Ernie Brill
Poet/Author

Ernie Brill grew up in a lively Brooklyn housing project in a family of hyperbolic storytellers and a neighborhood featuring boisterous luncheonettes and sumptuous ice cream. At 13, a vision on the BMT subway inspired him to start writing. Brill’s I Looked Over Jordan And Other Stories (Boston South End Press 1980) was optioned by actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee for their PBS TV series “With Ruby and Ossie.” The work was also included in Oxford University’s Press’ anthology “American Working Class Literature.”

Ernie Brill is a poet-in-the-struggle who writes well and powerfully about working class life. He is a tireless advocate for all who do, from all races and nations and is returning to the Bay Area to read from his newly published book of poems, Journeys of Voices and Choices. 

Ernest Brawley
Author

Ernest Brawley has spent his life writing novels and film scripts, teaching, and traveling the world. Ernest has attended the University of California at Santa Barbara and San Francisco State University, where he was granted several writing scholarships and a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing and went on to writing five novels. Read more on “About Ernest” Page

An adventurer at heart, Brawley’s life story reads like one of his action and adventure filled novels. He has written 6 Novels to date which are listed below. They include his latest book “DESERT PLACES” and his recently released, prior books “STREETLIGHT” and “LOVE HAS NO COUNTRY.”

Brawley’s other novels include his first novel “THE RAP,” a best seller in which later became a feature film. His second book “SELENA”, third book “THE ALAMO TREE”, and soon be released “BLOOD MOON”.

All his novels are available at Amazon Books.

ErnestBrawley.com

Beverly Parayno,
Author

Beverly Parayno was born in the Bay Area and raised in East San José by immigrant parents from the Philippines. Her fiction, memoir, essays and author interviews appear in Narrative Magazine, Bellingham Review, The Rumpus, Warscapes, Huizache, and Southword: New Writing from Ireland, among others. Her work has been translated into Mandarin and published by World Literature, a journal of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Her debut short story collection WILDFLOWERS is published by PAWA Press (2023). 

Parayno earned a BA from San José State University, an MA from University College Cork and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she received a Lynda Hull scholarship. She serves on the board of PAWA, a nonprofit arts organization and independent publisher dedicated to supporting Filipinx and Filipinx American writers and artists and on the executive committee for Litquake. She lives and works in Cameron Park as an animal communicator and freelance development professional for social justice nonprofits and facilitates the Cameron Park Library Writers Workshop. Currently, she is working on a teenage runaway memoir set in upstate New York in the mid-1980s.

BeverlyParayno.com

Listen to Beverly Parayno on Season 1, Episode 14 – May 25, 2023