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Featured News
Fall classes are here!
Check out our latest classes and write-ins, including the new yearlong class and Craft & Career: The Writers Grotto Lecture Series. Click below to see our full line-up of classes and events!
Upcoming Classes & Events
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MM/DD
Today
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9:00-11:00am PT
How To Write A Children's Book With Lisa Lerner
7:30-8:45pm PT
Narrative Design for Gaming with Kate Busatto
7:00-8:30pm PT
Write Away with Laurie Ann Doyle
7:00-8:30pm PT
Celebrating Our Students - A night of student works from January - June 2023
7:00-8:00pm PT
Spring Classes Virtual Open House
7:00-8:00pm PT
Spring Write-Ins: Wednesday, April 12th with Laurie Ann Doyle
7:00-8:00pm PT
Summer Write-Ins: Tuesday, July 11th, with Laurie Ann Doyle
7:00-8:00pm PT
Summer Write-Ins: Wednesday, August 2nd, from 7 -8pm with Maw Shein Win
7:00-8:00pm PT
Summer Write-Ins: Wednesday, August 9th, from 7 - 8pm with Maw Shein Win
7:00-8:00pm PT
Fall Classes Virtual Open House
7-9pm PT
DIY Author Events with Elizabeth Forsyth Nov. 8th, 2023
6:30-8:30pm PT
Intermediate Short Fiction: Refining Your Work for Submission with Rita Chang-Eppig
6:30-8:30pm PT
Intermediate Short Fiction: Refining Your Work for Submission with Rita Chang-Eppig
6:30-8:30pm PT
Intermediate Short Fiction: Refining Your Work for Submission with Rita Chang-Eppig
6:30-8:30pm PT
Intermediate Short Fiction: Refining Your Work for Submission with Rita Chang-Eppig
6:30-8:30pm PT
Intermediate Short Fiction: Refining Your Work for Submission with Rita Chang-Eppig
6:30-8:30pm PT
Intermediate Short Fiction: Refining Your Work for Submission with Rita Chang-Eppig
6:30-8:30pm PT
Write Short Stories Like the Masters with Jenny Bitner
6:30-8:30pm PT
Write Short Stories Like the Masters with Jenny Bitner
6:30-8:30pm PT
Write Short Stories Like the Masters with Jenny Bitner
6:30-8:30pm PT
Write Short Stories Like the Masters with Jenny Bitner
6:30-8:30pm PT
Write Short Stories Like the Masters with Jenny Bitner
6:30-8:30pm PT
Write Short Stories Like the Masters with Jenny Bitner
6:30-8:30pm PT
Storytelling: A Yearlong Intensive
6:30-7:30pm PT
Author Talk: Nina Schuyler, author of Afterword, with Doug Henderson
6:00-8:30pm PT
Start from Scratch: Write a Story in 6 Weeks with Lindsey Crittenden
6:00-8:30pm PT
Start from Scratch: Write a Story in 6 Weeks with Lindsey Crittenden
6:00-8:30pm PT
Start from Scratch: Write a Story in 6 Weeks with Lindsey Crittenden
6:00-8:30pm PT
Start from Scratch: Write a Story in 6 Weeks with Lindsey Crittenden
6:00-8:30pm PT
Start from Scratch: Write a Story in 6 Weeks with Lindsey Crittenden
6:00-8:30pm PT
Start from Scratch: Write a Story in 6 Weeks with Lindsey Crittenden
6:00-8:00pm PT
Flash Fiction: Little Stories with A Big Kick, with Jenny Bitner
6:00-8:00pm PT
Flash Fiction: Little Stories with A Big Kick, with Jenny Bitner
6:00-8:00pm PT
Flash Fiction: Little Stories with A Big Kick, with Jenny Bitner
6:00-8:00pm PT
Flash Fiction: Little Stories with A Big Kick, with Jenny Bitner
6:00-8:00pm PT
Flash Fiction: Little Stories with A Big Kick, with Jenny Bitner
6:00-8:00pm PT
Flash Fiction: Little Stories with A Big Kick, with Jenny Bitner
6:00-8:00pm PT
Autofiction: Combining Memoir and Fiction with Jenny Bitner
6:00-8:00pm PT
Talk to Me: Writing the Personal Essay with Audrey Ferber
6:00-8:00pm PT
Join the Bay Area Literary Community with Leigh Lucas
6:00-8:00pm PT
Write Short Stories Like the Masters with Jenny Bitner April 11th, 2023
6:00-8:00pm PT
Writing The Unconscious with Jenny Bitner
6:00-8:00pm PT
Story Craft: The Elements of Fiction with Doug Henderson
6:00-8:00pm PT
Autofiction: Combining Memoir and Fiction with Jenny Bitner July 24th - Aug. 28th
6:00-8:00pm PT
Flash Fiction: Little Stories with a Big Kick with Jenny Bitner Sept. 28th, 2023
6:00-7:30pm PT
Cyborgs, Witches, and the Apocalypse: Writing a Genre Hybrid with Doug Henderson
6:00-7:30pm PT
Cyborgs, Witches, and the Apocalypse: Writing a Genre Hybrid with Doug Henderson
6:00-7:30pm PT
Cyborgs, Witches, and the Apocalypse: Writing a Genre Hybrid with Doug Henderson
6:00-7:30pm PT
Cyborgs, Witches, and the Apocalypse: Writing a Genre Hybrid with Doug Henderson
6:00-7:30pm PT
Cyborgs, Witches, and the Apocalypse: Writing a Genre Hybrid with Doug Henderson
6:00-7:30pm PT
Cyborgs, Witches, and the Apocalypse: Writing a Genre Hybrid with Doug Henderson
6:00-7:30pm PT
Grotto Nights with San Francisco Public Library - Virtual Event
6:00-7:30pm PT
Grotto Nights with San Francisco Public Library - Virtual Event Feb. 7th
6:00-7:30pm PT
Grotto Nights with San Francisco Public Library - Virtual Event March 7th
6:00-7:30pm PT
Grotto Nights with San Francisco Public Library: Why We Love Mysteries
6:00-7:30pm PT
Grotto Nights at the Library, Roberto Lovato and Beth Winegarner
6:00-7:00pm PT
Book Club: Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse with Mark Wallace
6:00-7:00pm PT
Book Club: Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse with Mark Wallace
6:00-7:00pm PT
Book Club: Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse with Mark Wallace
6:00-7:00pm PT
Book Club: Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse with Mark Wallace
6:00-7:00pm PT
Book Club: Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse with Mark Wallace
6:00-7:00pm PT
Write-In with Audrey Ferber
6:00-7:00pm PT
Write-In with Sabina Khan-ibarra
6:00-7:00pm PT
Write-In with Audrey Ferber
6:00-7:00pm PT
Winter Write-In: Jan 18th, 2023 with Maw Shein Win
6:00-7:00pm PT
Winter Write-In: Jan. 25th, 2023 with Rita Chang-Eppig
6:00-7:00pm PT
Winter Write-In: Feb. 1st, 2023 with Rita Chang-Eppig
6:00-7:00pm PT
Winter Write-In: Feb. 8th, 2023 with Rita Chang-Eppig
6:00-7:00pm PT
Winter Write-In: Feb. 15th, 2023 with Maw Shein Win
6:00-7:00pm PT
Winter Write-In: Feb. 27th, 2023 with Jenny Qi
6:00-7:00pm PT
Winter Write-In: March 13th, 2023 with Jenny Qi
6:00-7:00pm PT
Winter Write-In: March 27th, 2023 with Jenny Qi
6:00-7:00pm PT
Spring Write-Ins: Wednesday, April 5th with Jenny Bitner
6:00-7:00pm PT
Spring Write-Ins: Monday, June 19th with Jenny Qi
6:00-7:00pm PT
Spring Write-Ins: Monday, June 26th with Jenny Qi
6:00-7:00pm PT
Fall Write-Ins: Thursday, Sept. 14th with Kate Busatto
6:00-7:00pm PT
Fall Write-Ins: Monday, September 18th with Jenny Qi
6:00-7:00pm PT
Fall Write-Ins: Monday, September 25th with Jenny Qi
6:00-7:00pm PT
Fall Write-Ins: Wednesday, October 4th with Rowena Leong Singer
6:00-7:00pm PT
Fall Write-Ins: Thursday, October 26th with Lisa Lerner
6:00-7:00pm PT
Fall Write-Ins: Wednesday, November 1st with Audrey Ferber
6:00-7:00pm PT
Fall Write-In: Wednesday, December 6th with Kate Busatto
5:00pm PT
Salesforce Park Poetry Series, Feb. 2nd
5:00pm PT
Salesforce Park Poetry Series, Feb. 16th
5:00pm PT
Salesforce Park Poetry Series, March 2nd
5:00-7:00pm PT
Writing Family Stories with Susan Ito
5:00-7:00pm PT
Writing Family Stories with Susan Ito
5:00-7:00pm PT
Writing Family Stories with Susan Ito
5:00-7:00pm PT
Writing Family Stories with Susan Ito
5:00-7:00pm PT
Writing Family Stories with Susan Ito
5:00-7:00pm PT
Adoption, Kinship & Family: A Writing Workshop with Susan Ito
5:00-7:00pm PT
Adoption, Kinship & Family: A Writing Workshop with Susan Ito
5:00-7:00pm PT
Adoption, Kinship & Family: A Writing Workshop with Susan Ito
5:00-7:00pm PT
Adoption, Kinship & Family: A Writing Workshop with Susan Ito
5:00-7:00pm PT
Adoption, Kinship & Family: A Writing Workshop with Susan Ito
5:00-7:00pm PT
Reading and Meeting, November 18th 2022
5:00-7:00pm PT
Reading and Meeting Feb. 17th, 2023
5:00-7:00pm PT
Reading + Meeting and New Member Welcome
5:00-7:00pm PT
Reading + Meeting May 19th
5:00-7:00pm PT
Reading + Meeting - June 23rd, 2023
Member Spotlight
Dominic Lim
Dominic Lim’s debut novel, All the Right Notes, will be released in June 2023 by Forever (Grand Central Publishing/Hachette). His stories have appeared in The Jellyfish Review, Ghost Parachute, and Solstice Literary Magazine (as a finalist for their Annual Fiction Contest). He is a member of the Writers Grotto and is a co-host of the long-running Babylon Salon reading and performance series in San Francisco. Dominic holds a Master of Music from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, is an alum of Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music, and has sung with numerous professional early music and choral ensembles. As a proud member of the Actors’ Equity Association he has performed Off-Broadway and in regional productions throughout the US. He lives in Oakland with his loving and supportive husband, Peter, and their whiny cat, Phoebe.
Featured Work
Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea
For readers of Outlawed, Piranesi, and The Night Tiger, a riveting, roaring adventure novel about a legendary Chinese pirate queen, her fight to save her fleet from the forces allied against them, and the dangerous price of power. When Shek Yeung sees a Portuguese sailor slay her husband, a feared pirate, she knows she must act swiftly or die. Instead of mourning, Shek Yeung launches a new plan: immediately marrying her husband’s second-in-command, and agreeing to bear him a son and heir, in order to retain power over her half of the fleet. But as Shek Yeung vies for control over the army she knows she was born to lead, larger threats loom. The Chinese Emperor has charged a brutal, crafty nobleman with ridding the South China Seas of pirates, and the Europeans-tired of losing ships, men, and money to Shek Yeung’s alliance-have new plans for the area. Even worse, Shek Yeung’s cutthroat retributions create problems all their own. As Shek Yeung navigates new motherhood and the crises of leadership, she must decide how long she is willing to fight, and at what price, or risk losing her fleet, her new family, and even her life.
Join Us.
The Writers Grotto is a home for writers of all levels. Find your perfect class, grow as a writer in our fellowship program, or join our community of established writers as a member.
Get a Lit Start.
Lit Start books written by The Writers Grotto. Lit Starts on Memoir, Humor, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Dialogue,  Character & Action
Little Books of Writing Prompts created by the Writers Grotto.
Lit Start books written by The Writers Grotto. Lit Starts on Memoir, Humor, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Dialogue,  Character & Action