Our Story

Our Mission

The San Francisco Creative Writing Institute (SFCWI) is dedicated to cultivating an inclusive and empowering environment for writers of all backgrounds, ages, and skill levels. In our workshops, performances, and events, we nurture a sense of belonging as we help storytellers craft meaningful work that engages with the issues of our time, narrates the world around them, and challenges the status quo. 

Our first established location was in the WeWork building above the Golden Gate Theater at 25 Taylor Street. This location closed due to the pandemic and commercial vacancies in San Francisco.

About Us

The San Francisco Creative Writing Institute (SFCWI) is an independent learning center committed to helping aspiring writers become published authors.

We also encourage both emerging and established creatives to explore new ideas, experiment with genres, develop skills, and push artistic boundaries.

We help writers of all ages and backgrounds share their work and connect with industry peers and mentors at an affordable and accessible price.

Our History

2012 - 2014

  • We started out of a Method Writing workshop taught by Alexandra Kostoulas at a North Beach art gallery called The Emerald Tablet, located across from the famous Caffe Trieste and near City Lights Bookstore. At the time, both of these creative hubs were home to the elderly revolutionary Beats Poets, who welcomed us.


  • We launched a reading series called Write from the Gut! featuring the writers from our workshop.

Alexandra Kostoulas with renowned American writer and City Lights Bookstore co-founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Emerald Tablet co-founder Della Heywood.

Rowena Choy Henry performing at Write From the Gut! Emerald Tablet in 2014.

2015 - 2016

  • After the success of the Method Writing classes, Alexandra officially founded the SF Creative Writing Institute in April 2015.


  • After Emerald Tablet closed due to gentrification, we moved our classes to the WeWork located in the Tenderloin neighborhood and hosted readings at Wework, SAFEhouse Arts, and PianoFight. 


  • We partnered with SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts to run our next storytelling and reading series project, the City Stories Program. 


  • We also won a Local Impact award and funding from the California Arts Council for producing City Stories, which brought in dozens of writers from all over the Bay Area for local readings and taught free workshops to people experiencing poverty in San Francisco.
An up-and-coming Tongo Eisen-Martin at our City Stories Program event at SAFEhouse arts near Civic Center Bart in 2016.
Bay Area indie authors read for City Stories project at SAFEhouse Arts in August 2016. (Left to Right: Soma Mei-Sheng Frazier, Nick Johnson, Cassandra Dallet, MK Chavez, JK Fowler, Paul Corman-Roberts, Cyrus Armajani, Azuah, Alexandra Kostoulas)

2017 - 2019

  • We continued to expand our in-person offerings with write-a-thons, more diverse workshops, bringing in interesting new teaching artists.

  • NY-based Fractured Atlas became our fiscal sponsor.

  • We hosted the San Francisco arm of the multi-city reading series, At the Inkwell at a local bookstore in the Mission.

  • We hosted a special off-site reading with 826 National and 826 DC in Washington DC at the AWP Conference.

  • We hosted Greek-American Writers' Night, from 2016-2019.

Australian-Cypriot Poet Koraly Dimitradis performing at one of our Greek-American Writers' Nights at Pegasus books in Berkeley.

Local writers gather at Alley Cat Bookstore on 24th street in the Mission for one of our "At the Inkwell" readings in 2017. These readings were in 4 cities across the US, in partnership with At The Inkwell, founded by Monique Antoinette Lewis.

We hosted many Write from the Gut! Readings at our 25 Taylor St. space and around the Tenderloin neighborhood. When we started, we never realized that this would become our longest-running series.

2020 - 2022

  • We briefly expanded to Oakland and held a few workshops at 1111 Broadway Street at Wework offering 1-3 workshops there, but the pandemic hit so we quickly pivoted.

  • We closed due to the Pandemic and re-emerged all online in one weekend. During lockdown, we hosted events partnering with the SF Public Library.

  • In March 2020, we started Dispatches from Quarantine.

  • One of our instructors became San Francisco Poet Laureate. Several of our readers our one of our events became Poet Laureates of their own local towns. We created our YouTube channel.

  • All of the venues we used to collaborate with shut down due to the economic crisis and several of our instructors faced challenging times.

  • We began partnering with CounterPulse Theater through their Tender Arts Program. We brought our program, City Story Workshops there.
In Feb 2021, we partnered with the SF Public Library to host a celebratory reading of our pandemic-era literary blog Dispatches from Quarantine. As we logged off our reading, we got a notification on our phones signaling 500,000 COVID deaths in the US. About four of the poets were named Poets Laureate of their cities soon after the reading.
Aideed Medina Argueta reads poetry at Write from the Gut! SF Creative Writing Institute in December 2021.

2022 - 2023

  • In 2022, we formed an online partnership with the venture-backed learning company, Maven. We taught classes alongside instructors from Google, Harvard and MIT.


  • In 2022, we came back in person. We formed a new partnership with Harvey Milk Center for the Arts. Before their space was ready for us, we taught classes outside at a picnic table in Golden Gate Park.


  • In Fall 2022, we moved to Harvey Milk Center for the Arts at 50 Scott Street, near Duboce Park.


  • We won another California Arts Council Local Impact Award for our Program Dispatches from Quarantine.


  • We became a House Artist project of CounterPulse Theater in San Francisco who became our local fiscal sponsor.


  • We formed a partnership with SF Rec and Park and the Young People's Teen Musical Theater Company to offer creative writing summer camps for youth ages 8-17 at Harvey Milk Center for the Arts.


  • In 2022 We hosted an international reading with Ukrainian Method Writers from Kyiv in zoom and YouTube.

  • In 2023, we started a speaker series on our YouTube Channel.


  • We hosted Zarina Zabrisky for her the San Francisco premier of The Eastern Front: Terror & Torture in Ukraine at the Great Star Theater In Chinatown.


  • We also provided professional development workshops in writing for the faculty and staff at the Schools of the Sacred Heart.

In May 2023, with support from the California Arts Council, we hosted a series of readings, public discussions and writing workshops that examined how Covid-19 changed the field of Creative Writing. This reading was called Pandemic Poetry hosted at Medicine for Nightmares (formerly Alley Cat Books) in May 2023, curated by Tongo Eisen-Martin and hosted by Alexandra Kostoulas.

In June 2023 we welcomed Pulitzer Prize nominee in Drama Kristina Wong to teach a workshop at SF Creative Writing Institute. We also hosted a reading and discussion with renown nonfiction writer Rebecca Solnit in conversation with her at the CounterPulse theater in downtown San Francisco.

Group photo of performers at our first successful indoor Write from the Gut reading at CounterPulse theater in May 2024. 

2024 - Now

  • We also established a partnership with SFUSD (San Francisco Unified School District) to offer after-school enrichments at New Traditions elementary school in San Francisco.

  • We started our first private summer camp for teens at Harvey Milk Center.

  • We continue to offer workshops both in-person in San Francisco for Bay Area writers, and online to writers from around the world.
We came back to host quarterly in-person Write from the Gut! readings at CounterPulse Theater and Harvey Milk Center in 2023-24. A student, Omar Shaker, reads his non-fiction at our May 2024 reading.
We moved back to host in-person workshops for adults during the school year and writing camps for kids and teens during the summer at Harvey Milk Center for the Arts in the Duboce Park neighborhood of San Francisco.

Our Values

Creativity

We believe that anyone can be creative and make great art. So we foster that by teaching people how to find their voice and tell their stories.

Acceptance

We will celebrate and platform students and creatives of all ages, orientations, identities, areas of life, and experiences, giving them a way to shine.

Continuous Improvement

We're partners in our students' learning. We offer personalized feedback and attention to every writer in our programs. Thus, giving them more opportunities to improve.

Expertise

We curate a talent pool of accomplished, experienced, and talented mentors who provide insights and industry coaching to help writers better achieve their publishing dreams.

Empowerment & Reciprocity

We strive to create mutually beneficial partnerships with teachers and students by giving them opportunities to share, perform, and promote their work. 

Find Your Voice
Tell Your Story

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