By Sam Warren, copyright 2017

April 8, 2017 (San Diego) – Whether you’re looking to write your first novel, meet a novelist, or hear from the White House insider who disclosed President Nixon’s secret taping system, you’ll find a trove of events for readers and writers in San Warren’s literary calendar this week.

East County News Service

March 21, 2017 (El Cajon) - The El Cajon branch of the San Diego County Library at 201 E. Douglas Avenue in El Cajon will host its second annual Family Play Day on Saturday, April 1 at 12:00 p.m. There will be crafts and activities for kids of all ages, as families learn how to make play items from common, everyday materials.  It’s fun, inexpensive, and teaches kids how to be resourceful.  This event is sponsored by the Friends of the El Cajon Library.

East County News Service

March 10, 2017 (Alpine) - Join the East County Rose Society as they drink tea and discuss Jane Austen's novel, Emma, on April 15 at 2:00 p.m. at the Alpine Library.

Update! Hear our interview with author Diana Lindsay, originally aired on KNSJ radio, by clicking the audio link.  She discusses her book, the Anza Borrego Foundation and its anniversary,  as well as the colorful lore of the Anza Borrego Desert.

Coast to Cactus: The Canyoneer Trail Guide to San Diego Outdoors, by Diana Lindsay (Sunbelt Publications, Inc., San Diego, California, 2016, 595 pages).

Book Review by Dennis Moore

In the end, we will conserve only what we love

We will love only what we understand,

We will understand only what we are taught.

• Baba Dioum, Senegalese Conservationist

March 3, 2017 (San Diego) - The beauty and splendor of outdoor life in San Diego County is exemplified in this book by Diana Lindsay, managing editor of Sunbelt Publications; Coast to Cactus: The Canyoneer Trail Guide to San Diego Outdoors. Along with Paula Knoll and Terri Varnell, of the editing team of this groundbreaking book, it is an indispensable guide for hikers and all others interested in the outdoors of this beautiful area called San Diego County.

By Sam Warren © 2017

February 26, 2017 (San Diego) – From author appearances to tips for writers and a writing competition, Sam Warren’s calendar has plenty of events in San Diego and East County for both readers and writers.

The Blood Of Emmett Till, by Timothy B. Tyson (Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 2017, 291 pages).

Book Review by Dennis Moore

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

• Sir Winston Churchill

February 22, 2017 (San Diego) - The Blood Of Emmett Till is perhaps the most painful and disturbing book that I have ever read, and I am a professional writer and book reviewer, having written more than 200 book reviews. Two of those book reviews contributed towards the authors winning the NAACP Image Award in Literature; Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Gregory Reed’s Obama Talks Back. It parallels Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America by James Allen and Hilton Als, which I also had written a review of.

Quiet Thoughts, by Jacqueline Carr (Creatspace, 2016, 60 pages)

Book Review by Dennis Moore

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or

the mirror that reflects it.”

- Edith Wharton -

February 13, 2017 (San Diego) - Jacqueline Carr, who has been a freelance contributor to the East County Magazine in San Diego – having written a review of New York Times Bestselling author Caitlin Rother’s book Naked Addiction, has now written her own book, Quiet Thoughts. This splendid and insightful book of poetry, is reflective of Carr’s background as an Adjunct Instructor at York College (CUNY), and literary enthusiast. She is also the author of another book on poetry, A Selected Few Just For You.

East County News Service

February 9, 2017 (Spring Valley) - Karamu, a celebration of  Black History Month, will be held February 25^th from 1 to 3 p.m. at the county library in Spring Valley at 836 Kempton Street from 1 to 3 p.m.  This event will include speakers, art, live entertainment, children’s activities and refreshments.

By Victor Contreras

February 4, 2017 (San Diego) -- The Descendants of Early San Diego (Formerly known as the Old Town San Diego Descendants Group or Committee), announces that they are soliciting submissions of short monologues for presentation specifically for TwainFest to be held at Old Town San Diego State Park in August annually. 

East County News Service

January 30, 2017 (La Mesa) – When La Mesa’s old police station was torn down and a new one built on the site of the aging County library that was torn down, a modest new library was built that was intended to be temporary, with a larger, new library proposed to be built on the site of the old police station. But a decade after efforts to build a new library began, the interim library building remains, with no plans yet submitted for a replacement—much to the consternation of library patrons advocating for a more spacious facility to meet modern needs.

Book review by Joe Gandelman, Editor in Chief, The Moderate Voice

Reprinted with permission from The Moderate Voice, a member of the San Diego Online News Network

January 22, 2017 (San Diego's East County) - A Clear and Present Danger: Narcissim in the Era of Donald Trump was written before the election — but boy is it needed to be read now.

It’s a thoughtful volume comprised of contributions by psychiatrists, doctors, psychologists– and a notable storyteller-author-clinical-psychologist that’ll be read for many years and deserves to be read and studied. Because there is a history of narcissism in world history and politics. And in world history, leaders who fit the definition of having narcissistic personality disorder often don’t often fare well — and their countries may fare worse. One thing they do: they backhand societal and political norms, often get away with it and can change their societies, often little by little, sometimes abruptly — and often legally.

East County News Service

January 13, 2017 (San Diego) – Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) invites you to join her in honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Day by participating in a Day of Reading Around the Region on Monday, January 16. This is a program championed by the national sorority of Phi Delta Kappa, Inc., an organization of educators that I have been a member of for four decades.

Ray & Joan: The Man Who Made the McDonald’s Fortune and the Woman Who Gave It All Away, by Lisa Napoli (Dutton, New York, NY, 2016, 353 pages).

Book Review by Dennis Moore

January 3, 2017 (San Diego) - Virtually everyone in the world has had and tasted a McDonald’s hamburger at some time or another. In my case I have actually had thousands, and as a matter of fact, my first job at the age of 19 was preparing burgers and fries at a McDonald’s in Kansas City. Ray & Joan: The Man Who Made the McDonald’s Fortune and the Woman Who Gave It All Away, is an intriguing book about fame and fortune, and how it all began.

Copyright 2017 by Sam Warren, Editor

Contributor: Laura Roberts, Editor, The Writer’s Life, SDW/EG

January 2, 2017 (San Diego) — This week’s edition includes a newsflash about a popular local bookstore closing its doors, appearances by prominent authors, classes and a local writer’s conference.

Update:   Hear our interview with Amanda Matti, author of A Foreign Affair, (originally aired on KNSJ radio) by clicking the audio link here.

A Foreign Affair, by Amanda Matti (W & B Publishers, Kernersville, NC, 2016, 343 pages).

Book Review by Dennis Moore

December 1, 2016 (San Diego) - Amanda Matti, an El Cajon (San Diego) resident who served six years in the United States Navy, including a 2005 deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, has written a riveting true story of romance and war; A Foreign Affair. Matti provides graphic details of her experience in a war that many in this country felt never should have been.