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Thad Nodine: Writer in Residence

Thad Nodine is the first author selected for the Bookshop Santa Cruz Writer Residency at the The Wellstone Center in the Redwoods. The residency, in honor of Bookshop Santa Cruz’s 50th anniversary, provides room and evening meals for a selected writer for fourteen days at the Wellstone Center’s beautiful setting in the Santa Cruz mountains.

Run by Sarah Ringler and best-selling author Steve Kettmann, the Wellstone Center is a writers’ retreat center that hosts writers for weeklong and two-week residencies, offers monthlong fellowships and also publishes books under its Wellstone Books imprint. Resident writers can participate in weekly yoga sessions and group nature hikes as well as Tuesday night OpenMic Night. They will receive a consultation session with Bookshop Santa Cruz buyers to discuss their project in relation to the marketplace, and a consultation with Steve Kettmann, also a book doctor and Publisher of Wellstone Books. This residency sponsorship will be offered annually through 2020.

Nodine is a novelist living in Santa Cruz whose 2011 first novel Touch and Go, a road story narrated by a blind, unemployed journalist/recovering addict, was hailed by Publisher’s Weekly in a starred review as “one of the year’s finest fiction debuts” and by novelist Jonathan Franzen as “a high-velocity vision quest that keeps surprising and surprising.” Nodine, who was born in Florida, earned a bachelor’s degree in politics from Oberlin College and a PhD in literature from UC Santa Cruz. He is at work on his second novel.

The residency was open to any author working on a work of fiction, with an emphasis on fiction set in California, and more than 60 authors applied.

“We were amazed by the response, which made it quite challenging to decide between so many outstanding writers,” said Sarah Ringler, who oversaw the WCR selection process in conjunction with Bookshop Santa Cruz. “But it was so much fun and we’re already looking forward to reading submissions for the next residency.”

“Bookshop Santa Cruz is thrilled to celebrate our 50 th anniversary by connecting a great writer to the Wellstone Center, where they will have the space and environment to bring their book to fruition,” said Casey Coonerty Protti.

“I’m blown away by this honor to be the first Bookshop Santa Cruz resident at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods,” Thad Nodine said. “This residency will make a huge difference in advancing my work on my novel and my career as a writer. Bookshop Santa Cruz and the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods represent the best in supporting literature and writing, not just in Santa Cruz but for California and nationwide.”

more information about the residency

more information on the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods