Edge Effects
The Intensity of Immersion: Paul Skenazy
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...
Illuminated Pages: Sarah Rabkin and Chuck Atkinson
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...
So Freakin’ Special: Daniel Getzoff
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....
Chance Conversations: Daniel Mayer
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...
Storytelling Teeth: Tanya M. Smith
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...
Addicted to Viewsheds: Charles Hood
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...
Infinite Language: Tracie Hayes
To get to PLAYA, I drove through eleven ecoregions, tracking over 2,000 miles from Minnesota. I was doing ecology fieldwork in the tallgrass prairie before leaving early in the morning in mid-September. I drove across North Dakota, through Montana, up to the Idaho...
Fishing and Ecopoetics: Scott T. Starbuck
Two-time PLAYA resident Scott T. Starbuck liked to start his days in residency fishing and "pausing to write on logs or boulders along rivers and creeks." In this way, during a 2015 PLAYA stay, he completed one of his books of wonderful, watery poems, Lost Salmon...
Stillness on the Edge: Jana Richman
I arrived at PLAYA on a frigid January afternoon after a 10-hour drive, turned through the welcoming gates, and brought the car to a sliding stop on the snow-covered road in front of the main house. A recent ice storm had covered the bare branches of every tree and...
Natural Beauty: David Werfelmann
David Werfelmann is an award-winning American composer of instrumental, vocal, and electronic music whose works are widely performed and recorded by ensembles and soloists throughout the United States. His orchestral music has been performed by the Milwaukee Symphony...