As a journalist, I long ago learned to not take “No” for an answer. There always had to be a way around the rejection, I was taught. And that’s exactly how the Writer’s Symposium By The Sea began – with what looked like a “No.”
Thirty years ago I was trying to gather some local writers on campus so that our students could see what the writing life was, and hear about the many turns and opportunities out there for those who could write well. The poets and novelists and magazine writers and television reporters I called were happy to come and discuss their careers.
But there was one more writer I was pursuing, and everyone I asked about him said I shouldn’t waste my time. He’d never come, they said. He doesn’t do these kinds of things, they said.
But if someone is going to tell me no, I want to make them tell it to my face. You never know if, after they say no, they might add a “however…”
The author I was after was Joe Wambaugh. He had written incredible books based on his experience as a Los Angeles cop – The New Centurions, which was made into a movie starring George C. Scott; The Onion Field, and many more.
When I was doing reporting about the U.S./Mexico border for the Boston Globe, someone told me that if I really wanted to understand what was happening at the border, I needed to read Wambaugh’s book Lines and Shadows. It is one of the few books where I can honestly say I could not put it down once I started reading it. The story was deep and complicated and disturbing. But the storytelling made me want to be a better writer. I wanted him to come hang out with us and talk about storytelling. It seemed like an easy ask, I thought. He lived in the Point Loma area. He walked his dogs on our campus.
But when I asked people to introduce me to him, they shook their heads — he hated doing public appearances, they said.
He was a recluse, they said.
He hates talking about writing, they said.
He’ll tell you no – if he answers you at all, they said.
But I got his number. His fax number.
I wrote an invitation, told him how much Lines and Shadows had helped me as a journalist, told him how much it would mean to all of us if he could come to campus and talk to our students about the craft of writing, and faxed it to him. Who could say no to an invitation to come inspire students?
A very brief fax came for me a few days later. He didn’t do public appearances. He didn’t like to talk about writing. He just likes to write, so, no.
However, he added, in what felt like an afterthought, if someone wanted to ask him questions, he would come and do that for a little while.
I was told by people in the community that this was huge. So we collaborated with UCSD-TV to televise it. I read every one of Wambaugh’s books in preparation. We booked the conference room at the Fermanian Business Center. Maybe 100 people showed up. It was awesome.
And the Writer’s Symposium interview format was born.
Since that event we have hosted nonfiction writers including:
- Susan Orlean – Journalist, Author, The Library Book, Rin Tin Tin, The Orchid Thief
- Maria Hinojosa – Journalist, Author, Once I Was You
- Nick Hornby (Both Nonfiction and Fiction) – Pop Culture Critic, Author, Fever Pitch
- Cornel West – Philosopher, Author, Race Matters, Democracy Matters
- David Brooks – Journalist, Author, The Road To Character, The Second Mountain, How to Know A Person
- Nadia Bolz-Weber – Pastor, Author, Accidental Saints, Pastrix, Shameless
- Sonia Nazario – Journalist, Author, Enrique’s Journey,
- Pico Iyer – Journalist, Author, The Half Known Life in Search of Paradise, The Lady and the Monk, The Art of Stillness
- EJ Dionne – Journalist, Author, Our Divided Political Heart, Why Americans Hate Politics
- Deepak Chopra – Alternative Medicine Advocate, Author of multiple books on healing and the inner life
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – Author, Coach Wooden and Me
- Justin Skeesuck & Patrick Gray – Travel Writers, Authors, I’ll Push You
- Krista Tippett – Journalist, Podcast Host of On Being, Author, Becoming Wise, Speaking of Faith
- Tracy Kidder – Journalist, Author, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Rough Sleepers, The Soul of a New Machine
- Shauna Niequist – Author, I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet, Present over Perfect, Cold Tangerines, Savor
- Dick Enberg – Broadcaster, Author, Oh My,
- Paul Farmer – Doctor, Humanitarian, Author, To Repair the World, Pathologies of Power
- Anne Lamott – Author, Sometimes, Operating Instructions, Bird By Bird
- Siddhartha Mukherjee – Doctor, Author, The Emperor of All Maladies, The Song of the Cell
- Samuel Freedman – Journalist, Author, Into The Bright Sunshine, Letters to a Young Journalist
- Cathleen Falsani – Journalist, Author, Sin Boldly, The God Factor
- Rachel Held Evans – Blogger, Author, Inspired, Faith Unraveled, In Search of Biblical Womanhood
- Chris Hedges – Journalist, Author, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, American Fascists, Empire of Illusion
- Rob Bell – Author, Love Wins, Velvet Elvis, Everything is Spiritual
- Mary Karr – Author, Lit, Liar’s Club, Cherry
- John Polkinghorne – Physicist, Author, The Faith of a Physicist,
- Bill McKibben – Journalist, Author, The End of Nature, The Age of Missing Information
- Michael Eric Dyson – Scholar, Author, Tears We Cannot Stop, Holler If You Hear Me
- Kathleen Norris – Author, Dakota, The Cloister Walk
- Will Willimon – Pastor, Author, Resident Aliens, Remember Who You Are
- Brian McLaren – Pastor, Author, A New Kind of Christian, Faith After Doubt
- Pauline Chen – Doctor, Author, Final Exam
- Philip Yancey – Journalist, Author, What’s So Amazing About Grace, Where is God When It Hurts
- Eugene Peterson – Pastor, Author, The Message Bible
- Donald Miller – Author, Blue Like Jazz, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Searching For God Knows What
- Gary Hart – Politician, Author, The Republic of Conscience
- Jim Wallis – Founder of Sojourners, Author, God’s Politics, America’s Original Sin
- Joy Carroll Wallis – Priest, Author, The Woman Behind the Collar
- Bill Moyers – Journalist, Author, The Language of Life, Healing and the Mind, Genesis
- Jim Bouton – Baseball pitcher, Author, Ball Four, I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally, Foul Ball
- Rick Reilly – Journalist, Author, The Life of Reilly, Who’s Your Caddy?
- Chris Willman – Music Journalist
- Barbara Bradley Hagerty – Journalist, Author, Bringing Ben Home, Life Reimagined
- James Fallows – Journalist, Author, Our Towns, Breaking the News
- George Plimpton – Journalist, The Paris Review, Author, Paper Lion, Truman Capote, Open Net
- Otis Chandler – Publisher, Los Angeles Times
- Jeannette Walls – Journalist, Author, The Glass Castle, Dish
- Elizabeth Gilbert – Journalist, Author, Eat Pray Love, Big Magic, The Last American Man
- Gay Talese – Journalist, Author, A Writer’s Life, The Kingdom and the Power, Honor Thy Father
- Roy Blount Jr. – Author, One Fell Soup, Be Sweet
We’ve also hosted fiction writers and poets including:
- Amor Towles – Author, Table For Two, A Gentleman in Moscow, Lincoln Highway
- Anthony Doerr – Author, All the Light We Cannot See, Cloud Cuckoo Land
- N. Scott Momaday – Poet, Author, House Made of Dawn, The Way to Rainy Mountain
- Destin Daniel Cretton – Filmmaker, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Twelve Rings, Just Mercy, The Glass Castle, Short Term 12
- Alice Walker – Poet, Author, The Color Purple, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing
- Christian Wiman – Poet, Author, My Bright Abyss, Zero At The Bone, Hammer is the Prayer
- Nnedi Okorafor – Author, Binti, Akata Witch, Who Fears Death?
- Jane Smiley – Author, A Thousand Acres, The Greenlanders
- Nikki Giovanni – Poet, A Good Cry, Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea
- Robin Jones Gunn – Author, The Christy Miller Series, The Sierra Jensen Series
- Joyce Carol Oates – Author, We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, The Falls
- Lysely Tenorio – Author, Monstress, The Son of Good Fortune
- Jeannette Walls – The Silver Star, Hang the Moon, Half-Broke Horses
- Billy Collins – Poet, The Trouble With Poetry, Aimless Love
- Chris Hillman – Songwriter, Musician with The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers
- Garrison Keillor – Host of Prairie Home Companion Radio Show, Author, Lake Wobegone Days, Happy To Be Here
- Christopher Buckley – Author, Thank You For Smoking, Florence of Arabia
- Greg Laswell – Songwriter, Musician
- Richie Furay – Songwriter, Musician with Buffalo Springfield, Poco
- Luis Alberto Urrea – Author, Devil’s Highway, Good Night, Irene, The Hummingbird’s Daughter
- Jon Foreman – Songwriter, Musician with Switchfoot
- Anchee Min – Author, Red Azalea, Empress Orchid
- Peter Matthiessen – Author, The Snow Leopard, Far Tortuga, The Tree Where Man Was Born
- Amy Tan – Author, The Joy Luck Club, The Bonesetter’s Daughter
- Ray Bradbury – Author, The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine
- Chitra Divakaruni – Author, Sister of My Heart, Before We Visit the Goddess, Oleander Girl
- Mary Karr – Poet, Sinners Welcome, Tropic of Squalor
The authors we bring to campus interact with our students in afternoon forums, sometimes workshopping students’ stories and poems. Can you imagine getting advice from Billy Collins regarding a poem you wrote when you were 20? Wouldn’t that change your trajectory? It would have given me a heart attack.
And now those afternoon forums are run largely by students in our Master’s in Writing program.
Our 30th annual Symposium is going to be a gathering of some of the best writers yet. If you haven’t been moved by Mitch Albom’s books like Tuesdays With Morrie or his novels (so many about heaven!), you will be. And if you’ve wondered why Sandra Cisneros is viewed as one of the leading voices in literature, not just for her book House on Mango Street, but also for her other stories and poems, you’ll see why. And if you’ve wondered who the dominant voice in writing is these days, you’ll be delighted to meet Jesmyn Ward. They’re all coming.
We do this because storytelling is one of the ways we understand the world, ourselves, our values, our history, our future. And these writers are some of the best at doing all of it. The mission of the Writer’s Symposium By The Sea is to inspire, model and celebrate great storytelling. All of that will be on display with these writers.
Many of the writers we’ve had at the Symposium have died – most recently, Nikki Giovanni, which makes these interviews even more compelling. It’s a way to hear their authentic voices and capture their personalities forever. My conversations with them are on the Writer’s Symposium website https://www.pointloma.edu/2025writers
Joe Wambaugh and I have done a few other events in San Diego together. He’s still mostly saying no.
I always wait for the “however.”
