Southern California Writers Association

Maria is a word whisperer. Throughout childhood, her words produced awards, admittance to honor societies and the occasional parent-teacher conference. Before college graduation, she’d already completed three student assistant positions editing and writing for government groups such as the Department of Justice, where she worked on the revolutionary Cal-Photo project. A total techno-moll, she became Editor-in-Chief of the Intel Technology Journal and then went on to write for companies like Fujitsu America, where she was the World Designer and In-World Storyteller for one of the first graphical virtual worlds. Meanwhile, she was lead writer and co-owner of Dead Earth Productions, a fully immersive, interactive theatre company beloved by Chaosium and White Wolf staff. After a film mentorship with renowned author Clive Barker, she moved to Los Angeles and began writing short fiction. Her stories have since appeared alongside writers such as Chuck Palahniuk, David Morrell and Heather Graham. For six years, she worked at Disney creating award-winning videos and copy for websites, as well as developing the occasional online game. She is currently a Senior Copywriter at UCLA. When not writing fiction or humorous essays, she's a samurai-in-training at her local shinkendo dojo. Look for her at Sisters in Crime, the International Thriller Writers Association and Transmedia L.A. 'Bun Bu Ryo Do: The Way of the Pen and the Sword’ The samurai believed that one could not be a true warrior unless one studied the arts as rigorously as one trained with a katana. The study of the pen was one with study of the sword, and budo was, contrary to popular belief, the art of conflict resolution not war. A professional writer for the last 25 years, Maria Alexander started studying the samurai art called shinkendo almost three years ago and has started to see how certain principles of samurai philosophy have been at work in her writing life since she first picked up a pen. Having faced numerous challenges in her career, Alexander will talk about the winding way of a writer's life and how she has resolved various conflicts, including hand disabilities.