Wordhacking: San Francisco Writers Workshop Reads at Noisebridge

San Francisco Writers Workshop is hosting a benefit for our current venue, Noisebridge. This legendary maker and hackerspace in the Mission prides itself on being open to all and provides infrastructure to people interested in art and technology. Our workshop, for instance, has been meeting in the sewing room equipped with machines for professional sewing projects. Like all creative venues in San Francisco, Noisebridge needs help making rent. This event will be a celebration of our writing and creative communities and a fundraiser for one of the coolest spaces in the Mission.

The event will include featured readers, a storytelling game, refreshments, cash bar, and an opportunity to tour Noisebridge. PLEASE HELP US SPREAD THE WORD!

Mark your calendars for 7 pm on April 6, 2023, at Noisebridge, 272 Capp Street. Suggested donation starts at $10, and please give as much as you can!

If you can’t come to the event and want to help, please use one of the donations options listed on Noisebridge’s website.

Our featured readers:

Abi Ramanan was born in India, grew up in the UK and has lived in San Francisco since 2018. In a narrowly won race, she chose fiction writing over bread baking during the pandemic and has been on a beautiful (sort of) journey ever since. Her writing won the Space to Write Project contest and has been featured in Metro. She is currently working on her debut novel, PROPHET, a project of speculative fiction about emotion transference, and otherwise can generally be found seeking out a good time in her free time. Connect: Facebook, abi.ramanan1, Twitter @abilalayo

Liz Henry is a writer, translator, blogger, zine publisher, and hackerspace fan. You can find their poetry in the book Unruly Islands, many zines digitized for Kindle, and translations on bookmaniac.org or as part of Carmen Berenguer’s autobiography in poetry, Mi Lai. Connect: bookmaniac.org, Facebook: lizhenry, Twitter @lizhenry, @lizzard@mastodon.social

Raised in rural Colorado, on the Rio Grande river, Michael Lukso nurtured prize winning chickens in 4H. At UCSB, he received his B.A. in psychology, before moving to San Francisco for his M.S. in organizational psychology. He worked as a management consultant for over 10 years. Then he started smoking meth. Homelessness; incarceration; failed suicide attempts; toenail fungus. If something sucks, Michael insisted on adding it to his resume. However, in San Francisco’s criminal law system and mental health services, Michael discovers you don’t have to quit meth, to get better. With a working title of “There’s Another Way,” Michael is writing this memoir to show harm reduction can lead to recovery and happiness.

Peng Ngin left his native Malaysia to attend Vassar College. He moved to the Bay Area for graduate school at UC Berkeley, where he took his first creative writing classes. Peng returned to his lifelong interest in writing and literature during the pandemic. He lives in San Francisco and works as an investment manager.

Tahirah Nailah Dean is a lawyer by day, writer by night. Tahirah (she writes under her middle name Nailah) enjoys writing about the difficulties of finding love and marriage as a young Muslim woman. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera and Insider. She is a blogger for a popular Muslim dating app, Salams, and is currently working on a novel. She lives in Oakland with her husband. Connect: nailahdean.com, Facebook: tnd0029 IG: @nailahdean28

Thomas Hobohm grew up in Texas and now lives in San Francisco. They are the web editor at The Adroit Journal, and their work has appeared in places such as SmokeLong Quarterly, So to Speak, and HAD. You can usually find them at the Roxie Theater. Connect: thomashobohm.com, Twitter: @thomashobohm, Instagram: @skyferreiraofficial

The Wealthy Whites of Williamsburg

by Mike Karpa

The author of delightful CRIMINALS (Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2022) and RED DOT, Karpa published a novel he’s been workshopping on Tuesday nights, THE WEALTHY WHITES OF WILLIAMSBURG. As a very positive Kirkus review puts it, this is a story of “an affluent Brooklyn family navigates family drama, career trouble, and long-kept secrets.” Told by several members of this family, this story pulls together several threads, each of which develops in unexpected ways, coming together at the end.

Buy this book on Amazon.

Sinking the Arc

by Tamim Ansary

Our own Tamim Ansary, who moderated the workshop for many years, has a new novel out! Published by Kajaki Press, it tells the story of a fictional “alternative” weekly in Portland, Oregon, the Rose City Ark, the newspaper of the city’s counterculture. In 1974, the paper embarks on a bold experiment: to dispense with all hierarchy and embrace pure democracy: no more managing editor, no more assigned roles, no more some-people-telling-other-people-what-to-do: under the new plan, every person will decide for themselves how to contribute to the paper.

Buy this book now on Amazon (and rate and review!)

The Shivering World

by Cynthia Gómez

Dread Stone Press presents SPLIT SCREAM, a new Horror Novelette Double Feature. “The Shivering World,” a story by long-time SFWW regular Cynthia Gómez, is about a brilliant student Nayeli, on her way to escape from a childhood of poverty and abuse, when she encounters a being she suspects to be La Llorona.

This book is available for sale on Bookshop.com.

August 2022: In-person at Noisebridge

Starting on August 2nd and ongoing, we’ll be meeting at Noisebridge Hackerspace, 272 Capp Street in San Francisco (near 16th Street BART). We will be assembling at 7 pm as usual in the 2nd floor lounge. Let us know if you have any accessibility issues, and we will try to accommodate. 

We will continue to ask for donations to support this venue (San Francisco rents!) and we continue to ask that everyone masks. 

Coming July 2022: In-person at SOUR CHERRY COMICS

We’re happy to announce that after two years on Zoom, San Francisco Writers Workshop is moving back to in-person format. A new bookstore has generously agreed to host us on Tuesday nights: SOUR CHERRY COMICS, 3187 16th St. SF, CA, 94103.

We hope to see you at SOUR CHERRY COMICS, 7-9 pm, starting July 12, 2022 — and ongoing.

There are a couple of things to note:

1. For the time being, we will be asking everyone–except the person reading–to mask.

2. It’s a new bookstore, and the owner, Leah, needs our support, very much so. We will be passing a bucket around and encouraging everyone to give money and to buy books.

3. Leah’s letting us come in on a trial basis through the end of July, and though we are really hoping to make a good impression and stay on, we do have backup options. We are at this time planning on continuing as an in-person group!

Seven Fabulist Comedies

by Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller

Conrad and Elizabeth have been writing and performing together since 1971, running a theater ensemble, The Independent Eye. Their latest book, Seven Fabulist Comedies, is a compendium of plays they have produced over the years, some inspired by commedia dell’arte, and including solo shows, an urban fantasy, and a surreal black comedy.

This book is available for sale on their website.

Metamorphosis of a Bully: And Other Stories

by Luciano Aldana

A collection of linked stories that begins in a barrio on the southern side of the US-Mexico border. It’s 1950s, and a fearless sailor suddenly appears in the barrio and metamorphoses into a fearful bully of the town. He is a streetfighter with predisposition to fight. He provokes a young man who runs his family’s store. The young man gives him a good fight and this infuriates the bully so much that he swears to kill him . . .

This book is available for sale on Amazon.

Muslim American Writers at Home: Stories, Essays and Poems of Identity, Diversity and Belonging

Edited by Valerie Behiery, Kitty Costello and Hanan Hazime

This timely collection allows us to hear firsthand the amazingly diverse voices of North American Muslim writers speaking for themselves. Stereotypes are overturned on every page. Shaped by an impressive interweaving of cultures, languages and ethnicities, these writers reflect on what it means to find home-especially when prejudices and distortions abound-and how powerful it can be to feel heard, recognized, welcomed. Through stories, essays and poems, they share their family lore, spiritual journeys, childhood dreams, and memories of homes they left. They offer prayers for our world.

The book is available for sale from Freedom Voices publishing.

The Book of Bastards

by Ransom Stephens

Short-lived, hopeful tales of worthy knights, wizards, and druids emerged from every festival and fair. Crazy rumors of renegade princes and princesses popped up now and then, usually following the narrative of one old myth or another. A favorite involved peasants kissing toads and being transformed into royalty, but most of the gossip followed the usual theme: orphans and bastards, in out-of-the way villages unaware of their lineage, being manipulated by unsavory halflings. The Book of Bastards is a rollicking, riveting tale. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll sing! You’ll need a drink.