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February Featured Speaker – Robert Petersen

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Workshop Title: Turning Local History Into Compelling Storytelling

What if some of your most compelling story ideas are already waiting where you live?

Notorious Bakersfield began as a passion project fueled by Robert Petersen’s love of true crime and local history. In this talk, he’ll explore how revisiting forgotten headlines became a way to tell meaningful stories, preserve local memory, and find a unique narrative voice by writing about the place he knows best.

Attendees will learn how real events—especially those drawn from history and true crime—can be shaped into responsible, engaging stories without sensationalism. The session also offers a practical look at how personal curiosity can become an ongoing creative project, developed one story at a time.

Perhaps most importantly, this talk gives writers permission to begin. You don’t need special credentials, a large platform, or a perfect plan to tell meaningful stories. You just need curiosity, attention, and the willingness to start—right where you are.

Robert’s Bio:

Robert Petersen is a Bakersfield native who spent much of his childhood living abroad after his family moved overseas when he was five. Though he lived in several countries, Bakersfield was always home, with summers spent returning before his family resettled permanently in the mid-1980s. During the COVID pandemic, Robert began reading archived issues of The Bakersfield Californian, discovering forgotten stories about his hometown. That curiosity led to the launch of the Notorious Bakersfield podcast in June 2021 and the publication of two companion books in 2023 and 2024.

Notorious Bakersfield website: https://www.notoriousbakersfield.com

Meeting on Saturday, February 21, 2026
Breakfast begins at 8:30 am
The general meeting begins at 9:15 am
Hodel’s at 5917 Knudsen Dr, Bakersfield

Writers of Kern Monthly Meeting and Workshop Fee. Breakfast is included.

January Featured Speaker – Baylie Jett Mills

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Workshop Title: The Stories We Carry – Turning Memory into Creative Fiction and Nonfiction

Our memories hold powerful stories. At this meeting, we will explore techniques for using personal memories to craft compelling creative fiction and nonfiction.

Many of us love to tell stories based on our memories, so why not use those memories to craft compelling creative fiction and nonfiction? Using your own memories as fuel for stories can help guide you toward realistic dialogue and actions while providing you with the basis for plot ideas. There is no rule that you have to use your experiences to write nonfiction; thus, memories can be a great springboard to write autobiographical fiction.

In this discussion, I will be providing techniques to utilize memories for creative story writing. I have been a creative writer my whole life, but as an undergrad and graduate student, I have studied creative writing and participated in various creative writing workshop groups that have helped me hone my technique as a writer of both fiction and nonfiction. Through my discussion and upcoming Levan Institute class, I hope to help others discover seeds for stories using their own life experiences. Be sure to bring a pen and paper to the discussion so you can take part in some writing activities!

Baylie’s Bio:

Baylie Jett Mills graduated summa cum laude from Texas Tech University, earning a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing and minors in communication studies and legal studies. She recently earned an MA in English with an American literature concentration and is currently pursuing a PhD in English literature and criticism. Baylie is the author and illustrator of The Adventures of Max children’s book series. She has also had work published in Western American Literature, Sigma Tau Delta Review, WORDY by Nature, Harbinger: A Journal of Art and Literature, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series. 

In addition, later in January, Baylie will be teaching a course at the Levan Institute. The class name is: WRITING: HARNESSING MEMORIES FOR CREATIVE STORY WRITING
Levan Institute Class Description: Many of us love to tell stories based on our memories, so why not use those memories to craft compelling creative fiction and nonfiction? This class will teach you how to utilize a variety of craft techniques using your own memories as fuel. Each class will begin with a discussion of creative writing craft concepts. There will be short in-class writing exercises, breakout room activities, and short take-home readings and writing activities that will be discussed during class. Students will receive instructor feedback on their writing and, in the spirit of a workshop setting, students will share constructive feedback with one another. Registration for Spring 2026 will open Monday, January 12, 2026 at 10 a.m.  Register here: https://levan.asapconnected.com/#CourseID=321168

Writers of Kern Meeting on Saturday, January 17, 2025
Breakfast begins at 8:30 am
The general meeting begins at 9:15 am
Hodel’s at 5917 Knudsen Dr, Bakersfield

Writers of Kern Monthly Meeting and Workshop Fee. Breakfast is included.

September Featured Speaker – Lisa-Behrens Smith

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Workshop Title: Pull It Out of Your Life – Overcoming Writer’s Block

When writer’s block freezes your pen, when your ideas flow like mud, when you can’t find the perfect words to start your best excuse for not writing, the answer isn’t in journaling or doodling or reworking a piece you’ve already discarded. It’s in your life. Period.

All writing–all good writing–reveals what it means to be human, and that means “you”. Your simplest musings about a stain on your table, a frustrated cry, or your worst burnt dinner can be the story you’ve been struggling to begin, the beginning of the book you’ve been meant to write. You just need to notice it. Then the writing “becomes”!

This presentation, from a California teacher and independent writer, can show anyone how to begin writing the pieces that present life in its most authentic way. Group participation and discussions will highlight the hour and leave all participants inspired as they learn how to pull those ideas out of their lives.

Lisa’s Bio:

Lisa-Behrens is a two-time award winner at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and an active member of Writers of Kern.  She has just released her novella Mulberry Seeds, and the memoir of her college life at 40 in the dorms of Isla Vista, including selected fictional work, is in progress.

You can connect with Lisa here:

Website: https://lisa-b-smith.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lostiniv402/
Buy her book, Mulberry Seeds: https://a.co/d/bcFZf7z

Meeting on Saturday, September 20, 2025
Breakfast begins at 8:30 am
The general meeting begins at 9:15 am
Hodel’s at 5917 Knudsen Dr, Bakersfield

Writers of Kern Monthly Meeting and Workshop Fee. Breakfast is included.

August Featured Speaker – Dan Bronson

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Workshop Title: This Writer’s Journey

Good writers READ obsessively, compulsively, continuously.

Good writers LISTEN to the way people actually talk and to the way locale, education, social status, and personality shape their speech.

Good writers RESEARCH, losing themselves in basement libraries, immersing themselves in the backgrounds of their stories, visiting the settings of those stories and getting to know the people who live there.

Good writers learn to unlock their unconscious minds, escaping the world around them and living in a world elsewhere, the world of their stories.

This writer’s journey…from the written word to the screen image and back again.

The maxims Dan writes by:

1) Show, don’t tell.
2) Action is character.
3) Conflict is drama.
4) Make a virtue of necessity.

Dan’s Bio:

Dan has had many careers: Associate Professor of English at DePauw University, Senior Story Analyst at Universal, Associate Story Editor at Filmways, Executive Story Editor at Paramount, Writer/Producer of HBO’s acclaimed Ed Harris thriller The Last Innocent Man and NBC’s cult classic Death of a Cheerleader, author of the memoir Confessions of a Hollywood Nobody, and of the Jack Shannon mysteries Someone to Watch Over Me and Shout at the Devil, books that critics have compared to the novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

Dan also has a B.A. in English, Pomona College. M.A., Ph.d. in English and American Lit, Princeton University. Tenured Associate Professor of English, DePauw University. Senior Story Analyst, Universal Pictures. Associate Story Editor, Filmways Pictures. Executive Story Editor, Paramount Pictures. Independent Writer-Producer at the major networks and studios. Memoirist. Novelist.

You can connect with Dan here:

Website: https://dan-bronson.com
Website: https://hollywood-nobody.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100006971839074

Meeting on Saturday, August 16, 2025
Breakfast begins at 8:30 am
The general meeting begins at 9:15 am
Hodel’s at 5917 Knudsen Dr, Bakersfield

Writers of Kern Monthly Meeting and Workshop Fee. Breakfast is included.

Fall Writing Contest

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The Fall Writing Contest is upon us!  This year’s prompt is Joy and Sorrow.  You may write about either one or both.  

Word count is up to 1,200. Fiction or nonfiction. Please use a Word document with no names or other identifying marks. Use Times New Roman, 12pt font, double-spaced, and use the attachment function to send your submission. 

Submissions will be blind judged on the setting, originality, style (including grammar and spelling), voice, character development, and storyline. The rubrics that Writers of Kern uses to judge the Fall Writing Contest can be found on our Rubrics page.

Submissions will be accepted October 1, 2024 through October 31, 2024. Submissions received before or after those dates will not be accepted.  

Prizes are $200 first place, $100 second place and $50 third place.

Prizes, if applicable, will be awarded at the December meeting