Dispatches from the City of Awe Workshop #2 – Method Writing
In-Person – SF Public Library Main Branch
Martin Paley Room (3rd floor)
100 Larkin Street
Instructor: Alexandra Kostoulas
Schedule: In-Person | Thursdays | 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Jul 30 – Sep 10, 2026
Tuition: Free
Method Writing | The Jack Grapes Method Writing Program
We want to connect with the world. We want to share the life that is inside us. We want to write poetry and prose that speaks the truth and moves the reader. But where do we start?
There’s a voice within all of us wanting to find its place in the world. The concepts and techniques in the Jack Grapes METHOD WRITING Program will lead you step by step, show you how to create compelling moments and scenes, how to move your reader with writing that jumps off the page and grabs them by the heart.
In this 6-week workshop, we will focus on stripping away the artifice of writing, the baggage that keeps us from the most essential building block of any writing: the Deep Voice. We’ll turn journal entries into poems and stories, and by the end of the class, you’ll produce a“chapbook”of your work, turning process into product.
This class focuses on weekly journal writing using the techniques and concepts of Method Writing. Suitable for both poets and prose writers, beginners and advanced, this class will help you find your deep voice and use it to create clear and compelling written work.
We are able to offer this class for free for the first time because of a generous grant from the SVANE foundation.
This workshop is being offered as part of our Dispatches from the City of Awe Project where we encourage participants to write beautiful stories set in or about San Francisco.
Alexandra Kostoulas
Alexandra Kostoulas founded the SF Creative Writing Institute in 2015. She teaches people to find their voice and unblock themselves creatively every day. She has worked with thousands of students from all walks of life in her career as an educator and has coached many aspiring writers to publication and performance of their work. Her students have gone on to run literary organizations, become professors at prestigious universities, publish their work in peer-reviewed journals, land book deals and break barriers in their writing and lives. She writes poetry, nonfiction and fiction.