UKIAH – A variety of writers’ workshops are being offered as part of Mendocino LitFest on Saturday, June 2 at Mendocino College.

Lake County’s Hal Zina Bennett, author of more than 30 books, presents “The Four Portals of Creativity: Unleashing the Power of Your Own Voice.” Bennett shares ideas about accessing the hidden powers of life experiences to create more powerful characters, themes and story lines.

Mendocino College professor and novelist Jody Gehrman teams up with Morgan Hill freelancer Jordan Rosenfeld to walk participants through the process of writing rich, evocative scenes guaranteed to pull readers into a fictional world. Their workshop, “Make a Scene,” will run one and a half hours.

Nonfiction author Rebecca Lawton, whose credits include “On Foot in Sonoma” and “Reading Water: Lessons from the River,” presents “Writing Nature,” for those who see the natural world as more than scenery and want to explore the use of the wild as metaphor, character, and setting.

Ukiah authors Natasha Yim and Gretchen Maurer offer an introduction to the world of writing for children in their session, “Discovering the Children’s Writer in You – From Idea to Submission.”

Besides workshops, Mendocino LitFest offers participants an evening and a day of authors reading, discussing and signing their books. Among the authors are mystery writers, memoirists, poets, and writers of literary fiction.

On Saturday, independent bookstores, regional publishers, self-published authors and small presses will be on campus selling their literature.

Pre-registration for the day’s four workshops is open through May 20. The fee for each hour-long session is $15.

The workshop schedule gives participants the option of signing up for any or all sessions. For detailed workshop information and a registration form, see www.mendolitfest.org.

Mendocino LitFest is made possible by an Arts for our Future grant from the Community Foundation of Mendocino County to Mendocino College. Major support has been provided by Friends of the Mendocino College Library, Visual Identity, J Design and Nine Trees Design.

For more information about LitFest, see www.mendolitfest.org or call 468-3051.

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