Lisa Locascio nighthawk - Executive Director
Lisa Locascio Nighthawk’s novel Open Me was published by Grove Atlantic in 2018. She has held teaching appointments at Wesleyan University, UCLA, the University of Southern California, Colorado College, and New York University. Lisa is editor of the ekphrastic collaboration magazine 7x7LA and edited the anthology Golden State 2017: The Best New Writing from California. In addition to her work with MCWC, Lisa is Core Faculty in the Antioch University Los Angeles MFA in Creative Writing.
PATTY WEST - OPERATIONS MANAGER
Patty West is a producer and arts educator based in California. For 10 years, she led filmmaking programs at the American Film Institute and now serves as the Digital Course Director for the Sundance Institute. As a Producer/Executive Producer, her feature film credits include Some Girl(s) (2013), Addicted to Fresno (2015), and They (2017). West is a Chicago native and holds a B.S. from Northwestern University, an M.F.A. from the AFI Conservatory and an Executive M.B.A. from Quantic School of Business & Technology.
Georgina Marie Guardado - PRESIDENT
Georgina Marie Guardado is the Poet Laureate of Lake County, CA for 2020-2024, and a Poets Laureate Fellow with The Academy of American Poets. She is the President of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference Board of Directors, Literacy Program Coordinator for the Lake County Library, and a contributing writer for Antioch University’s Common Thread News. As part of the Broken Nose Collective, an annual chapbook exchange, she created her first poetry chapbook, Finding the Roots of Water, in 2018 and her second chapbook, Tree Speak, in 2019. She has received support from the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, Hugo House, and SF Writing Salon. Her work has appeared in The Bloom, Noyo Review, Poets.org, Humble Pie Magazine, Gulf Coast Journal, Yellow Medicine Review, The Muleskinner Journal, Colossus: Freedom, and Two Hawks Quarterly. She is a 1st year graduate student and scholar of the Kwame Dawes Mapmakers and Master of Fine Arts Merit endowments at the Pacific University MFA in Writing program. She lives with her rescue dog Micco, formerly feral cat Mistie, and is currently working on her full-length poetry manuscript The Length of Trauma Covets.
Laura Welter - Vice President
Laura Welter grew up in Iowa where she graduated from the U of I, then taught 6th grade for four years. The College of the Redwoods Fine Woodworking Program offered Laura and her husband an excellent reason to move to the Mendocino coast. Laura worked for non-profits for over 35 years, first managing the Paul Bunyan Thrift Shop for Parents and Friends, then directing the Fort Bragg Food Bank, and for the past 13 years, Safe Passage Family Resource Center. Laura recently retired from that job, and now has time to devote to such worthwhile endeavors as the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference.
SAGE ANDERSEN - TREASURER
Sage Andersen joined the board of MCWC in 2023. For 16 years, she was an elementary and middle school teacher; before that she worked in outdoor education. Originally from Oakland, she lives in Mendocino with her wife and their 13-year-old son; they moved to the coast in 2011. She owns the local houseplant shop, Ficus & Fern. She is also the Outreach and Communications Manager at the Mendocino Land Trust, where she helps protect the land of this beautiful place. Outside of work, she is a voracious reader, loves to sing and perform, and finds perfect happiness swimming in the waters of Hawai’i. She is great on a trivia team and believes hoop earrings are the best accessory. Sometimes she writes.
Anna Levy - secretary
A Texas and Maryland native who wrote her first story when she was six years old, Anna Levy has lived on the Mendocino Coast since 2014. She is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) in the state of California, and holds her dream job as the District Counselor for the Mendocino school system, focusing on the social, emotional, and mental health needs of young folks between the ages of 4-18. She also works as an Adjunct Instructor for Wake Forest University, in the same department from which she earned her Master’s degree, and has a Bachelor’s degree in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland. She is a regular contributor to Word of Mouth magazine, where she joyfully gets to brag about the food and wine culture of Mendocino County.
Eliana Yoneda - Board Member
Eliana Yoneda was born and raised on the Mendocino coast. She ran away to Los Angeles as fast as she could after graduating from Fort Bragg High School and four years later emerged from Occidental College with a very useful BA in Sociology. For several years she worked and taught for a nonprofit that facilitated creative writing programs in LA county juvenile halls, where she was reminded of the transformational power of imagination and self-expression. After a short stint in grad school she started to plot her return home and after a decade in southern California she finally made her return in early 2019. Since moving home she has been busy reintroducing herself to the ocean and the redwoods, saying hi to the seagulls, befriending her ghosts, and writing about all of it.
MICHELLE PEÑALOZA - Board Member
Michelle Peñaloza is the author of Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize (Inlandia Books, 2019). She is also the author of two chapbooks, landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias, 2015), and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts, 2015). The recipient of fellowships and awards from the University of Oregon and Kundiman, Michelle has also received support from Lemon Tree House, Caldera, 4Culture, Literary Arts, VONA/Voices, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, among others. The proud daughter of Filipino immigrants, Michelle was born in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. She now lives in Covelo, where she is an organic farmer.
Justine GOMES - Board Member
Justine Gomes was born and raised on the Mendocino Coast. She completed her undergraduate degree in English from UC Berkeley and her master’s degree in medieval literature from the University of Oxford. For the last five years, she taught high school English in the Bay Area. She’s currently enjoying an indefinite sabbatical to research and write her first book, which explores Azorean folklore and female community on the islands. She divides her time between France and Mendocino County with her husband and daughter.
MIAH JEFFRA - BOARD MEMBER
Miah Jeffra is author of four books, most recently The Violence Almanac (finalist for several awards, including the Grace Paley and St. Lawrence Book Prizes) and the forthcoming novel American Gospel. Work can be seen in StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, The North American Review, Barrelhouse, DIAGRAM, jubilat and many others. Miah is co-founder of Whiting Award-winning queer and trans literary collaborative, Foglifter Press, and teaches writing and decolonial studies at Santa Clara University and Sonoma State University.
PLOI PIRAPOKIN - BOARD MEMBER
Ploi Pirapokin sits on the board for Khōréō magazine, WP Now, and the Ragdale Foundation. Her work is featured in Tor.com, Pleiades, Ninth Letter, Gulf Stream Magazine, The Offing and more. She has received grants and fellowships from the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Creative Capacity Fund, Headlands Center for the Arts, Djerassi, Kundiman and others. A graduate of the Clarion Writers Workshop, she also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She currently teaches at the Writers Program at UCLA Extension, WritingWorkshops.com, and the University of Hong Kong. Born in Thailand and raised in Hong Kong, she uses speculative fiction to explore postcolonial poetics, and imperialism in Asia.
EMILY LLOYD-JONES - BOARD MEMBER
Emily Lloyd-Jones grew up on a vineyard in rural Oregon, where she played in evergreen forests and learned to fear sheep. She has a BA in English from Western Oregon University and a MA in publishing from Rosemont College. She resides in Northern California, where she enjoys wandering in redwood forests. Her young adult novels include Illusive, Deceptive, The Hearts We Sold, The Bone Houses, and The Drowned Woods. Her middle grade books include Unseen Magic and the forthcoming Unspoken Magic.