Valley Authors Appear in UCLA Writers Journal

The third edition of West Word, a journal issued by the writers program at UCLA Extension, includes the work of several San Fernando Valley authors.

Chosen for the collection, issued twice a year by the program, were stories by Kate Crane McCarthy of Sherman Oaks and Laura Ho Fineman of Burbank. Valley poets represented are Erika Nanes of Sherman Oaks, Beth Halper of Woodland Hills and Margie Davidson of Canoga Park.

The choices were made by the editorial board of West Word from works submitted by students enrolled in the writers’ program, according to Linda Venis, managing editor of the journal.

A Northridge-based publisher, Herb Yellin, gave cash prizes last year for the work he and his associates judged to be the best fiction in the first two editions of West Word. The story by the first-prize winner, Alex Quiroba, was then included in an anthology of horror stories published in London.

Yellin--who since 1977 has been publishing limited, signed edition books by the likes of Samuel Beckett, Gunter Grass, John Updike and Stephen King under the Lord John Press imprint--was going to give the award again this year. But due to the illness of his wife, he has postponed the award until at least next year.