The Facts:
The inaugural San Francisco Writers Conference was held February 15-16, 2004, at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. The 3rd through 15th conferences have been held at the InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel. In 2019 SFWC will move to the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero.
The conference is held each President’s Day weekend in mid-February.
The conference co-founders are Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen. The conference director is Laurie McLean. Elizabeth and Michael are the co-founders of Michael Larsen-Elizabeth Pomada Literary Agents: Northern California’s oldest literary agency, founded in 1972. Laurie McLean is a co-founder of Fuse Literary, building the literary agency of the future.
Attendance averages around 350 people.
There are 80-100 speakers, editors and agents who participate each year.
There are 60-70 volunteers.
The San Francisco Writers Conference is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation that donates money and services to charities that support writing. SFWC donations have gone to BINC, the Children’s Book Project, EveryLibrary, Litquake, WNBA, Books & Booze, Project Homeless Connect, high school scholarship recipients and other organizations. SFWC management team members donate their time on many projects and can often be seen giving pro-bono speeches at writers conferences and other venues.
The theme of the conference is A Celebration of Craft, Commerce and Community, which reflects the heritage of San Francisco as well as the founders’ vision of helping writers get their work published by building bridges between them and publishers, editors, agents and other professionals.
Barbara Santos, co-creator of the Maui Writers Conference, is marketing director. Her husband Richard Santos manages conference registration and the www.sfwriters.org website. Lissa Provost is the operations director and Linda Lee is the volunteer director.
Contact Information:
Director: Laurie McLean laurie@SFWriters.org
Marketing Director/Newsletter Editor: Barbara Santos barbara@SFWriters.org
Operations Director: Lissa Provost lissaprovost@gmail.com
Registration/Website Director: Richard Santos registrations@SFWriters.org
Volunteer Coordinator: Linda Lee lindalee-sfwc@comcast.net
Co-Founders: Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen epml@aol.com
San Francisco Writers Foundation Advisory Board:
Kathleen Antrim, author and political commentator
Taryn Edwards, Mechanics Institute Library
Joyce Turley, author and NSA speaker
Harvey Pawl, businessman
Mailing Address:
San Francisco Writers Conference
P.O. Box 326 Oakley, CA 94561
Phone: 925.420.6223
