Prior to relocating to Northern California, Toni L. Wilkes was a freelance screenwriter and fulltime story editor for feature film director Peter Hyams in Los Angeles. She has conducted creative writing seminars for “Celebrate the Gift” on the campuses of Chapman University and Purdue University.
While majoring in English at UCLA, Wilkes focused her studies on poetry. She was invited to attend the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and currently participates in master classes with David St. John.
Wilkes is a member of the California State Poetry Society and the Marin Poetry Center. Additionally, she and her husband, Gregory W. Randall, sponsor the Londonberry Salon a quarterly reading series in their home for award-winning poets: David St. John, Susan Terris, C.B. Follett, Terry Ehret, Gary Young. Wilkes serves as a board member for the Sonoma County Library and Poetry Committee Chairman for the Sonoma County Book Festival.
Her work appears or is forthcoming in California Quarterly, Confrontation, Cream City Review, Folio, GW Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Healing Muse, In Posse Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, Pinyon, Poetry East, Roanoke Review, Rosebud, Southern Humanities Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Touch: The Journal of Healing, The Texas Review and other noted journals. She lives with her husband, Gregory W. Randall, in Santa Rosa, California where they own a financial planning practice.