Here's what's on in March at SF Creative Writing Institute
Published 26 days ago • 6 min read
March Creative Writing
Three Free Workshops + One Paid one
March + April 2025
Dear Writers,
Happy March!
I hope you are staying creative amid all the chaos out there. I'm writing to let you know about free creative writing classes we are offering as part of our City Stories Workshop - and a new partnership with University of San Francisco's MFA Program in Creative Writing this March.
All three workshops will be taught by USF MFA graduate students in Creative Writing. These students are also aspiring teachers and are enrolled in a course called Teaching Creative Writing In the Community taught by Novelist and Filmmaker, Laleh Khadivi.
Each course starts the third week of March and runs for six weeks and meets at one of our locations. Great for writers on a tight budget!
Think of it like getting your hair cut by an apprentice instead of the head stylist in a salon. These artists are new and under supervision of their mentor, but their rate is cheaper (in this case free). As apprentice stylists, they are still learning, but sometimes their techniques are quite innovative!
This is how I got my start teaching at a college too. I was a second year graduate student in an internship program where I started teaching English 1A many years ago.
Please sign up for one! I will too.
Sneak Peak into April:
I'm also including a paid workshop we're hosting that tarts in April that you might like: Nick Mamatas' Intro to Fiction. Nick Mamatas is an editor, anthologist, and novelist, author of ten novels, over 100 published stories. He edited the memoir of the animator Hayao Miyazaki, among others. His students have gone one to do great things.
Here's a mini pep-talk for the month: Keep Writing! Never Give up. I hope I live long enough to shake my cane at tyranny whenever possible and continue to resist with my pen and creativity and write, write, write.
Also, SF Creative Writing Institute, in the blink of an eye, turns ten this April. That's amazing. I can't believe it.
Have you ever wondered what principles all stories share? Or how you can use story essentials to
make your writing come alive? In this 60-minute class, we’ll dive into the fundamentals of
storytelling: Plot, Character, Setting, and Theme. Through fun writing exercises, you’ll develop
narrative skills you can use to make your writing sing. We’ll also examine stories by Justin
Torres, George Saunders, Carmen Maria Machado, Venita Blackburn, Peter Kispert, Nana
Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, and others. At the end of the six weeks, you’ll have a better understanding of what makes characters complex, plots satisfying, settings feel real, and how
authors steep their stories in theme. But mostly, we’ll have fun exploring how these principles
are used to make great fiction. This class is intended for writers of all levels, from folks just starting to put pen to page, to experienced writers looking to recharge their creative batteries.
About the Instructors:
Ben Adams is the author of three critically acclaimed indie novels, The Enigmatologist (Ravenswood
Press), The Resurrectionist (Ravenswood Press), and Relativity (BHC Press). Currently, he’s
pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at University of San Francisco, and is Editor in Chief at Four Leaf Collective.
Raya North, a candidate for a Masters in Creative Writing, grew up in the North Bay. Her own writing tends towards dystopian, feminist storylines and in her spare time she likes to rock climb, sing, and sleep.
onal story into poetry? Join us for a lively and welcoming 1.5 hr workshop series, where we’ll be blurring the lines between diary and verse, drawing inspiration from poets like Ariana Reines, Hera Lindsay Bird, Diane Seuss, and Ocean Vuong. Through in-class readings, discussions and generative writing exercises, we’ll explore different ways of capturing our day-to-day relationships, desires, and fears on the page—embracing radical vulnerability and the art of the weird shower thought. Whether you're new to poetry or looking to refine your voice, this is your space to experiment, express, and make your words shine.
About the Instructor:
Oliver Sedano-Jones' is a queer British/Latinx writer whose work has appeared in Poetry Wales, The Oxford Review of Books, bath magg, and elsewhere. He has been shortlisted for the Yeats Prize, the Wales Poetry Award and the Plaza Prose Poetry Prize, and his first collection, The Cardboard Sublime, won the Write Bloody UK manuscript contest in 2021. He is currently an MFA candidate in the writing program at USF.
The Grotesque, the Absurd, and the Surreal: An Introduction to Creative Writing.
Instructor: ConnorMcLean
Sundays starting March 30
Sundays 1:15-2:45pm
Western Addition Library,
1550 Scott St, San Francisco
Tuition: Free
Is there a story you're dying to tell? Are there characters you need to share with the world? Join us as we bring these stories and characters to life. Our writing workshop is open to all styles of fiction, but if you're into dark humor or the strange and experimental, then this free course might be perfect for you. For an hour, we will share, read, and comment on the work of our peers to help one another develop as writers. The class will explore short stories centered around the grotesque, the absurd, and the surreal. Authors will include Franz Kafka, Luis Jorge Borges, Ursula K. Le Guin, David Foster Wallace, and more. Expect to finish the class with a new short story that shows your voice as a writer.
About the Instructor: Connor McLean is a graduate student in USF's MFA in writing program. As a writer from San Jose, he has work published in Gone Lawn, World Literature Today, 3:AM Magazine, and Catamaran.
To Register, Contact: clmclean2@dons.usfca.edu
Saturdays
April 5-May 17, 2025
2-4:30pm
Harvey Milk Center for the Arts
50 Scott Street
San Francisco
Tuition: $425
Intro to Fiction
Where does your story start? How on Earth do you keep it going? What's the difference between ending a story and just stopping it? Regardless of genre, length, or form, every story has a beginning, middle, and an ending—in no particular order. Beginning writers often start their stories in the wrong place, confuse action with plot, and then end a scene a bit too early… or too late. In six weeks, award-winning novelist, anthologist, and editor Nick Mamatas will guide you up and down the path of storytelling—through the architecture of fiction. Nick acquires novels and short fiction, and knows what agents and editors are looking for in today's marketplace. His work is acclaimed by critics, and praise from outfits like Publishers Weekly and Booklist prove he knows how to keep a reader engaged. This workshop will give you the tools you need to move through a story with confidence—whether it's a novel, novella, or short story. No more getting lost. *Please note: This workshop will skip April 19.
About the Instructor:
Nick Mamatas is the author of several novels, including I Am Providence and The Second Shooter. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Asimov's Science Fiction, Tor.com and many other venues. Much of it was recently collected in The People's Republic of Everything. Nick is also an anthologist; his latest book is 120 Murders; Dark Fiction Inspired by Alternative Music. His latest novel, Kalivas!Or, Another Tempest, will be published in September 2025.
Writers, are you planning on going to the AWP conference at the end of March in Los Angeles? If so, please reply to this email let me know. A group of us will be there this year and we would like to host an informal gathering/reading featuring our alumni, students, instructors and friends somewhere near downtown LA.
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