creative writing class san francisco

Every Writer Has a Voice

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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

Upcoming Classes

Free your creativity: using constraints to generate new writing.

10:30am - 1:00pm

Fearless Poetry Workshop

2:00pm - 4:30pm

Writing the TV Pilot & Series Bible

Short and sweet: prose poems, flash fiction and mini-memoirs, write now: salon saturdays.

10:30am - 12:00pm

Writing Salon News

The submission window for the 2024 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize is open through December 1. Submit your poetry now.

Celebrate The Writing Salon’s 25th anniversary with literary bingo and a rousing reading at Lit Crawl on October 26.

Let’s find you a class.

Generative Writing

Publishing & Professional Development

Children’s & Young Adult Audience

Screenwriting & Playwriting

Featured events.

San Francisco Event

The Salon Reading Series with Ada Genavia, Erin Rodoni, Jennifer Lewis and Laura Marostica

5:00pm - 6:00pm

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

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 & features, “everyone looked as if they were having the best time, all flickering in candlelight…”.

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.

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.

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

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

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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San Francisco Location:   2042 Balboa St., San Francisco, CA 94121 Office Hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm

P:   (510) 982-6252 E:   [email protected]

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Ripe Fruit Writing

School of Creative Writing

Creative Writing Classes in San Francisco, CA

In-person and hybrid options (in-person or on zoom).

Ripe Fruit School of Creative Writing  is the only writing program that offers a progressive, step-by-step series of creative writing classes in the San Francisco – Bay Area . Our intensive writing workshops follow a path of growth custom-designed for beginning and emerging writers.  Students graduate with confidence and competence to take on any writing project.

Ripe Fruit ’s effective and innovative curriculum has provided encouragement, stimulation, and training to over 8000 professional and aspiring writers since 1991. Leslie Kirk Campbell, founder and director of Ripe Fruit School of Creative Writing, has experience teaching poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, memoir and personal essay. She is an imagination activist, master writing teacher, writing coach, and award-winning author who is passionately committed to the development of writers in every genre and at all levels.

Course Descriptions         What Makes Ripefruit Unique

Find Your Writing Voice  ( Ripe Fruit 1 ,  The Writing Faith )

Ripe Fruit Creative Writing first level classes teach you perception, imagination, compassion & commitment.   Learn  the six qualities it takes to be a great writer and put them into immediate practice in a safe and intimate environment.  Excavate  your wild mind and cultivate your own inimitable voice.  Experience  the encouragement and inspiration, the freedom and lucid structure you’ve been longing for.  Deepen  your writing faith.

For more info on foundational creative writing classes and workshops:  Ripe Fruit 1 ,  The Writing Faith

Memoir Writing & Personal Essay Writing  ( Soulfood One-Day ,  Soulfood Class )

A dynamic process of creative expression and self-integration for new and experienced writers.  Discover  where memory and imagination intersect.  Learn  how to re-enter your life and locate the stories that must be told. You will create a portfolio of autobiographical writings that move the heart, engage the intelligence, and have a lasting impact on you, the author, and your audience.  This is your chance to write straight from the heart.

For more info on memoir writing classes and workshops.   Soulfood One-Day ,  Soulfood Class

Fiction Writing  ( Ripe Fruit lll Fiction Writing )

You want to write that stop-them-in-their-tracks short story? Let me tell you a secret. It’s not the content that counts. It’s  HOW YOU TELL IT . By starting from the ground up, you will learn to tell a great story; a story that engages your reader sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by page so that, in the end, they are changed by it.

For more info on fiction writing classes.  Ripe Fruit lll Fiction Writing