Edge Effects

Paper, ink, beeswax, and thread tell the story of a place in Marilyn Joyce’s mixed media works. Residing in Portland, Oregon, she finds that her passionate interest in the natural world, joined with a walking practice, provides parameters for her art. As Marilyn...

Author and PLAYA alum Melanie Bishop has a delightful Young Adult novel in the PLAYA library: My So-Called Ruined Life (2014). This "introspective page-turner" (Publisher's Weekly) was a top-five finalist for both the John Gardner Award in Fiction and Community of...

PLAYA resident Paul Skenazy taught Literature and Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for many years. Several PLAYA residents fondly remember Paul's lively lectures as he expanded our horizons on that beautiful campus among the redwoods and banana...

PLAYA is thrilled to welcome the return of alumni Sarah Rabkin and Charles Atkinson to Summer Lake, on May 3 through 5, to lead our first master class of 2019. Former residents Chuck and Sarah both taught writing at UC Santa Cruz for many years. Sarah is the author...

Daniel Getzoff is a Los Angeles-based community activist and organizer, a playwright, personal essayist/blogger, a multi-faceted nonprofit sector worker, a recovering actor, and a recovering addict. In the past few years, he has added fiction writer to that list....

Daniel Mayer is a visual artist who works with both traditional analog and digital processes to produce works of art in bookform. The books are gorgeous, informative works of language and art in many forms: experimental artist’s books, variable editioned prints, fine...

Tanya Smith is yet another heavy-hitting PLAYA alum. A Professor in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, she has also been a professor at Harvard University, fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced...

Charles Hood, a writer and photographer based in the Mojave Desert, found his photography roots at PLAYA when he came to work on writing projects. He went bats for PLAYA--that is, he recorded Myotis species in audio and visual formats here and hasn't looked back. He...