Turn Your Words into Art

For 25 years, we have helped writers
bring their voices to the page.

The classes I took at the Salon were my first exposure to workshop critique and participating in the creative process with other students. I felt as the sessions progressed, I read work (mine and others’) more critically, saw areas for growth and clarity, and identified how to better help my peers by asking questions.

Sam Jacobs
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Writing Salon News

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Congratulations to our 2023 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize winner, Angel Bista! Check out her winning poem, “Notes on the War, from My Mother.” The contest finalists are Fay Dillof, Julia B. Levine, and Melissa McKinstry.

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Join us for the the May 4 Salon Reading Series featuring Writing Salon instructors, Kathy Garlick and Nina Schuyler, and their students, Geetanshi Sharma and Michael French. Learn more and RSVP here.

Let’s Find You a Class!

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Generative Writing

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Poetry

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Fiction

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Multigenre

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Nonfiction

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Publishing & Professional Development

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Children’s & Young Adult Audience

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Screenwriting & Playwriting

The Writing Salon has a wonderful feeling for me of home and security, a place where I can bond with people while learning and perfecting my craft. I’m very grateful to you all for providing all this in one package!

Maria Sanchez
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Supporting Your Writing

“The Writing Salon has offered creative writing classes in the Bay Area since 1999…”

“Along with empowerment, the Writing Salon also provides constructive guidance in the craft and art of writing.”

“Whether you’re an aspiring novelist who needs the structure of fixed deadlines or just a dabbler looking to broaden your creative horizons, The Writing Salon has something for you…”

Read Our News & Reviews

Read Our News & Reviews

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Announcing the 2019 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize Winner

The 2019 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize winner is John Sibley Williams for his poem “Armistice.” The finalists are Heather Campbell, Sharon Coleman, and Grace Li.

Read the Winning Poem

Announcing the 2020 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize

The Jane Underwood Poetry Prize was established to celebrate and memorialize Jane Underwood, the founder and long-time director of The Writing Salon. Open to all poets, the prize is awarded for a single poem. This year’s final judge is David Hernandez. The submission deadline is December 1, 2020.

Learn More about the Prize

Announcing the Black Writers Matter Scholarship

This fall we will offer three Black writers of promise a credit of $300 toward a Winter 2021 class of their choice. We welcome applications from Black writers over the age of 18 who reside in the Bay Area. The deadline to submit is November 15.

 

Learn More

Announcing the Covid-19 Scholarship Recipients

The Scholarship recipients are Rachel Hurwitz, Joseph Kim, Lydia Kim, Victoria Turner, and Joe Vigil. Each recipient will receive a $150 credit toward a fall Writing Salon class of their choice.

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The Writing Salon is a place of non-judgment, a place for mutual encouragement and dialogue, a place where ideas spark and I become inspired.

Laura Koehn

The classes I took at the Salon were my first exposure to workshop critique and participating in the creative process with other students. I felt as the sessions progressed, I read work (mine and others’) more critically, saw areas for growth and clarity, and identified how to better help my peers by asking questions.

Sam Jacobs

I’ve finished the first draft of a novel . . . A significant accomplishment that would not have happened without the Writing Salon.

Brian Byrne
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I learned that I do not have to be published to find value in my own writing. That literature has an enormous value to modern society and to the individual producing it.

Roger Mills

For 20 years, we have helped writers bring their voices to the page.

The Writing Salon, founded in 1999, is a creative writing school for adults. We believe that creativity empowers, heals, and transforms; that a love for language and story binds people together as a community of independent voices; that the study of the craft of writing should be open to everyone; and that critique of our own and others’ writing can be, at once, constructive and compassionate.

Visit us at our San Francisco and Berkeley classrooms.

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