Calling all Tahoe/Truckee Teens - Come find your inner poet! Free Workshop May 16

Trails & Vistas announces a free literary arts workshop opportunity on May 16, 2026, for teens in Truckee/Tahoe area. The “Teen Poetry Workshop: From Generation to Revision” is an all-day event hosted at Church of the Mountains, downtown Truckee, that invites teens to “Come find your inner poet”.

Sponsored by Trails & Vistas at Church of the Mountains, 10079 Church St, Truckee, the event welcomes all teens to a day of generative writing, feedback, and revision techniques in a supportive and welcoming community. Workshop leaders Journalist/Poet/Photographer Petra Molina and Nevada County Poet Laureate Karen Terrey bring a depth of experience in creative writing and teaching. For more information and to register for this free workshop, see the evite https://evite.me/523DmXEgnN. For more info you Karen Terrey at 530-386-3901.

The day’s schedule includes time for writing, sharing, and connecting with fellow teens and writers:

Generative Workshop with Petra Molina 10 - 11:30

Sneak Peak at Revision with Karen Terrey 11:30 - 12

Lunch and writing 12 - 1:30

Revision workshop with Karen Terrey 1:30 - 3:30

Trails & Vistas strengthens community with collaborating partners of artists, poets, conservationists, educators, writers, art and environmental nonprofits. They build a thriving rural culture that inspires arts activity, provides economic activity with geotourism, builds pride of place, and inspires environmental awareness. Founded in 2004, Trails & Vistas has grown to offer Art Hikes, Art in Nature Field Trips, Awe Walks, and community art/dance workshops in Spanish and English.

Petra Molina is a Peruvian-American journalist, writer, photographer, and poet. She grew up in Cusco, Peru, a small city nestled in the Andes Mountains, where her connection to storytelling and the outdoors began. After earning her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, she moved to Lake Tahoe to focus on covering the subjects she loves the most: nature, sports, and adventure. She is the recipient of Nevada Press Foundation’s 2024 Best Collegiate Feature Writing for her reporting on sexual harassment faced by Las Vegas showgirls, and a two-time recipient of the Greenspun College’s Hank Covell Award for journalistic excellence. Her work has appeared in the Sierra Sun, Tahoe Daily Tribune, Tahoe Magazine, Desert Companion, and KNPR.

Karen Terrey serves as the Poet Laureate for Nevada County. She's a writer, editor, and writing coach, offering writing services, developmental editing, publishing guidance, and creative writing workshops in Truckee through her business Tangled Roots Writing for clients of all ages.  An alumni of Community of Writers, she teaches at Sierra College and has served as a poetry editor for the literary journals Pitkin Review and Quay. Her award-winning poems have appeared in anthologies and literary journals such as Rhino, Meadow, River Heron Review, Puerto Del Sol, Wicked Alice, Canary, and Gray Sparrow Journal, among others. Her poetry chapbook Bite and Blood is available from Finishing Line Press and local bookstores, including  Word After Word in Truckee, CA.

 

Find Inspiration and Creative Community at the Sierra Poetry Festival April 18, 2026

Ten years ago I sat with a group of poets and artists brainstorming a new literary festival to take place in Nevada County. Who knew back then how successful this event would be, how it would become a gathering opportunity for artists throughout the Bay Area, Lake Tahoe, and beyond, to build creative networks and find inspiration in the synergistic sharing. The Sierra Poetry Festival is one of my favorite events each year. And this year we celebrate our ten year anniversary with some special extras.

 

Sierra Poetry Festival is a project of Nevada County Arts Council. This year’s mainstage event will take place on April 18, 2026, at The Center for the Arts, in Grass Valley, CA, attended by some of our most exciting local, national, and international poets and performers. Our keynote presenters are Brenda Hillman and Robert Hass! Tickets are now available.

Part of the community appeal is the opportunity for local poets to perform an original poem on stage. This year we have two Open Mic Competitions, one in Truckee on March 12 and another in Grass Valley on April 16, that offer two winners each this opportunity. The Tangled Roots Open Mic at Alibi in downtown Truckee runs 6-7:30 pm on March 12. Join us to cheer on local poets and writers on stage. On April 16, head down to the Iron Door in the basement of the Holbrooke Hotel in Grass Valley at 5:30 pm for another Open Mic Competition opportunity. These two events are a blast - meet other writers and join a community.

March 21st is World Poetry Day, and more events continue through the month of April with the SPF Fringe, a month and more of FREE poetry events happening in locations across Nevada County.

 

Sierra Poetry Festival marks National Poetry Month from the rolling foothills of California’s Gold Country to the rugged High Sierra, bringing a rich literary community together to celebrate the spoken word and reach out to new audiences in fresh ways. Through Sierra Poetry Festival we also celebrate California Arts, Culture & Creativity Month and we draw attention to our two coveted California Cultural Districts.

"Keep your practice. Be your full, complete, authentic self" - Danielle Brazell, Ex. Dir. California Arts Council

September was filled with a surprising harvest of Fall gatherings and Tangled Roots Writing offerings.

September 5th I led a workshop at the Truckee Library that is Free once a month, writing stories of our lives with guidance and prompts. Our next workshop meets 11/14 from 10:30-noon and all ages are welcome to join us.

On September 7th I attended the Sierra Arts Literary Community meeting which happens every second Sunday of the month at the Sierra Arts Gallery on S Virginia St in Reno. This is a chance to network and learn and find encouragement from other local writers and authors. 

On Sept. 8th the Fall Monday night creative writing workshop series began, running 6 weeks through Oct. 13. The next 6 week series begins on Oct. 20 and enrollment is now open. This is my longest running generative writing workshop for all genres and levels of experience.

September 12 kicked off the artists' reception at The Holland Project for the Nevada Humanities Reno Literary Pub Crawl. So fun - I'm inspired by so many of these writers and having the opportunity to gather was a blast.

Later that evening, I attended the Dark Skies Photo Award Ceremony at the Truckee Hospital. I read and presented a framed copy of "Cento: Tahoe Stars" poem to the mayors of Nevada City and Truckee. 

Saturday morning, Sept 13, Alexis Cota, our new Truckee Cultural District Intern and I drove down to Mountain Bounty Farm in Nevada City. I led a reading and writing workshop in a circle of hay bales beneath a centuries old Oak tree with Ingrid Keriotis and Rooja Mohassessy.  We listened and wrote poems while gazing out at the sun glinting off ready-for-picking red peppers, corn, purple kale, and lush green rows of many vegetables and bright flowers.

That afternoon I somehow made it down to Reno to perform in the Literary Crawl at 1864 on California Ave to read along with Jillian Makhouts and Tony Berendson for an appreciative crowd of poetry-lovers. I love all the work of Nevada Humanities - performing and sharing my poems in that event felt welcoming, like I was in my tribe with others who value the deep thinking and feeling that writing and reading involve. 

 Truckee threw it's first Block Party on Thursday evening, Sept 18 by the train depot. Almost 50 booths, food trucks, stage performances of dance and music by local kids and bands, and a poem reading with myself and Alexis. Alexis translated one of my poems into Spanish and you can watch the video of our performance here. 

Sierra Valley north of Truckee holds wide golden vistas, old cemeteries within pine knolls, cows and raptors, and farms, artists, and barns angling against blue sky. On Sept 20 Kurt and I traveled the Ag and Art Trail through the countryside visiting Gary Romano's farmers market and several other farms. Hosted in a local barn that evening was a paella and bluegrass gathering - a magical performance. Our communities are rich.

The Business of Art Symposium on Sept 25, hosted on the Sierra College Grass Valley campus, was a full day of workshops, talks, and panels. I moderated a panel on Literary arts as a sustainable career path. The  wide-ranging conversation between Dean Rader, Mary Volmer, and Leta Seletzky pondered how to face challenges today of cuts to funding, political animosity, and loss of perceived value in the Humanities. 

The keynote speaker at the Symposium summed up this month's events for me with her clarity of purpose. Danielle Brazell is the Executive Director of the California Arts Council. She asked the audience three questions:

1. What are you working towards?
2. What are your barriers?
3. What are potential opportunities or hidden silver linings? 

Her closing advice was: "Keep your practice. Be your full, complete, authentic self. Artists have the Imagination"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Authors Guild recommendations for AI best use practices for using AI ethically

What do I want to say about using AI as a writer and creator? Whatever I say now will need to adapt quickly as AI and its applications to our lives and work evolves exponentially. 

For example, nearly three years ago, in June, 2022, Blake Lemoine was fired for breaking Google data security policies by stating publicly that AI had become sentient. 

As of May, 2025, approximately a dozen lawsuits have been brought in California and New York courts against various AI companies for copyright infringement based on the companies’ unauthorized copying of authors’ works to train their generative AI models. All of the cases brought by individual authors so far are class action lawsuits, meaning that they do not just cover the plaintiffs named in each lawsuit but all people who fall within the “class,” as defined in the lawsuit.

The photo is of me reading at the Sacramento Poetry Center last month, from my book Bite and Blood. I'm a human being, writing poems and other works, publishing a book, and all of these acts are original to me, the blood and brain and air of my lungs and language my body has in-corporated to manifest creativity in this world for others to experience.

Below I’ve copied the recommended policies and ethical uses for AI from the Authors Guild website, an organization that has been supporting working writers and protecting writers writes since 1912.

What questions do these policies shine light on for writers and creators?

·       What is the difference between creating work, generating new writing, and making art to using AI to brainstorm questions, write outlines, and research?

·       What is the value of a piece of writing or art that is 100% created AI-free, by a human? These are questions I'll be considering, and I hope you are also as you think about your creation of writing, art, and work.

·       When we look to an artist or a creative to view, read, or hear their own unique response to a question or to the world, what is it we are looking for? What is it we want in the experience of their response?

·       How original are your own ideas as a writer and artist?

·       What can a human writer and editor add to your writing project beyond AI?

·       What am I missing out on for critical thinking applied to this list of questions by not entering the prompt into ChatGPT to add to this list of questions?

According to the Authors Guild:

Generative AI is a technology writers are using in various ways as a tool or an aid in the writing process. For instance, some writers use generative AI technology to research, outline, brainstorm, and even as a writer partner and to generate characters or text to include in their manuscripts.

If writers choose to use generative AI, they should be aware of and observe some ethical ground rules to protect both their own personal and professional interests and the future of their profession, given that unauthorized, unrestricted, and uncompensated use of authors’ works to train generative AI has created tools that are used to displace professional writers and create a serious risk of flooding markets and diluting the value of human-written work.

For starters, please be aware that, for now, all of the major large language models (LLMs)— generative AI for text—are based on hundreds of thousands or more books and countless articles stolen from pirate websites. This is the largest mass copyright infringement of authors’ works ever, and it was done by some of the richest companies in the world. It is theft—a transfer of wealth from middle-class creators to the coffers of billionaires—and we are fighting against it.

AI companies [need to] do the right thing and license the books and journalism they use to train their AI. Licensing is how copyright works: It enables creators to charge money for the use of their work and insist on certain limits and restrictions (such as preventing competing outputs). It is in all of our professional interests to insist on licensing, compensation, and control and to maintain standards that promote a fair marketplace.

We believe that licensing—not theft—will increasingly become the norm as new companies enter the field or existing ones start licensing; and the new “fairly trained certification”—which the Authors Guild is a supporter of—will allow you to know which LLMs are not infringing. Until then, please consider the harm to the total ecosystem when using generative AI.

Using Generative AI Ethically

Below are our recommended best practices and explanations for using generative AI ethically:

1. Do not use AI to write for you. Use it only as a tool— a paintbrush for writing. It is your writing, thinking, and voice that make you the writer you are. AI-generated text is not your authorship and not your voice. Even if trained on your own work, AI-generated text is simply a regurgitation of what it is trained on and adds nothing new or original to the world. By definition, it is neither original nor art. When you use AI to generate text that you include in a work, you are not writing—you are prompting. Choosing to be a professional prompter is not the same as being a writer, and the output is not authorship or creative. Use AI to support, not replace, the creative process.
2. If you do use AI to develop story lines or character or to generate text, be sure to rewrite it in your own voice before adopting it. If you are claiming authorship, then you should be the author of your work.
3. If you incorporate AI-generated text, characters, or plot in your manuscript, you must disclose it to your publisher as publishing contracts require the authors to represent and warrant that the manuscript is original to the author. AI-generated material is not considered “original” to you and it is not copyrightable. Inclusion of more than a very minimal amount of AI-generated text in the final manuscript will violate your warranty to the publisher. Similarly, an entirely AI-generated plotline or wholesale adoption of AI-generated characters may violate this term of the contract. It is important to know that any expressive elements generated by AI that you incorporate in your work are not protected by copyright and need to be disclaimed in the application for registration. Such material must also be disclaimed in the application for copyright registration, and your publisher needs that information to register the copyright correctly. If you contemplate using AI-generated material in your work (other than minor editorial changes as a result of grammar or spell-checking), you should discuss it with your publisher and see if they will waive the warranty.
4. You should also disclose to the reader whether you incorporated any AI-generated content in the book. They have a right to know as many will feel duped if they are not advised. It is not necessary though to disclose use of generative AI tools like grammar check or when it is employed merely as a tool for brainstorming, idea generation, researching, or for copyediting.
5. Be aware and mindful of publisher and platform-specific policies regarding AI use. Many publishers are developing specific rules around authors’ use of AI, so you should ask your editor if your publisher has any special guidance and carefully review any rules. If you publish a book using KDP, you need to disclose AI use to Amazon. Under current Amazon terms, you need to disclose “AI-generated content (text, images, or translations) when you publish a new book or make edits to and republish an existing book through KDP.” Amazon defines AI-generated content as “text, images, or translations created by an AI-based tool,” and requires disclosure even if the content was substantially edited. Amazon does not require disclosure [for “AI-assisted”] works – when the AI is used as a tool to “edit, refine, error-check, or otherwise improve” content that you created. Amazon is not making these disclosures of AI-generated content public as of the last edit of these guidelines, but we hope they will change this policy in the future.
6. Use the Authors Guild’s Human Authored Certification mark for books that contain no AI-generated text as a way to let readers know it was entirely human written. Readers will appreciate knowing.
7. Respect the rights of other writers when using generative AI technologies, including copyrights, trademarks, and other rights, and do not use generative AI to copy or mimic the unique styles, voices, or other distinctive attributes of other writers’ works in ways that harm the works. (Note: doing so could also be subject to claims of unfair competition or infringement).
8. Thoroughly review and fact-check all content generated by AI systems. As of now, you cannot trust the accuracy of any factual information provided by generative AI. Be aware and check for potential biases in the AI output, be they gender, racial, socioeconomic, or other biases that could perpetuate harmful stereotypes or misinformation.
9. “Fine-tuning” an AI model on your own work to generate new material (e.g. a new book in a series, a new book in their own style) arguably raises fewer ethical concerns since the expression being generated is based on authors’ own work rather than the work of others. (Fine-tuning is the process by which a smaller AI model is created on specific datasets with specific functionalities to work with a foundational LLM.) That being said, the “fine-tuning” is done on top of a foundational large language model that in all likelihood was trained and developed on mass copyright infringement. Further, as an ethical matter, we believe that disclosure of AI use is still warranted when you input your own work to fine-tune AI in order to create something in your own style.
10. Show solidarity with and support professional creators in other fields, including voice actors and narrators, translators, illustrators, etc., as they also need to protect their professions from generative AI uses. If you choose to use AI to generate cover art, illustrations, be mindful of the impact of generative AI on their peers in the creative industries. Many image models are built using unlicensed pictures and artwork, though there are exceptions, such as Adobe Firefly, which use licensed images for training data. Similarly, while many voice models are built on unlicensed recordings, Amazon, Audible and other audiobook platforms are using licensed digital “voice replicas” of actors, ensuring that the narrators get paid. If you are going to use an AI to create cover art or generate an audiobook, it is better to use an AI program or service that uses licensed content, as opposed to one that is built on copyright infringement.
11. Assert your rights in your contract negotiations with publishers and platforms. We have drafted a model clause that authors and agents can use in their negotiations that prohibit the use of an author’s work for training AI technologies without the author’s express permission. Many publishers are agreeing to this restriction, and we hope this will become the industry standard. Keep in mind, however, that this clause is only intended to apply to the use of an author’s work to train AI, not to prohibit publishers from using AI to perform common tasks such as proofing, editing, or generating marketing copy. As expected, publishers are starting to explore using AI as a tool in the usual course of their operations, including editorial and marketing uses, so they may not agree to contractual language disclaiming AI use generally. Those types of internal, operational uses are very different from using the work to train AI that can create similar works or to license the work to an AI company to develop new AI models. The internal, operational uses of AI don’t raise the same concerns of authors’ works being used to create technologies capable of generating competing works.