Dear Writers.
I hope this email finds you well and thriving amid the chaos of our time.
I'm writing to let you know that we are back for Fall Sessions Part 2 at SF Creative Writing Institute in the beautiful awe-inspiring City of San Francisco and online.
And, if you plan to be in San Francisco tomorrow evening, come find us as part of Litquake's Litcrawl in the Mission tomorrow at Dogeared Books on Valencia Street. We're on Phase 3 of the Crawl. Our reading is interactive and will have audience participation.
And if you're abroad, or in a sister city, send us good vibes please. This has been a crazy week! Staying creative helps us alchemize it all into something good.
Scroll down for more of our course offerings online.
Oct 25, 2025
8-9pm
Write from the Gut!: Best Lines!
Dogeared Books
900 Valencia Street
LitCrawl Phase 3
Also, I invite you to check out our upcoming classes for our fall season.
The first is Shape of Story by Ben Adams. Ben is our teaching fellow and a great storyteller in his own right. His class is all about plot and story structure for fiction writers. It starts Thursday, Oct 30, online and runs for 6 Weeks (skipping Thanksgiving in the US).
Next, I am thrilled to announce that I will be teaching Method Writing In-Person to close out the term at Harvey Milk Center for the Arts in San Francisco. I haven't taught this class in-person since the pre-pandemic times. So, if you're a seasoned writer and you've missed being in the workshop, or if you're brand-new to writing, this class is for you, no matter what you're writing. Method Writing starts on Nov. 1 and runs until Dec. 13 on Saturday mornings. (I'm a Sat morning person now. I know.).
Kim McMillon is teaching her beloved workshop Poetry of Healing online starting on November 15.
I will also be reaching out to see if we can get a teen writing class started on Tuesday afternoons in November at Harvey Milk Center for the Arts. More on that soon. If interested, please let me know.
Hope to see you at one of our events soon!
Sincerely,
Alexandra
Alexandra Kostoulas,
Founder & Executive Director,
SF Creative Writing Institute
(415) 371-9054 | 50 Scott Street, San Francisco, CA 94117.
Oct. 30 - Dec. 11 - Thursdays - 6pm-8pm Pacific Time | ONLINE
The Shape of Story
Instructor: Ben Adams
Have you ever read a story or book that follows an unconventional plot, twisting, curving, or even wandering aimlessly? Yet, by the story's end, you're left breathless, wondering, how did the author do that?
In this two-hour class, we'll dive into some of the different plot structures fiction writers can use. We'll explore Western and non-Western structures, and examine several experimental structures. We'll even look at what happens when writers throw plot out the window. By submerging ourselves in short stories and novel excerpts, we'll see how authors utilize these different plot structures, as well as for inspiration in our own writing.
In a fun workshop, you'll get feedback on your work, helping you sharpen your sense of structure, whether you're writing a coming-of-age YA novel or multi-POV sci-fi epic.
At the end of six weeks, you'll have a better understanding of how a variety of plot structures work, and how you can use them to level up your own writing. But mostly, we'll have fun delving into all the different ways we can tell stories. This class is intended for writers of all levels, from folks just starting to put pen to page, to experienced writers looking for unique ways to plot their stories.
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Ben Adams is the author of three critically acclaimed indie novels, The Enigmatologist (Ravenswood Press), The Resurrectionist (Ravenswood Press), and Relativity (BHC Press). He recently graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing at University of San Francisco, where he was Editor-in-Chief at Four Leaf Collective. He is a 2025 teaching artist fellow at SF Creative Writing Institute.
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$450.00
The Shape of Story
Learn the ins and outs of story structure for your novel or short story. Figure out what the rules are and learn to... Read more |
Nov. 1 - Dec. 13 - Saturdays 10:30am - 12:30pm
Method Writing
In-Person at Harvey Milk Center for the Arts | 50 Scott Street Duboce Park. San Francisco
Instructor: Alexandra Kostoulas
We want to connect with the world. But where do we start?
There’s a voice within all of us wanting to find its place in the world.
The concepts and techniques in METHOD WRITING will show you how to create compelling moments and scenes, how to move your reader with writing that jumps off the page and grabs them by the heart. Learn to cultivate your voice to write unforgetable stories and poems.
This is a perfect workshop for a beginner or an experienced writer of poetry, fiction or non-fiction, or for anyone looking to find or rediscover their own unique voice.
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Alexandra Kostoulas founded the SF Creative Writing Institute in 2015. She teaches people to find their voice and unblock themselves creatively every day. She has worked with thousands of students from all walks of life in her career as an educator and has coached many aspiring writers to publication and performance of their work. Her students have gone on to run literary organizations, become professors at prestigious universities, publish their work in peer-reviewed journals, land book deals and break barriers in their writing and lives. She writes poetry, nonfiction and fiction.
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$450.00
Method Writing
Instructor: Alexandra Kostoulas
We want to connect with the world. But where do we start?
There’s a voice within all of... Read more |
Nov 15 - Dec 13 - Saturdays - 10:30 am Pacific Time | ONLINE
The Poetry of Healing: The Body
Instructor: Kim McMillion
In this 4-week workshop, Poetry of Healing: The Body, we stand as flowers watered by healing words. Our bodies are a memoir to ourselves. We will write poems to our hearts, minds, bodies, and emotions. The most important person in this course is you. You will use words to create poetry that celebrates you.
The poems you create are meant to be a memoir about how you celebrate, explore, and support yourself.
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Dr. Kim McMillon is a producer, playwright, and contributor to the anthology Some Other Blues: New Perspectives on Amiri Baraka (Ohio University Press, 2021). She is also the editor of Black Fire—This Time, an anthology published by Willow Books on March 15, 2022. McMillon produced, wrote, and starred in her one-woman show, Confessions of a Thespian: When Spirit & Theatre Collide, which was directed by Margo Hall and staged at the Julia Morgan Theatre in Berkeley, CA, in March 2000. She also produced, wrote, and directed Voyages, which premiered at the Nova Theatre in San Francisco in March 1986 and was later produced at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Playhouse in August 1987. A musical excerpt from Voyages was staged at the Merced Multicultural Arts Center in February 2023 as part of their Black History Month programming. McMillon's children's book, The Healing Book of Me, is set to be published in late September 2025. Additionally, her essay titled "Ancestor as Refugee" will be published in the SAGE Encyclopedia of Refugee Studies in September 2025.
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$395.00
The Poetry of Healing: The Body
In this 4-week workshop, Poetry of Healing: The Body, we stand as flowers watered by healing words. Our bodies are a... Read more |
Upcoming SFCWI events:
October 25 in the evening- SF Creative Writing Institute at Litquake
Write From the Gut: Best Lines
Telling the truth in your own voice is radical. Join our interactive poetry and storytelling reading from SF Creative Writing Institute’s long-running reading series, Write from the Gut. As artists, our work lies in being able to meet the current moment and distill it into words. SFCWI faculty and students will read our work and invite the audience to write the best-lines from the readings on Post-its. At the end we will read the best lines aloud in a kind of found poem. Readers are SFCWI faculty and students.
Dogeared Books 900 Valencia St. San Francisco • 8:00-9:00pm
Featuring Students and Instructors reading from their works-in-progress, including Tongo Eisen-Martin, Kim Shuck, Kim McMillon, Alexandra Kostoulas, and Ben Adams!
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“San Francisco is the only city I can think of that can survive all the things you people are doing to it and still look beautiful.”
— Frank Lloyd Wright, architect
“San Francisco itself is art… every block is a short story, every hill a novel, every home a poem.”
— William Saroyan, novelist and playwright
“Decide if a poem is a question or a declaration, a meditation or an outcry.”
— Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet