Friends of the Mesa Refuge

Since 1997, the residency program has been wholly supported by the founder, Peter Barnes. Since this is no longer possible, Friends of the Mesa Refuge was formed in 2009 with the goal of building financial support for the program. In pursuit of its mission, Friends of the Mesa Refuge is responsible for:

  • Developing long-term and diverse funding sources to support the residency program at the Refuge;
  • Managing the residency program;
  • Sponsoring public events at which Mesa residents share their ideas with larger audiences; and
  • Building a community of writers, activists and allies who share our ideals.

Join the Friends of the Mesa Refuge

 

Friends of Mesa Refuge Board Member Bios

Christina L. Desser, Chair

Chris Desser is a fellow at On the Commons, a think tank focused on developing the concept of The Commons as an overarching analytical structure organizing across sectors and disciplines. She served on the California Coastal Commission and the San Francisco Commission for the Environment. In 2003, she co-founded Women’s Voices, Women Vote, a project that successfully increased the participation of single women in the electoral process. Chris was the director of the Funder’s Working Group on New Technology, an association of foundations concerned with the environmental, cultural and political implications of emerging technologies such as biotechnology and nanotechnology. She was co-editor of Living with the Genie—Technology and the Quest for Human Mastery (Island Press, 2003). Chris has practiced environmental law and has served on the boards of many companies, foundations and progressive non-profits including WDN, The Rockwood Leadership Program, Patagonia, Mother Jones Magazine and the Rainforest Action Network. She chairs the board of Friends of the Mesa Refuge.


Peter Barnes, Founder

Peter Barnes is an entrepreneur and writer who has founded and led several successful companies. At present he is a senior fellow at the Tomales Bay Institute in Point Reyes Station, California. Barnes grew up in New York City and earned a B.A. in history from Harvard and an M.A. in government from Georgetown. He began his career as a reporter on The Lowell (Mass.) Sun, and was subsequently a Washington correspondent for Newsweek and west coast correspondent for The New Republic. In 1976 he co-founded a solar energy company in San Francisco, and in 1983 he co- founded Working Assets Money Fund. He subsequently served as president of Working Assets Long Distance. In 1995 he was named Socially Responsible Entrepreneur of the Year for Northern California. He has served on numerous boards of directors, including the National Cooperative Bank, the California State Assistance Fund for Energy, the California Solar Industry Association, Businesses for Social Responsibility, Techmar, Redefining Progress, the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Public Media Center, Greenpeace International, the California Tax Reform Association, and the Center for Economic and Policy Research. His books include Climate Solutions: A Citizen’s Guide (Chelsea Green, 2008), Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons (Berrett-Koehler, 2006), Who Owns the Sky? (Island Press, 2001), and Pawns: The Plight of the Citizen-Soldier (Knopf, 1972). His articles have appeared in The Economist, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Christian Science Monitor, The American Prospect and elsewhere. In 1997 he founded the Mesa Refuge, a writers’ retreat in northern California.


Harriet Barlow

Harriet Barlow is the Director of the Blue Mountain Center, a retreat center for cultural workers in upstate New York. She is also the Director of the HKH Foundation, based in New York City, an environmental and social justice philanthropy. Ms. Barlow is the founder or co-founder of 14 not for profit organizations and has served on the Board of Directors of over 50 NGOs.


Mark Dowie

Mark Dowie, an investigative historian based in Point Reyes Station, California, is the author of the forthcoming Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year Conflict Between Global Conservation and Native Peoples.


Jaune Evans

Jaune is the Associate Director at the Tides Foundation in San Francisco where she is responsible for the client service experience at Tides.  Jaune leads Tides' work to continuously improve services and programs and directs the teams of philanthropic and grantmaking professionals. Prior to joining Tides in 2009, Jaune was the Executive Director of Programs at the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she focused grantmaking on indigenous communities, environmental protection, contemporary visual art, literature, and cultural freedom. Previously, she was the Executive Director of the New Mexico Community Foundation, where she raised endowment funds, donor advised funds, and program funds for statewide initiatives. She also served as Deputy Director of Public Health for the State of New Mexico and founded New Mexico AIDS Services and the Hospice of the Rio Grande.


Susan Moon

Susan Moon is a writer and longtime Buddhist practitioner living in Berkeley, California. She has published four books on Buddhist subjects with Shambhala Publications, the most recent of which is This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity (2010). Susan has served on the Board of Ragdale, an artist’s community in the Midwest.


Judith Shaw

Judith Shaw is a psychotherapist and the author of Trans Fats: The Hidden Killer in Your Food, Simon and Schuster, 2004. She lives in Marin County and has served on the board of the Coastal Health Alliance and is the President of the Bolinas-Stinson Beach Library Improvement Society.

 

Books written at the Mesa Refuge

Below is a partial list of books conceived or written, at least in part, at the Mesa Refuge.

Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Frances Moore Lappé, Hope’s Edge
Terry Tempest Williams, Leap
Jerry Mander, Alternatives to Economic Globalization
Chuck Collins, Wealth and our Commonwealth
John de Graaf, Take Back Your Time
Edgar Cahn, No More Throwaway People
Mary Clark, In Search of Human Nature
Mark Hertsgaard, Earth Odyssey
David Helvarg, Blue Frontier
George Lakoff, Thinking Points
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Failing America's Faithful
Dean Baker, Social Security: The Phony Crisis
Christopher Cook, Diet for a Dead Planet
Eugene Linden, Winds of Change
Claire Cummings, The Future of Seeds
Diane Dumanoski, Our Stolen Future
Grace Gershuny, The Soul of Soil
Merrill Goozner, The $800 Million Pill
Larry Gonick, Cartoon History of the Universe (vol. 3)
Marjorie Kelly, The Divine Right of Capital
Alex Steffen, World Changing
Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money
Wolfgang Sachs, The Johannesburg Memo
Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
Jeff Gates, The Ownership Solution
David Bollier, Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of our Common Wealth
Robert Glennon, Water Follies