On Saturday,September 17, more than twenty local writers spent the day at the Grotto School, a workshop presented by the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto as a fundraiser for 826 Valencia. The workshop raised almost $8,000 for 826! We are grateful to the students who bought tickets and to the writers at the Grotto for hosting such a creative and brilliant day to support a younger generation of writers in the community.
The “students” who bought tickets to The Grotto School attended exclusive workshops led by professional writers, and they learned to pitch their ideas to agents, find inspiration in unlikely places, and discover techniques to overcome writer’s block. Students also had the opportunity to sit down with published writers from their respective fields in a one-on-one consultation of their work. It was a jam-packed day, but amidst this storm of information, SF Gate columnist Mark Morford provided a welcome reprieve with a yoga session especially designed for working writers. The schedule concluded with a panel discussion about publishing, led by Grotto-ite Constance Hale and featuring Laura Cogan, editor of Zyzzyva, Peter Kay, Director of Digital Marketing and Strategy at W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.. Nion McEvoy, Chairman and CEO of Chronicle Books, and Andy Ross, a literary agent based in Oakland. 826 Valencia would like to extend a special thanks all of the Grotto-ites who donated their time and skills to make The Grotto School a success and especially to Janis Cooke Newman, who made the whole thing possible.