Marcia Meier is an award-winning journalist, author, poet, photographer, teacher, and owner and director of the 37-year-old Santa Barbara Writers Conference, which provides workshops, panels and speakers for 400 writers over six days every summer.

     Before aquiring the conference, Meier spent 20 years writing and editing for daily newspapers; taught college-level courses in journalism, column-writing and the impact of media on society; and was marketing and communications director for a liberal arts college.

     She is the author of Santa Barbara, Paradise on the Pacific (Longstreet Press, 1996) and freelances for a number of publications in print and online, including Santa Barbara Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Central Coast Magazine, The Huffington Post and Miller-McCune Magazine online. She wrote a personal column for five years while she was editorial page editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press, and wrote a column on women and business for two years for OC Metro magazine. Her book, Navigating the Rough Waters of Today’s Publishing World: Critical Advice for Writers from Industry Insiders, will be published by Quill Driver Books in early 2010.