Editor of anthology will speak at library

Are you a writer or hope to become one? Do stories about the Golden State appeal to you?

The Friends of Orange Coast College’s Library will offer a program at 7 p.m. March 1 geared toward you. The program is in the library’s Lecture Room at OCC, 2701 Fairview Road. Admission is free for Friends of the Library members, and $5 — or a gently used book — for nonmembers.

Sylvia Worden, former head of the Student Health Center at Golden West College in Huntington Beach and editor of the anthology “Voices of the Golden West: Our California Stories,” will be the featured speaker along with several authors who contributed personal stories to her book.

“Voices” is a collection of 89 true tales collected by Worden for the California Stories Initiative. The initiative is sponsored in part by a grant from the California Council for the Humanities.

Worden’s book features stories by authors describing their arrival in California. The collection ranges from turn-of-the-20th-century accounts to stories by recent arrivals.

Worden, associate dean of OCC’s Student Health Center for the past two years, is a nurse practitioner and a health educator.

Worden began collecting stories for her book while at Golden West. She initially gathered stories from college students but soon began soliciting works from other sources, including Orange County senior centers.

Members of the Braille Center also provided several essays for the book.

“Voices” isn’t Worden’s first book. She’s author of a children’s book, “Beautiful Music,” written eight years ago. That book was inspired by Worden’s visit to China to adopt her daughter, Anabel, now 12. Worden’s 17-year-old son, Ira, illustrated the volume when he was 9.

—Jim Carnett