California Writers Club Orange County

Guest Speaker: Liz Prato
Topic: “From Brick Walls to Bounty: Transforming Genealogical Mysteries into Fiction”

The California Writers Club meets monthly for our featured speaker series focused on the craft and business of writing. Topics are presented by major authors, publishers, self-published writers, college professors, literary agents, and other professionals.

■ 9:00am - 9:30am Networking
■ 9:30am - 11:00am Guest Speaker

Liz Prato is the author of the new novel in stories, Purgatoire; Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawai‘i, a New York Times Top Summer Travel Read and a Finalist for the Oregon Book Award; Kids in America: a Gen X Reckoning; and the short story collection, Baby's on Fire.

Liz’s stories and essays have appeared in dozens of literary journals and magazines, and have been chosen as Notable Works in Best American Essays and Best American Sports Writing. She has been teaching at workshops and literary festivals from coast-to-coast since 2008. Liz is Editor at Large for Forest Avenue Press.

Liz grew up in Denver, and now lives with her furry feline friends and her best friend/husband, who is a longtime indie bookseller and writer, in Portland, Oregon. She lives for small presses, literary community, and palm trees.

Guest Speaker: Lisa Alvarez
Topic: “The Power of Setting: Finding Stories (and more) in Ordinary Places”

The California Writers Club meets monthly for our featured speaker series focused on the craft and business of writing. Topics are presented by major authors, publishers, self-published writers, college professors, literary agents, and other professionals.

■ 9:00am - 9:30am Networking
■ 9:30am - 11:00am Guest Speaker

Lisa Alvarez’s poetry and prose have appeared in journals including About Place Journal, Air/Light, Anacapa Review, Citric Acid, Huizache, Santa Monica Review, and in anthologies such as Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America (Norton) and most recently, Rumors, Secrets and Lies: Poems about Pregnancy, Abortion and Choice (Anhinga Press) and Women in a Golden State (Gunpowder Press).

A professor of English at Irvine Valley College, in the summers, she co-directs the writers workshops at the Community of Writers in California's High Sierra. Her debut collection, Some Final Beauty and other stories, was published in August 2025 by the University of Nevada Press’s New Oeste imprint.

Guest Speaker: Lisa Cheek
Topic: “Film-Making Techniques to Structure Your Book”

The California Writers Club meets monthly for our featured speaker series focused on the craft and business of writing. Topics are presented by major authors, publishers, self-published writers, college professors, literary agents, and other professionals.

■ 9:00am - 9:30am Networking
■ 9:30am - 11:00am Guest Speaker

Lisa Cheek is an author and former film and television editor known for her humorous, candid writing about relationships and identity. Her debut memoir, Sit, Cinderella, Sit, was a People Magazine pick, an Amazon bestseller, a Next Generation Indie Book Award finalist, and was named one of Zibby’s Most Anticipated Books of 2025.

Her latest memoir, The Big Day, is a funny, unflinching look at love, marriage, and the complicated question of whether to stay or walk away. You can find her musings at One Minute Thoughts From A Pink Head on Substack. She lives in Los Angeles with two dogs, two cats, and her husband, Big Johnson, where she has several scripts in various stages of development while working on her next memoir.

Guest Speaker: Aaron Philip Clark
Topic: “Crafting Characters That Connect”

The California Writers Club meets monthly for our featured speaker series focused on the craft and business of writing. Topics are presented by major authors, publishers, self-published writers, college professors, literary agents, and other professionals.

■ 9:00am - 9:30am Networking
■ 9:30am - 11:00am Guest Speaker

Aaron Philip Clark is the author of the International Thriller Writers Award-nominated Detective Trevor Finnegan series. He has co-written and collaborated on works of fiction with rap artist and entertainment mogul Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (THE ACCOMPLICE), Civil Rights Attorney and activist Benjamin L. Crump (WORSE THAN A LIE), and a variety of public figures and luminaries.

He has two forthcoming novels: BLUES FOR THE DEAD (Severn House), which features Det. Trevor Finnegan investigating a power and potentially sociopathic tech CEO, and ALL THE SMOKE (Amistad), a psychological thriller inspired by THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY that’s set in the world of hip-hop. Both novels will be published in 2027. In addition to writing, Aaron teaches creative writing courses at UCLA Extension, AMDA, and Tiffin University, and he recently launched his podcast, The Culture Point, as part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio network.