military service, travel, and a wide variety of jobs, his goal remained to become a publishing, full-time freelance professional. “It was never a question for me of if, but always when. His first national sale was to a mystery magazine, and his first novel, a detective thriller entitled Some Die Hard, was published under the pseudonym of Stephen Brett.
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Rita Robinson
Rita Robinson, author of 11 books, is an award-winning journalist with more than 1,500 published magazine articles and short stories on four continents. Although her books are nonfiction, her work includes several published adult and children’s short fiction stories. Her books include Grand Old Hotels of Southern and Central California; Survivors of Suicide; When Your Parents Need You; The Palm: A Guide to Your Hidden Potential; and more!
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Barbara Rogan
Barbara Rogan is the author of seven novels that represent a wide variety of genres, topics and geographical settings. Suspicion (Simon & Schuster) is a combination suspense/ghost story that was compared by the San Francisco Chronicle to the work of Shirley Jackson; the Washington Post wrote, “If you can put this book down before you’ve finished it, it’s possible that your heart may have stopped beating.”
