CONTRIBUTORS
Magnolia blossoms;  SF Botanical Gardens;  photo by Jane Hudson
Charlene Anderson received an MA in English Literature from Purdue University and an MA in Research Psychology from San Francisco State University and spent most of her working life at the University of California San Francisco in grant administration. As a child, she always knew she would write, told stories to her friends, and even invented a pen name for herself, Charles Andrè. So, while working on budgets and submitting grant proposals at UCSF, she continued to write and, in 2001 published a novel, Berkeley’s Best Buddhist Bookstore. When Vistas & Byways was launched in 2015, she was pleased to be asked to chair the Editorial Board. She has served in that capacity ever since.
Contributions to this issue:
​V&B Board member
Fiction
Glued to the Ground
Bay Area Stew
​The Panhandle: An Embryonic Journey
Bay Area Byways
Off to Lunch in the Neighborhood
Barbara Applegate is a retired administrator of Early Childhood Education, mother of three daughters, a traveler and contemplative. She enjoys writing but finds it challenging to write consistently. She loves taking writing classes—not just because she learns from them, but because they give her structure for writing.
Contributions to this issue:  V&B​ Board member
Nonfiction 
Oranges and Postcards
​Various Photos
Amy Benedicty is an author, translator and freelance editor. Her work has appeared in Voices from the Middle, Through Mathematical Eyes, and Poetry for the People Press. Amy taught writing at the secondary school level where she won a Golden Apple Fellowship to UC Berkeley for her work with urban students. After leaving the classroom, Amy was the director of the teacher outreach program at the World Affairs Council. In her spare time Amy enjoys hiking, most recently in Bhutan; cross country skiing and visiting her far-flung grandchildren in Amsterdam and Manhattan.
 
Contributions to this issue:
Poetry
Seasons of Peaches
Alan Brewer has lived in San Francisco for 45 years and been an OLLI at SF State member for over a decade. He has a BA from Northwestern University and an MA in Clinical Psychology from John F. Kennedy University. He has had many different jobs, from house painter to alcohol/drug rehab counselor to legal secretary. He has been writing poetry for over 40 years, has written feature articles for The Richmond Review and The Sunset Beacon. For the last 15 years, he has written mostly memoir. He has trekked in Nepal (Annapurna, later Everest), sailed as passenger/crew member on an 18th Century square-rigger in French Polynesia, and has traveled to all continents except Australia and Antarctica. 
Contributions to this issue:
Poetry
Eating Words
Bay Area Stew
Land's End
Kaaren Strauch Brown is a lifelong student, retired Professor of Social Work, and post retirement museum docent. She is a recent transplant to San Francisco from the Midwest. After annoying her fellow sixth graders with her fiction many, many years ago, she has returned to writing. Her science fiction book, The Abril Legacy, is available at Amazon E-Books.
Contributions to this issue:
Nonfiction
Sixty Years in the Kitchen
Kathy Bruin is a writer, artist, and erstwhile activist. She has worked in publishing, event management, operations, and is currently the director for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University. Kathy is the founder of About-Face, a media literacy campaign which educates about the way media impact female body images. Among other appearances for About-Face, she was “punked” on a Comedy Central program called Crossballs. Kathy also produces Bruin Snappy Cards and a meditative game called the Fox Box. She lives in San Francisco with her son, Miles, who is a senior in high school.
Contributions to this issue:
Nonfiction
Empty Nest
Joe Catalano practiced law for more than 30 years before he retired in 2018. He has since pursued his interests in photography, high performance driving, travel and writing. He enjoyed his first OLLI as SF State courses in the spring semester 2019 and thanks the members of the OLLI at SF State Poetry Writing interest group for their input and support. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Joan. 
Contributions to this issue: 
​V&B Board member​
Poetry
Hunger
No Man's Land
Thomas O. Davenport is an independent writer and business advisor living in San Francisco. He spent 32 years as a human resource consultant for a global consulting organization. He has written three business books and many serious articles and now writes sardonic verse, much of it commenting on business practices he observed (and helped create) and on social phenomena that amuse and bemuse him. In addition to Visas & Byways, his work has appeared in Defenestration, WORK Literary Magazine, Workers Write! and in the anthology Love Affairs at the Villa Nelle (Kelsay Books, 2019). You can also read his writings (verse and other) at http://www.worklodes.com.     
Contributions to this issue:
Poetry
Cooking the Books
​Elsa Fernandez grew up in Asia. She has lived in San Francisco since 1970 and never gets tired of this lovely city. She has travelled the world and still gets excited flying back home and to finally land at SFO. Her family is scattered around the world—India, Australia, Dubai, England, Ireland and Argentina. She is a political junkie and majored in Journalism and Political Science. She loves music and plays the piano quite well (one of her dreams was to own a piano bar in upcountry Maui . . .  she would probably call it the Maui Moon!). Writing poetry is an emotional outlet for her.
Contributions to this issue:
V&B Board member
Poetry
The Better-than-Sex Blueberry Cake
Bay Area Byways
Where the Earth Meets the Sky
Bay Area Stew
Last Summer in Jenner
Find your passion and follow it!   -  Oprah Winfrey.  
Cathy Fiorello’s passions are food, Paris, and writing. A morning at a farmers’ market is her idea of excitement and visiting Paris is her idea of heaven. And much of her writing is about food and Paris. She worked in publishing in New York, freelanced for magazines during her child-rearing years, then re-entered the work world as an editor. She moved to San Francisco in 2008 and published a memoir, Al Capone Had a Lovely Mother. In 2018, she published a second memoir, Standing at the Edge of the Pool. Cathy has two children and four grandchildren. Her mission is to make foodies and Francophiles of them all.
Contributions to this issue:
​Nonfiction
Life and Love in an Italian Kitchen
The Bread Is Warm
Bay Area Stew
My Pancetta Epiphany
Diane Frank is author of seven books of poems, two novels, and a memoir of her 400-mile trek in the Himalayas. Blackberries in the Dream House, her first novel, won the Chelson Award for Fiction and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Canon for Bears and Ponderosa Pines received honors in the SF Book Festival. Letters from a Sacred Mountain Place: A Journey through the Nepal Himalayas, invites you into the mountains with stories, poems and 53 color photographs. Diane teaches in the OLLI Program at SFSU. She edited the bestselling anthology, River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the 21st Century. She also plays cello in the Golden Gate Symphony. For more information: www.DianeFrank.net 
Contributions to this issue:
Poetry
Pheasant
Bay Area Stew
Chicken
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​Elinor Gale has been a writer, observer of human nature, and lover of the English language since childhood. An inveterate eavesdropper, she has woven her curiosity about human behavior into her work as writing teacher, editor and creator of humorous yet poignant fiction and poetry. She holds a BA in English from Smith College and an MS in Counseling from Northeastern University. Her essays, poetry and articles have been published in print and online. Elinor moved to the Bay Area from New England over 20 years ago and still marvels at flowers and green grass in February.
Contributions to this issue:
Fiction
​Who's Will
​Kathy Gilbert received her MFA from San Francisco State University in 2013 after a career in public transport. She received the Marc Linenthal Poetry Award in 2012 from SFSU and won the San Francisco Browning Society Gita Specker Award three times for her dramatic monologues. She was commissioned to write a play for the 2015 San Francisco Olympians Festival. Her one act play, Delphin and the Children of Amphitrite, was performed at the Exit Theater. She also tutors third graders, studies tai chi, practices yoga and swims.     
Contributions to this issue:
Poetry
Raspberries
Bay Area Byways
The New Transbay Terminal in San Francisco
A Good Moment at Pacifica Pier
Kathryn Santana Goldman is a native of San Francisco. Her interest in poetry began when she was working in ICU as a registered nurse. She used this practice to process the variety of stressful scenarios experienced. Over the years, she has continued to experiment with different types of writing such as short stories and plays. As an avid traveler, Kathryn has become skilled at capturing photographs about the diversity she encounters. Three years ago, she began to combine her love of photography with her writing by using the images she captures as seeds for her poems. She continues to explore new ways to use these two art forms to share her experience with family and friends.
Contributions to this issue:
Poetry
Almonds and Flour
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​Mary Heldman is retired from a career in medical school administration, computer programming, and business systems analysis. She grew up in Los Angeles but lived in Palo Alto, Washington D.C., Cambridge, and Stony Brook, New York before settling in San Francisco in 1974. She tutors at a local high school, studies piano, and designs costume jewelry. From time to time she writes sardonic prose for her friends. Mary wishes she lived with a chocolate lab or a golden retriever, but she doesn’t.
Contributions to this issue:
V&B Board member
A native San Franciscan, Jane Hudson has a BA in Psychology and an MA in Library Science from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a second BA in Art History from San Francisco State University. She is retired from a 27-year career as a librarian at the SF Public Library, where she was a district manager. Prior to that, she was a government documents librarian, a children's librarian, and a branch manager. Since 2014, she has focused on writing, taking a variety of writing classes at OLLI at SF State. In addition, she enjoys making art, attending theater and opera, getting together with friends and family, and working as a volunteer with the Bay Area Book Festival.
​Contributions to this issue:
Bay Area Byways
Various Photos

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​Vivian (Sinick) Imperiale left her 18-year career as support staff in a real estate office because of a chance encounter with a man with schizophrenia. Since then, she has been a mental health advocate for over 40 years, including 20 years employed in the field. Vivian has a BA in Psychology and an MA in Special Education.
Contributions to this issue:
Poetry
Aging Together
You Invited Me on a Picnic

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​Nicholas Jones earned a PhD from Harvard and taught English literature at Oberlin College for forty years, specializing in Shakespeare, Milton, and the Romantic poets. His translations and commentaries on madrigal poetry, A Poetry Precise and Free: Selected Madrigals of Guarini, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2018. He is a singer, violinist, violist, gambist, and recorderist, and reviews music for San Francisco Classical Voice. He is a member of the board of Early Music America. He is an instructor at OLLI at SF State, specializing in poetry and other forms of literature.
Contributions to this issue:
Poetry
Reading old poems in an age of social media

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Mike Lambert is a long-time resident of San Francisco and led the effort to start Vistas & Byways in the fall of 2015. In an earlier life, he worked in the telecommunications industry for 35 years and taught at San Francisco State University’s College of Business for 15 years. He refutes the adage about old dogs and new tricks. He took up creative writing as a hobby at age 75. He recently self-published two novels and a collection of his short stories. His main fictional character is Jessica Jones, a single working girl in contemporary San Francisco.  See his Author page at Amazon under the name of M. L. Lambert for more details.
Contributions to this issue:
​V&B​ Board member
Inside OLLI 
Interview with Kathy Bruin, Program Director, OLLI at SF State
Bay Area Byways
A Morning in the City
A Good Place for Coffee
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​Carol Langbort was a Professor of Education in Mathematics for 30+ years at SFSU, teaching teachers how to teach mathematics. She was Chair of the Department of Elementary Education, and for 15 years directed the SF Math Leadership Project, a professional development program for classroom teachers. She developed a master’s degree program in Mathematics Education. She is co-author of several books, including How to Encourage Girls in Math and Science and Building Success in Math. Recently, she was a volunteer for the de Young and Legion of Honor Museums. She is currently on the Board of Nicaragua Children’s Friendship Committee. She has studied Spanish for many years in language schools in Mexico, and participates in the OLLI Spanish conversation group. 
Contributions to this issue:
V&B Board Member
Bay Area Byways
A Smile on My Face
​Dina Martin was fortunate to have earned a living through writing, first as a newspaper reporter and later as an advocate for public education. She found her husband of 34 years the same way, by writing a personal ad in the Bay Guardian. Now retired, she occasionally finds time to write in between folk dancing, OLLI classes and trying to do a little good. She and her husband reside in Bernal Heights, and are happy to have their two adult children living and working nearby.
Contributions to this issue:
V&B Board member
Inside OLLI
Meet Andrew and Lola Fraknoi: ​​When Science Meets Art
​Nonfiction
The Mahjong Game
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​Diana McKennett considers herself a westerner. She was born in Idaho, and lived in Oregon and Washington also. She has lived in San Francisco since 1971. She worked as an LVN for 20 years, but has a BA degree in Geography from San Francisco State University. She drives once or twice a week, but takes MUNI more often. She loves libraries, clouds, birds and her family and friends.  
Contributions to this issue:
Bay Area Byways
A Trip down Brannan Street to the Bay in San Francisco
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Marsha Michaels has been a student at OLLI at SF State since 2009. Her first writing class was with Barbara Rose Brooker. Barbara helped Marsha self-publish a memoir, Pulling At Straws. She also took a class with Dave Casuto, and they developed a website, where many of Marsha’s stories and recipes can be found. Marsha takes writing classes and other classes on diversified subjects at OLLI at SF State, and has been published in previous issues of Vistas & Byways. She finally feels that she’s been educated where she missed out in her youth. Marsha thanks OLLI at SF State for the enormous difference it has made in her life.
Contributions to this issue:
Nonfiction
Cannoli Comfort
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​Angie Minkin retired from a long career as an administrative law judge with the State of California and now spends her time rehabilitating her right brain. She practices yoga, takes dance classes several times a week, and loves to write poetry. She volunteers with a local non-profit that serves low-income immigrant families. Angie has two adult children and lives in San Francisco with her husband and two cats, all of whom provide inspiration. She escapes to the sun whenever possible.
Contributions to this issue:
​V&B Board member 
Poetry​
​Ode to Alemany Farmers Market
​M J Moore lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her various incarnations have included technical writer and editor, grassroots environmental activist, first grade teacher, poet and flash fiction writer, wife, and mother. Strongly bi-coastal, she thrives on salt air, wind and waves, but also loves mountains, deserts, forests and streams. Writing for her is a source of vision and joy. 
Contributions to this issue:
Poetry
After Long Journey
Wild Welcome​
Bay Area Stew
Kayak at Twilight
​Don Plansky has participated in many OLLI at SF State writer workshops. In a former incarnation, he worked as a freelance journalist, contributing more than 200 articles to The Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, as well as book reviews for The Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies. Don has been a member of the Vistas & Byways Editorial Board since 2015.​
Contributions to this issue:
​​V&B Board member
​Nonfiction
​Who Is the Murderer?
Maria-Teresa Poblete is a long time, passionate Marin resident with a sense of joie-de-vivre. She loves to hike, meet interesting people and the planet, which she’s done in decades of extensive travel and work in six continents in five languages. Although she is a foreigner in a foreign country, speaking a foreign language—she enjoys learning new things with great motivation and enthusiasm. She volunteers at different film festivals and exhibits in San Francisco and Marin. For the past three years, she has come to life with OLLI classes and meetings. Recently, she has been invited to join the Advisory Council at OLLI Dominican.​
Contributions to this issue:
Nonfiction
Tea Time
Rodney J. Shapiro was born and raised in South Africa. He worked as a journalist and published several short stories, poetry, and articles. He taught English Literature as a part-time teacher but decided on psychology as a career. He graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, with a PhD in 1965. He immigrated to the USA in 1966. His professional career included faculty positions as Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester, NY, and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. His interests have included traveling, amateur photography, a classics book club, telling jokes, jogging with his dog, reliving his 11th (last) marathon. His primary reverence is inspiration for writing poetry and fiction.    
Contributions to this issue:
​Fiction
Delirium
​Lucy Sweeney is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a major in Music. She remained a serious choral singer while working as a professional baker, performing with Masterworks Chorale. Upon her return to teaching, she performed with the Stanford Early Music Singers and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. Lucy discovered the joys of genealogy research when she retired. She edited Lozano, a book of stories about her extended family. With expert guidance from Barbara Rose Brooker at OLLI, Lucy wrote Silent Hero, the story of her father in World War II. Lucy and her grandson Adam are currently writing a family cookbook.
Contributions to this issue:
Nonfiction
Strange Foods in a Strange Land

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​A retired physician, Corey Weinstein is a musician, poet, songwriter and clarinet player. He has published two CDs of original music inspired by the Klezmer and Yiddish stage musical traditions and led Umzist, a Klezmer band playing benefits for Jewish elders for more than a decade. He wrote and performed at various venues a singspiel, Erased: Babi Yar, the SS and Me to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the massacre at Babi Yar. He plays clarinet in the Or Shalom Jewish Community choir, with The Jamberries Jazz Band at Shabbat services at Rhoda Goldman Plaza, and with any chamber music group he can find. He lives in the Ingleside of San Francisco with his wife of 37 years, Pat Skala.
Contributions to this issue:
​Poetry
Fridge 1/21/20
Vivien Zielin was born in England and graduated in history and social studies at the University of Sussex. She was a history teacher in London, worked for an interior design company in Jerusalem, and was the owner of “The China Ware House Company” in Carnaby Street, specializing in fine English made giftware, dinnerware, and quirky teapots. She has worked for media companies on various projects. She has traveled the world. In 2005 she moved to California and became a citizen in 2012. She discovered OLLI at SF State in 2009 and is the Event Organizer for the annual Creativity Celebration. Eyeballing Big Croc: Chasing Dreams Around the World is her first book and was published in 2018.
Contributions to this issue:
​Nonfiction
A Very Special Meal
Bay Area Byways
Art in the City
Winner:
V&B Cover Contest
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​Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University​.
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Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University​ (OLLI at SF State) provides communal and material support to the Vistas & Byways  volunteer staff.