Branch Officers and Leaders

Tommie W. Whitener is an enthusiastic short story reader and writer, as well as a novelist. He reports having recently read and learned from short stories by William Faulkner, Jhumpa Lahiri, Haruki Murakami, and Deborah Eisenberg. His published books include his short story collection Wanda and the Watch, as well as the personal development/marital relations cross-over Mother Earth: Three Couples. He just returned from Little Rock and Northern Arkansas where he was doing research for his in-the-works historical novel, hopefully to be completed before the end of the year. In addition to short stories, he is also working on a novel set in Russia in the late nineteenth century entitled “Pavel and Natalia." Based on an Anton Chekhov short story, it’s about a dashing young cavalry officer in love with a pharmacist’s wife. He holds two degrees in International Relations, one from UCLA and the other from Tufts University, in addition to a law degree from UC Hastings College of the Law. He speaks Russian and has at least once visited most of the major Russian cities. He lives in Novato with his wife of twenty years, Svetlana, an emotional intelligence coach.