Subjects covered Home Baked author Alia Volz talked about her book—a finalist for the 2021 National Book Critics Circle award for best autobiography—and offered advice about and lessons learned from launching during the pandemic. During the ’70s in San Francisco, Alia Volz’s mother ran the underground Sticky Fingers Brownies, delivering upwards of ten thousand illegal
Read MoreSan Francisco Writers Conference
2021 Conference Update, Podcast Relaunch, & New Writing Contest
Subjects covered Podcast Program Director and Host Matthew Félix introduced himself, sharing his three books and how he got into podcasting and his new role with the San Francisco Writers Conference podcast. Matthew provided an overview of the podcast relaunch, including the following changes: longer episodes (one hour); availability on major podcast platforms; video on
Read More
The Thing You Think You Cannot Say: Writing a Memoir You Can Live With
by Stuart Horwitz Writing a memoir is like writing a detective story where you get to find out what happened—except, it’s to you. It’s a complicated challenge. In the first place, you have to find your best stories, and tell them in a way that is interesting to other people, with the proper level of
Read More
SFWC Staff updates
SFWC Director Laurie McLean has had a challenging year to be sure. In addition to producing the successful, but labor intensive, virtual 2020 San Francisco Writing for Change: Worldwide during the pandemic, Laurie’s home in LaHonda was in the middle of the horrific CZU Lightning Complex fire this summer. A volunteer firefighter herself, she was
Read More
Annnouncement on SFWC2021
Guess what? The San Francisco Writers Conference has turned 18 years old! But given the current global insanity, we’ve reluctantly decided for everyone’s safety to take a “gap year” in 2021. This means there will be no physical conference at the Hyatt in mid-February next year like we’d all planned. I know this is sad
Read More
We are San Francisco’s writers conference. It is in our bones to embrace & elevate diverse voices.
We are San Francisco’s writers conference and as such it is part of our cultural identity to embrace and elevate diverse voices. This is challenging in an industry where white privilege is heavily entrenched, but we have always embraced this challenge. It’s part of why we embrace disruptive trends like self-publishing. It’s why we work
Read More