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In March 2025, Philip Henderson submitted an essay for consideration in publication of the annual book produced by Transitions Mental Health Association of San Luis Obispo. His essay entitled, “Lovely Memories and Painful Recollections: Make us who we are,” was included in the May 30, 2025, edition of Opening Minds: An Artistic Celebration of Mental Health, Writer’s Collection Volume 2.

Carole Wagener’s memoir, The Hardest Year: A Love Story in Letters During the Vietnam War, will be displayed by publisher Ingram Spark at the American Library Association Conference in Philadelphia from June 26 to June 30 where 12,000 librarians will be in attendance. According to Coastal Dunes founder, Catherine Kitcho, “This is a big deal.”

Grace Bubulka published her fourth book, Ida’s Secrets, “the saga of a Depression-era immigrant who battles a childhood of poverty, abuse, and mental illness in inner-city Philadelphia.  Attempting to overcome her demons, she remakes her identity as a New England socialite, but her past haunts her, returning her to the life from which she tried to escape. Employing generational secrets passed down from the Old Country, the resourceful Ida finds a way to transform her many flaws into attributes, finally finding success and peace in her later years.” Here’s the link to Grace’s book:  LINK

Coastal Dunes CWC Collaboration with Toastmasters Division D of Santa Maria:

The Board of Coastal Dunes CWC donated three anthologies to the silent auction at the District 33 Toastmasters International Annual Conference held on May 17th, at the Santa Maria Inn. There were a total of five book gift baskets including autographed books donated by Terry Willey, Carol Baker, Carole Wagener, and by other members that Carole donated. The book baskets drew much attention, and all sold.

Pictured from left are Coastal Dunes Corresponding Secretary Carole Wagener and Toastmasters Silent Auction Chair Sari Domingues with the anthology gift basket.

On April 4, Patrica Gimer had a fictional short story, “Something in the Water,” published in The Wave, Kelp Journal.  Go to: https://www.kelpjournal.com/post/fiction-something-in-the-water

Terry Willey and Carol Baker are in the process of publishing their second book, The Cyborg Cowboy. Check out their first book, Time Travel for Fun and Prophet, on their authors’ website: www.cinehunden.com/about/

Coastal Dunes President, Michelle Turner, is invited to be on a community outreach speakers’ panel to be held at the Cuesta College California Writers Conference on September 26-27. https://www.cuesta.edu/communityprograms/writers-conference/

At our March 1 meeting, Brian Schwartz of selfpublish.org taught us how to use two new AI tools, Perplexity and NotebookLM, for research, promotion, and marketing. Here is the Deep Dive Podcast Brian generated for his client Carole Wagener’s, screenplay, The Girl with the Dark Red Hair, using Google’s free program NotebookLM. Carole states, “This is incredible technology. Despite having difficulty pronouncing my first name, AI did a great job in capturing the complex theme and story of my 1960s screenplay.” Click on this link to listen to it, from Carole’s website: Podcast.

Carole’s movie poster was also generated using AI:

The Allan Hancock College Bulldog Bow-Wow Day Booth was a success!

The response of the Allan Hancock College students to the Coastal Dunes CWC’s mission and services far exceeded our club’s expectations this semester. Among them were those interested in writing, some already published, editors, and illustrators interested in joining us for our meetings. Our gratitude goes out to our volunteers Robert Faust and Paula Murphy, who along with V.P. Viviana Hall attended to our booth.

Good news keeps knock, knock, knocking on the door of Carole Wagener.  You might recall that her screenplay The Girl with the Dark Red Hair was a Semi-Finalist in the Glendale International Film Festival in September 2024.  Knock, knock in January 2025 Wagner’s screenplay won Honorable Mention in the LA Independent Women Film Award.

Keep knocking, Wagener just received official notice that this screenplay is a finalist in Best Script Awards London 2025, an international screenwriters contest.  Dark Red Hair competed with more than 1,000 entries to attain this distinction.  In the letter announcing her finalist status the jury wrote, “The jury wanted to highlight the uniqueness of your project, which is why you got the FINALIST status.” Does this sound like good news, no it is great news!  Let’s keep our eyes on Wagener’s The Girl with the Dark Red Hair.  The screenplay is based on her book The Hardest Year: A Love Story in Letters During the Vietnam War available on Amazon.

By Philip Henderson

Member Carole Wagener’s first screenplay, The Girl with the Dark Red Hair, is one of five semi-finalists in the 2024 Glendale International Film Festival to be held on September 26-October 1 in Glendale, California. Carole has stars in her eyes and will be attending to receive her award. The screenplay has also come in as a quarter-finalist in the Reno-Tahoe Fellowship Screenwriting Contest. Carole recommends using FilmFreeway to enter contests and is awaiting result from six more contests. Her screenplay is a fictional adaptation of her memoir, The Hardest Year: A Love Story in Letters During the Vietnam War, which was awarded as one of four finalists in the 2023 International Book Awards.

On May 10th, Viviana Hall did a poetry reading from her book “Poems of Love” at an American Club in Rome event in Rome, Italy. The event was held at the Caffee Delle Esposizioni. She read poems from her book’s collection, with messages of hope and unity through poetry. Congratulations, Viviana, for this prestigious honor!

Coastal Dunes Member and Branch Secretary Carol Wagener will have a book signing for her new memoir, The Hardest Year: A Love Story in Letters During the Vietnam War on Sunday, December 17, 2023 from 12-3 p.m. at the Book Loft in Solvang. The Hardest Year was one of four finalists in military history for the 2023 International Book Awards. Her co-author veteran husband, William, and Carole will autograph your book.

On Sunday, October 22nd, Coastal Dunes Secretary Carole Wagener was presented with the Jack London Award, given to members who have generously given their time and talents to their local California Writers Club branches. Carole writes about the experience:
“I’m counting my blessings and am thankful for being a charter member of Coastal Dunes for the past eight years. Everything I know about writing, I learned here. Jack London, one of our founders said, “You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.” I was honored by our Coastal Dunes branch to be the 2023 recipient of the Jack London Service Award. It was an awesome experience as the California Writers’ Club gave out twenty-two Jack London Awards and three Ina Coolbrith Awards.”
From all of us in the Coastal Dunes Branch, Congratulations, Carole!!