Sands Hall

Sands Hall
Born	(1952-07-17) July 17, 1952 La Jolla, California, U.S.
Occupation	Writer theatre director actor musician
Education	University of California, Irvine (BA) University of Iowa (MA, MFA)
Website
sandshall.com

Sands Hall (born April 17, 1952) is an American writer, theatre director, actor, and musician.^[1]

The daughter of novelist Oakley Hall, she was born in La Jolla, California, and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Drama from the University of California, Irvine. She earned two Master of Fine Arts degrees from the University of Iowa, one in Theatre Arts and the second in Fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She also studied at the American Conservatory Theater's Advanced Training Program.^[2]

Hall's writing work includes the play Fair Use,^[3] which explores the plagiarism in Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose,^[4] and the novel Catching Heaven,^[3] a Random House Reader's Circle selection and a 2001 Willa Award Finalist for Best Contemporary Fiction.^[5]

Hall previously taught at the University of California, Davis Extension.^[2] She has taught for nearly three decades at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, with the exception of 2024^[6], and is co-director of the Memoir/Nonfiction Programs at the Community of Writers.^[7]

Hall’s theatre work includes acting with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, the Old Globe Theatre, Lexington Conservatory Theatre, and internationally at the Maxim Gorky Theatre in Vladivostok, Russia. ^[2]

She has acted and directed for the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, and has performed with the B Street Theatre in Sacramento. Hall was formerly an Affiliate Artist with the Foothill Theatre Company in Nevada City, California, until its closure in 2008. She currently directs for Sierra Stages/Sierra Theatre Company.^[8][9]

She is Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she taught from 2008 until her retirement in 2020.^[10][2]

Her debut novel, Catching Heaven (Ballantine), was selected as a Penguin/Random House Reader’s Circle Selection and was a finalist for the Willa Award for Best Contemporary Fiction.^[11] Hall has also authored Tools of the Writer’s Craft (Moving Finger Press), a collection of essays and exercises for writers, which is used in creative writing courses and workshops.^[12] She is the author of the memoir Flunk. Start.: Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology, originally published in 2018.^[13] The book recounts her ten-year involvement with the Church of Scientology and has been reissued in paperback under the revised title Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology, accompanied by a new cover design.^[14]

The memoir was named a Best Book in Religion and Spirituality by Publishers Weekly^[15], was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award in Creative Nonfiction, and was long-listed for the Golden Poppy Award in Nonfiction.^[16]

In drama, Hall’s stage work includes her adaptation of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, which has received multiple productions, and Fair Use, a play examining the literary controversy surrounding Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose and its use of materials by Mary Hallock Foote.^[17] Her essay on this subject, “The Ways of Fiction Are Devious Indeed,” was published in Alta Journal and received critical acclaim.^[18]

She performs on a 000-18 Martin, her first guitar, purchased for $150 by her father when she was 14 years old and a custom-built Wilson guitar made by Luthier Luke Wilson.^[19] She refers to her influences as the "three j's": Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell. When not performing her own songs, she chooses murder ballads and story songs, like "Long Black Veil", "Red Red Rose", and "Pretty Polly".^[20]

She currently performs with Maggie McKaig, Luke Wilson, Randy McKean, Murray Campbell, and Louis B. Jones, who also appear on her album Rustler’s Moon. She has also released the album Sturdy Boots, produced by Boneyard Records.^[20]

Hall has written and performed a number of songs, including:

• Songs for Our Daughters^[21]
• Blue Hour of Love
• Light a Candle for Freedom
• O Joy Divine of Friends (inspired by Edward Carpenter's words inscribed in the mantel of Ansel and Virginia Adams 1930 San Francisco home (131 24th Avenue, San Francisco, CA), "O Joy Divine of Friends."^[22][23])
• Rustlers Moon^[24]
• Dancin Through the Heavens
• You Made Me Believe in Love Again

• Flunk. Start.: Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology (2018)
• Tools of the Writer's Craft (2005)
• Catching Heaven (2000)

• Fair Use (2001 Premiere, Foothill Theatre Company)
• Little Women, adapted from the novel by Louisa May Alcott, (1999 Premiere, Foothill Theatre Company)

• Silver Dagger, Green Mountains Review, Spring 2009
• Hide and Go Seek, Iowa Review, December 2008

• Snow Tahoe Quarterly Magazine, Winter 2009.
• Two Trees Tahoe Quarterly Magazine, Spring 2008.
• Making Workshops Work, Workshop in a Book, Chronicle Books, 2007.
• The Stacks, Open to All, 2007.
• Banning Juliet, Women's Literary Salon, Spring 2007.
• Dialogue Without Words, Now Write!: Fiction Writing From Today's Best Writers and Teachers, 2006.
• The Literary Life of Mary Hallock Foote, California State Library Foundation Bulletin, Winter/Spring, 2006.
• Mary Hallock Foote & Wallace Stegner, Idaho Magazine, Fall 2004.
• Foreword: Sierra Songs and Descants: Prose and Poetry of the Sierra, 2003.
• Fair Game, or Fair Use?, Art Matters, Spring, 2001.
• Abject Naturalism: Lessons from a Tough Workshop, THE WORKSHOP: Seven Decades of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, 1999.
• A Stolen Life, Wild Duck Review, 1996.
• A Tide of Metaphor, Wild Duck Review, 1995.
• The Meanders of Sands: Essays on Writer's Craft, Omnium Gatherum of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, annual column 1995–2004.

• Official Website Archived January 25, 2019, at the Wayback Machine
• Foothill Theatre Company