San Francisco Writers Workshop
Encyclopedia
The San Francisco Writers Workshop is one of the oldest continuously running writing critique groups in the United States, meeting every Tuesday night, except for major holidays, since 1946. Successful published authors who first workshopped their books in the group include Khaled Hosseini
, David Henry Sterry
, Aaron Hamburger
, Joe Quirk
, Michelle Gagnon, Kemble Scott
, Tamim Ansary
, and Erika Mailman.
Tamim Ansary
is the current moderator. The workshop is free and open to all interested writers and genres, providing a forum to share work-in-progress and receive constructive critiques from other writers. The group meets at the Meridian Gallery, near San Francisco's downtown Union Square.
Sessions are uniquely structured so participants share, aloud, up to six double-spaced pages of their work at a time. Writers are not allowed to speak or respond while the group critiques their work.
Note: Partial List - Updates Requested
Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini , is an Afghan-born American novelist and physician of ethnic Tajik origin. He is a citizen of the United States where he has lived since he was fifteen years old. His 2003 debut novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide....
, David Henry Sterry
David Henry Sterry
David Henry Sterry is an American author, actor/comic, and former sex worker.- Biography :Sterry started in show business as a standup comedian in the early 1980s, opening for acts ranging from Milton Berle to Robin Williams to Dana Carvey...
, Aaron Hamburger
Aaron Hamburger
Aaron Hamburger is an American writer best known for his short story collection The View from Stalin's Head and novel Faith for Beginners ....
, Joe Quirk
Joe Quirk
Joe Quirk is an American author originally from Westfield, New Jersey. His novel The Ultimate Rush, published in 1998, concerns a rollerblading messenger caught in an illegal insider trading ring...
, Michelle Gagnon, Kemble Scott
Kemble Scott
Kemble Scott is the pseudonym for fiction used by American journalist Scott James , writer of a weekly column about the San Francisco Bay Area that appears in The New York Times and The Bay Citizen. His debut novel SoMa became a bestseller in the spring of 2007...
, Tamim Ansary
Tamim Ansary
Mir Tamim Ansary is an Afghan-American author and public speaker. He is the author of West of Kabul, East of New York, a book published shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and is a columnist for the encyclopedia website Encarta.- Early life and education :Ansary was born in...
, and Erika Mailman.
Tamim Ansary
Tamim Ansary
Mir Tamim Ansary is an Afghan-American author and public speaker. He is the author of West of Kabul, East of New York, a book published shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and is a columnist for the encyclopedia website Encarta.- Early life and education :Ansary was born in...
is the current moderator. The workshop is free and open to all interested writers and genres, providing a forum to share work-in-progress and receive constructive critiques from other writers. The group meets at the Meridian Gallery, near San Francisco's downtown Union Square.
Sessions are uniquely structured so participants share, aloud, up to six double-spaced pages of their work at a time. Writers are not allowed to speak or respond while the group critiques their work.
San Francisco Writers Workshop Alumni
Some of the published authors who have emerged from the workshop:Note: Partial List - Updates Requested
- Tamim AnsaryTamim AnsaryMir Tamim Ansary is an Afghan-American author and public speaker. He is the author of West of Kabul, East of New York, a book published shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and is a columnist for the encyclopedia website Encarta.- Early life and education :Ansary was born in...
, author of West of Kabul, East of New York, The Other Side of the Sky: A MemoirThe Other Side of the Sky: A MemoirThe Other Side of the Sky: A Memoir is a Memoir by Farah Ahmedi with Tamim Ansary. The Memoir profiles the life of Farah Ahmedi from the time she was born until she was seventeen years old.-Summary:Farah Ahmedi was born in Kabul, Afghanistan near the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan...
, Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, The Widow's Husband - Melodie Bowsher, author of My Lost and Found Life
- Michael ChorostMichael ChorostMichael Chorost is an American writer and teacher. Born with severe loss of hearing due to rubella, his hearing was partially restored with a cochlear implant in 2001. He subsequently wrote a memoir of the experience, titled Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human...
, author of Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human - Christine Comaford-Lynch, author of Rules for Renegades
- Michelle GagnonMichelle GagnonMichelle Gagnon is an American crime fiction novelist. Her bestselling thrillers have been published in more than a dozen countries worldwide. She has dual citizenship in the US and Ireland, and currently lives in San Francisco...
, author of The Tunnels, Boneyard, The Gatekeeper - Rip GerberRip GerberRobert “Rip” Benthall Gerber, Jr. , best known as Rip Gerber, is an American author, business executive and entrepreneur, best known for his work in the science fiction and thriller genres...
, author of PHARMA - Stan Golberg, author of Lessons for the Living
- Aaron HamburgerAaron HamburgerAaron Hamburger is an American writer best known for his short story collection The View from Stalin's Head and novel Faith for Beginners ....
, author of The View from Stalin's Head, Faith for Beginners - Khaled HosseiniKhaled HosseiniKhaled Hosseini , is an Afghan-born American novelist and physician of ethnic Tajik origin. He is a citizen of the United States where he has lived since he was fifteen years old. His 2003 debut novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide....
, author of The Kite RunnerThe Kite RunnerThe Kite Runner is a novel by Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, it is Hosseini's first novel, and was adapted into a film of the same name in 2007....
, A Thousand Splendid SunsA Thousand Splendid SunsA Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. It is his second, following his bestselling 2003 debut, The Kite Runner. The book focuses on the tumultuous lives of two Afghan women and how their lives cross each other, spanning from the 1960s to 2003... - Irete Lazo, author of The Accidental Santera
- Erika Mailman, author of Woman of Ill Fame, The Witch's Trinity
- Shana MahaffeyShana MahaffeyShana Mahaffey is an American writer of fiction. She is the author of the novel, Sounds Like Crazy, a San Francisco Chronicle notable book for Fall 2009. about an Emmy award winning voiceover artist, Holly Miller. Holly has co-conscious multiple personality disorder...
, author of Sounds Like Crazy - Joe QuirkJoe QuirkJoe Quirk is an American author originally from Westfield, New Jersey. His novel The Ultimate Rush, published in 1998, concerns a rollerblading messenger caught in an illegal insider trading ring...
, author of The Ultimate Rush, It's Not You, It's Biology, Exult - Kemble ScottKemble ScottKemble Scott is the pseudonym for fiction used by American journalist Scott James , writer of a weekly column about the San Francisco Bay Area that appears in The New York Times and The Bay Citizen. His debut novel SoMa became a bestseller in the spring of 2007...
, (novelist pen name of Scott James, columnist for The New York Times) author of SoMaSoMa (novel)SoMa is the bestselling debut novel of American author Kemble Scott. It was first published on February 1, 2007 by Kensington Books as a trade paperback original...
, The SowerThe Sower (novel)The Sower is the bestselling second novel by American author Kemble Scott, pen name of Scott James, writer of a weekly column about the San Francisco Bay Area published in both The Bay Citizen and The New York Times.... - Holly Shumas, author of Five Things I Can't Live Without, Love and Other Natural Disasters
- Ransom StephensRansom Stephens-Professional life:As a particle physicist, Ransom Stephens worked on experiments at SLAC, Fermilab, CERN, and Cornell, discovered a new type of matter, and worked on the team that discovered the Top quark. During the tech boom that ended in 2001, he directed patent development for a wireless web...
, author of The God Patent - David Henry SterryDavid Henry SterryDavid Henry Sterry is an American author, actor/comic, and former sex worker.- Biography :Sterry started in show business as a standup comedian in the early 1980s, opening for acts ranging from Milton Berle to Robin Williams to Dana Carvey...
, author of Chicken: Self Portrait of a Young Man for Rent, Master of Ceremonies: A Story Story of Sex, Drugs, Roller skates, and Murder, editor of Ho's Hookers, Callgirls, and Rentboys - Amy Zemser, author of Beyond the Mango Tree