NORMAN GALAXY OF WRITERS 

                                     SPEAKER MEETING

                              March 8, 2025, 10 a.m.-12 Noon

210 South James Garner Avenue, Norman, OK

(ZOOM Available)

    MARCIA PRESTON

 

    Marcia Preston has been a high school teacher, freelance writer, magazine editor, and public relations director. Her third book in the Chantalene mystery series, Speaking to the Unseen, was released in 2024.

    A previous title, Song of the Bones, won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for suspense fiction. She writes women’s and literary fiction, as well as mysteries. She has eight traditionally published novels.

    Marcia is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and the Tornado Alley Chapter of SinC. She’s a past president and honorary lifetime member of Oklahoma City Writers and OWFI.

 

 

 

 

November 9, 2024 Business Meeting: 10 a.m. Program: 10:30 a.m., The Well, 210 South James Garner Avenue, Norman, OK. Zoom will be available.

Speaker: Laurel Thomas Laurel will talk about how to build settings to create emotional impact.

 October 12, 2024 

Business Meeting:  10 a.m.

Program: 10:30 a.m.    The Well, 210 South James Garner Avenue, Norman, OK. Zoom will be available.

Speaker: Judith Briggs Coker

JUDITH BRIGGS COKER, a native of Rutland, Vermont, has lived most of her adult life in Oklahoma, having been educated at Boston University, Oklahoma City University, and the University of Oklahoma. Aside from some years teaching overseas, she has lived in Norman the past thirty years. Her writing and teaching career has been augmented by working in a variety of art media, most recently acrylic, monoprint, and woodcuts. Coker is the author of two books: a juvenile novel, Firecracker (2023), set in 1940s Norman, Oklahoma, and Guam and Other Islands: A Miscellany (2024), a short memoir of variously-styled pieces enhanced by woodcuts drawn from her travel photos. She is a member of Women in Action for All Norman, the UCC Congregational Church of Norman, Morning Star Center for Spiritual Living, Norman Galaxy Writers’ Group, and OWFI. Her love of family, travel, and gardening enrich her life. 

  September 14, 2024 

Business Meeting:  10 a.m.

Program: 10:30 a.m.    The Well, 210 South James Garner Avenue  

Speaker: Nathan Brown

Nathan Brown is an author, songwriter, and award-winning poet who doesn’t live anywhere in particular. He holds a PhD in English and Journalism from the University of Oklahoma. He served as Poet Laureate for the State of Oklahoma in 2013/14 and travels fulltime performing readings, concerts, workshops and speaking on creativity, poetry, and songwriting.

During his Galaxy ‘Snapshot Memoir’ presentation, he will talk about how to write stories in segments and snapshots, timelines, and vignettes.

Nathan has published published more than 25 books. Most recent is his new memoir, The Broken Summer: The Birth of a Vagabond – Book 1, and a new travel memoir Just Another Honeymoon in France: A Vagabond at Large. Karma Crisis. New and Selected Poems, was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and the OklahomaBook Award.     

His earlier book, Two Tables Over, won the Oklahoma Book Award. His latest album of all original songs, The Streets of San Miguel, features Paul Simon’s accordionist, Joel Guzman and international fiddle champion, Warren Hood.

 He’s taught songwriting, memoir, poetry, and performance workshops from Tuscany and Ireland to the Sisters Folk Festival in Oregon, the Taos Poetry Festival, the Woody Guthrie Festival, Laity Lodge, the Everwood Farmstead Foundation in Wisconsin, as well as for Blue Rock Artist Ranch near Austin, Texas.

    

His online live video series The Fire Pit Sessions—inspired by the Pandemic Poems Project—has had more than 80,000 views. At almost 300 episodes now, Nathan reads a few poems from the project and performs a song at the end.