Meet Our Writers

Deborah Fruchey was born. It wasn't her idea. After that she spent too much time in churches, mental hospitals and 12-Step Groups, in that order. Finally she graduated to poetry readings, and now here she is cluttering up your radio. She tried to write her own book at the age of eight.

Deborah has five books on amazon.com which you can find under her last name, F-R-U-C-H-E-Y.

Her first novel, The Unwilling Heiress, was chosen as a Best Book by the American Booksellers Association. She writes fiction and nonfiction, as well as poetry, and her manual on mental illness was once described as "the best of its kind." Her latest book is a volume of flash fiction called Priestess of Secrets.

She was also recently chosen by Zeitgeist Press to edit an upcoming anthology of work in tribute to the late poet Julia Vinograd. Anybody who likes can send their poem or artwork, or even a short prose piece about Julia to Julia Vinograd Anthology.

If you want to know more about Deborah. She's on the web at www.lafruche.net and at www.lastlaughproductions.net. She is currently hiding out in suburbia in a happy marriage, but she only hangs out with musicians, and artists and writers, so we suspect she's never truly repented.

Beth Grimm is recently retired from a 30-year condominium law practice where she provided legal services and wrote more than 30 plain English publications to help people navigate the confusing laws in California. Now she is an author and artist in various mediums, showing her work at Once Upon A Canvas in Benicia and teaching iPhone artistry. She includes both art and writings on her website www.bethgrimmcreativearts.com.

Beth is a self-taught prolific artist and writer. She was fortunate to study with Natalie Goldberg last year, author of Writing Down the Bones, one of the most recognized books both domestically and internationally. Beth is working on a couple of related collections about "stuff" and people's relationships with clutter. One is called The Stuff about Stuff and the other is about her father, who she describes as a "prickly, self-aggrandizing person," called The Great Grandpa Chronicles.

Gregory Montoya is a therapist with a master's degree in social work from UCLA. In a profession rooted in social justice, he has borne witness to the cost of injustice paid by the innocent. His short story about a schizophrenic, "The Coat," was published in the zine Up Dare and, as a guest writer for the Hispanic Link, he wrote a column entitled "The Unwelcome Vet." Greg's first novel, "The Powder Room, is available at Bookshop Benicia and on amazon.com.

Kevin Molander was born in 1961 in Whittier, Ca, a suburb of Los Angeles. He attended the University of California, Davis, earning a degree in geography and has had a career focussing on the environmental field, working in both the public and private sectors.

Over the past dozen or so years, Kevin has cultivated an interest in helping senior citizens with the many challenges they face. As a volunteer for aging and Adult Services in Peasant Hill, CA, he assists social workers and helps the elderly to navigate the many issues they confront.

In 2015, he was introduced to Esther Horsted, who lives in a 150-year old farmhouse outside of Madison, WI. He spent about two months visiting Esther, who grew up in a tiny Norwegian farming town in Minnesota, leading to his first book, Conversations with Esther - Memories and More. Esther's book inspired Kevin to continue listening to seniors sharing their reflections, observations and memories. In 2016, he completed his second biography Margaret Rice - 90 Years on the Hill.

In 2017, a visit to the very isolated town of Tonopah, NV, resulted in conversations with 94 year old Irene Jeffrey, resulting in his third biography, Conversations with Irene. Another trip to Madison, WI in 2017 led Kevin to 88 year old Gene Sheets, a mischievous fellow with a wealth of tales to tell, resulting in "Two Entertaining Discussions with Mr. Gene Sheets."

Kevin considers himself extremely fortunate to have met these humble folks . He will always see the twinkle in their eyes, constantly reminding him that the best things in life are free.

Lois Requist received her BA and MA in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Since, she has written and published poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Her three books are Where Lilacs Bloom, RVing Solo Across America, without a cat, dog, man, or gun, and Late Harvest Green.

Publications of poetry, newspaper articles, fiction and nonfiction include weekly columns — "Caffeine Chronicles" at BeniciaPatch.com and "Personally Speaking" for the Contra Costa Sun. She has published articles in Alaska Quarterly, Amelia, San Francisco Chronicle, Contra Costa Times, Futurific magazine, Monterey Life, Oakland Tribune, Benicia Herald, Oh! Idaho, Old West Rocking Chair Reader - Coming Home, Sacramento Magazine, Survivors Review, ehow.com and Trillium Literary Journal.

Active for many years in The League of Women Voters, she served as President of the Diablo Valley and Benicia Leagues, and on the Board of the California L.W.V. She was Executive Director of the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, in Lafayette, CA. In Benicia, she co-founded Carquinez Village, which connects, supports, and inspires seniors in this area. She's active in Benicia Literary Arts.

On the personal side, she loves travel and has moved about the world extensively besides the RV trip which led to the book mentioned above. She very much enjoys living in the small community of Benicia. She served as Poet Laureate of Benicia and continues to be active in the writing community. Walking all over town helps her stay fit and healthy. She is grateful for a network of friends and family that support and challenge her.

Though she's lived most of her life in California, she's written a good deal about Idaho. Benicia has alleys and that may be part of the reason it connects her in some ways to Nampa, Idaho, where she grew up.

She's always been an avid reader, interested in politics, and trying to understand the universe she lives in. She still has lots of work to do, in that regard.

Carolyn Plath is a life-long writer, first receiving recognition for her work in the 5th grade. Her weekly column featuring slice-of-life and humorous commentary, "Think Dream Play," ran five years in the Benicia Herald. She wrote a second column wherein she offered advice based on readers' submissions of their nightly dreams. Called "Send Me Your Dreams," it appeared in the Benicia Herald and can be found here. Carolyn also writes movie reviews in her blog "Cinema Cat," which can be found here.

Carolyn is working on a memoir, tentatively entitled Glenn's Sister, which is a coming of age story set in Oklahoma, spanning the 1950's to the present, that includes the impact of a family secret and explores the unspoken bond between a brother and sister.

Mary Eichbauer was born in New York City and graduated in the first class of women at Caltech, where she attended poetry classes conducted by Diane Wakowski and Clayton Eshleman. She later earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at UCLA and taught Humanities at UCLA and CSU Long Beach, and English and Women's Studies at Pitzer College. She currently serves on the Benicia Library Board of Trustees, as well as several non-profit boards, and works as personnel manager and violinist for Solano Symphony Orchestra and Symphony of Northern California.

Like most would-be novelists, David Carrillo toils away most of his waking hours at a mundane job while dreaming how to make life miserable for a gaggle of unsuspecting characters in the latest draft of his manuscript. Off the clock, David sits in East Bay cafés 'til the witching hour, madly typing into a MacBook. His muse has written bittersweet historical novels, collections of short fiction, screenplays, graphic novels and blogs.

Carlye Knight has been writing stories ever since she could hold a crayon and has honed her craft through the lies she spun in junior-high personal essay assignments. Her specialties are novels for teenagers and short stories for the reluctant adult. Her first novel, Confession of a Failed Preacher's Daughter is available on Amazon. Her short stories "Charlotte Finley is Fucking Perfect" and "Rain of Terror: Scream, Yuppie, Scream (co-written with Jason Poor) are available here. Her current podcast is Procrastination Planet and you can find her website here.

Bo Kearns, journalist and writer of fiction, is the Author of Ashes in a Coconut, a suspense novel set in Indonesia, where he lived for three years. He is a feature writer with NorthBay biz magazine and the Sonoma Index-Tribune Newspaper. His short stories have won awards: First Prize, Napa Valley Writing Contest; Honorable Mention, Glimmer Train Literary Magazine Fiction Open Competition and Finalist, Redwood Writers On the Edge genre competition. Other works have been published in the annual California Writers Club Literary Review, Napa Valley Writers First Press, The Red Wheelbarrow Literary magazine and Sonoma: Stories of a Region and its People. He is a UC Naturalist, beekeeper, avid hiker and active supporter of conservation causes. He lives in the wine country of Sonoma with his wife and rescue dog Jake. His website is here.

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