La Jolla writers look to bring unique perspectives to upcoming San Diego festival

Looking to provide unique voices and approaches to writing, three La Jolla residents will participate in the San Diego Writers Festival next week.

The fifth annual festival, a partnership of Warwick’s bookstore in La Jolla and the Coronado Public Library, will take place from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, April 6, at the Coronado library. All events are free and open to the public.

La Jolla novelist Scott Sigler will be on the panel “Bestselling Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror & Thriller” at the San Diego Writers Festival.

(Literary Publicity)

The La Jolla speakers are freelance journalist Sara Clemence, who will be featured on the panel “Writing About Place: How to Write the Words That Transport You”; novelist Scott Sigler, who will be on the panel “Bestselling Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror & Thriller” talking about his latest book, “Slay: Season One”; and Zoe Ghahremani, who is involved with the panel “It’s Never Too Late to Write, Publish, to Change Genres.”

Clemence, who has lived in La Jolla Shores the past six years, said she’s “excited to become more a part of the San Diego writers community.”

Clemence, a writer since childhood, comes from “an immigrant family where writing wasn’t seen as a career option.” She didn’t launch her writing career until her 20s, when she attended Columbia University in New York to study journalism.

“Writing combined so many important things for me,” she said. “I got to meet interesting people, I got to write and felt like I was doing a public service. I got to indulge my own curiosity.”

However, attending journalism school in New York at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks brought her a whole new perspective.

“It was a life-changing event,” she said. “Walking the streets that day, all anyone wanted to know was what happened and what was happening. That was an important realization for me as to what we do as journalists.”

From there, she worked across the country at publications such as Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Travel Leisure magazine and more.

Eventually, she devoted more of her time to freelance writing and a book about travel.

“I really focus on some of the more complicated aspects of travel rather than the sunnier and more oblivious aspects of travel,” Clemence said. “When we travel, we have impacts — economic, societal and environmental — so I’m digging into that.”

During the panel discussion, she hopes to “broaden people’s horizons a bit and help them understand there is all kinds of travel writing out there. Also that we really need to be thoughtful about where and how we travel. ... I wrote something that made an argument for banning tourism to Antarctica. People want to go there because it is untouched, but then they go there and touch it.”

Fellow La Jolla author Sigler has been extolling the significance of science fiction as far back as 2010, when he participated in a talk at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla.

Zoe Ghahremani of La Jolla is the author of “Sky of Red Poppies” and “The Moon Daughter.”

(Literary Publicity)

Ghahremani got into writing fairly recently. She authored “Sky of Red Poppies” and “The Moon Daughter,” along with many short works, and held a writing workshop in 2022. Most recently, inspired by experiences in La Jolla with her granddaughter, she released her debut picture book, “Memory Garden.”

The full day of programming at the Writers Festival features 40 events and 90 speakers. A complete schedule is at sandiegowritersfestival.com. ◆