100 Word Story is a literary magazine that was founded in 2011 by writers Grant Faulkner and Lynn Mundell in Berkeley, California. It publishes stories and essays that are exactly 100 words in length (also known as a drabble); each piece is published with an accompanying photo. The 100-word format forces the writer to question each word as they write it. The brevity of the form, and the magazine's presentation, allows the writer to "keep a story free from an explanation," in the spirit of Walter Benjamin's philosophy of storytelling. https://100wordstory.org/
For over 25 years, Apogee Press has been committed to publishing innovative works of poetry and to discovering new and unique voices. Each of our books represents a close collaboration among poet(s), editors and designer, and as a press founded and run by poets, we take great pride in our way of working. Our most recent titles are Her Scant State by Barbara Tomash, psalmbook by Laura Walker, wifthing by Pattie McCarthy, Vault by Alice Jones and to whom it may concern by Edward Smallfield. Our first book of 2024 is Rendered Paradise by Susanne Dyckman and Elizabeth Robinson. www.apogeepress.com
Aunt Lute Books is an intersectional, feminist press dedicated to publishing literature by those who have been traditionally underrepresented in or excluded by the literary canon. Core to Aunt Lute’s mission is the belief that the written word is critical to understanding and relating to each other as humans.Through the sharing of stores, we strengthen ties across cultures and experiences, and at the same time honor the hurt, loss, and harm incurred through structural power imbalances, prejudiced and gendered systems, and ancestral trauma. We uplift these voices in order to build a more just future. https://www.auntlute.com/
The Bay Area Queer Writers Association is a community of authors and readers who assist and encourage each other. The goal of the group is to create a strong, visible Queer writing community in the greater Bay Area. This group is open to LGBTQ+ writers and anyone who likes to read and wants to help support Queer literature. You don’t even have to live in the Bay Area. You just have to love Queer books and enjoy reading. Join us on Facebook, X, and Instagram and at local events like the Sonoma Community Writers Festival. https://baqwawriters.wixsite.com/books
Since its inception in 2017, Bay Area Queer Zine Fest has striven to positively maintain, support, and contribute to the queer + creative communities it proactively represents. BAQZF aims to provide and uphold a safe, welcoming, and accessible space for all vendors, patrons, and passersby by organizing events centered around inclusivity and constructive interactions with the external and internal communities of the Bay Area and beyond. https://www.bayareaqueerzinefest.com/
The Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP), based at the University of California, Berkeley, is an organization of, by, and for teachers of writing at all grade levels and in all disciplines, dedicated to improving the teaching and uses of writing through a variety of programs–both on the university campus and in the schools of the Bay Area." We offer professional development for teachers at all stages in their career, carefully curated after school programs and summer Writing Camps for students, and support to develop teachers as writers, whatever stages they may be in their journeys. https://bawp.berkeley.edu/
Bazaar Writers Salon is a fun and social monthly literary reading series featuring poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and music held at the Bazaar Cafe in San Francisco.
The Belize Writers Conference Community celebrates and provides opportunities for BIPOC, LGBTQIA writers and allies who are committed to justice, equity, and positive change. We offer classes and retreats in the U.S. and Belize for writers from all over the world with an emphasis on helping marginalized voices get known, get published and get paid.
Blue Light Press is dedicated to the publication of poetry, fiction and flash fiction that is imagistic, inventive, emotionally honest, and pushes the language to a deeper level of insight. We are all poets, artists and musicians based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and our books are artistically designed. We have published a whole range of poets -- from debut poets to poets who have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and many other honors. We've had many #1 bestselling books, interviews on KQED, and readings all over the country. http://bluelightpress.com/
Cat Island Games is a studio that spans from California to Costa Rica, dedicated to creating game experiences that provoke teamwork and clever strategy while also making the world a better place to live. We are dedicated to sustainable production and positive messaging with inclusivity and celebration of people from all walks of life, no matter how terrifying or ridiculous. Play is a great uniting force for humanity, and we want to give people a reason to spend a little less time on their devices and a little more together at the table sharing laughter and making memories (unless we release the game on devices in which case please spend as much time on them as you wish). Please check out our current project, Apocalypse Cats!, destined for Kickstarter (and/or Gamefound) later in 2024.
CSU East Bay's Department of English regards the English major as a versatile major that provides excellent preparation for careers in teaching, journalism, law, corporate communications-in short, any area in which strong reading, writing, and critical thinking skills are vital and rewarded necessities.The Department offers English composition at all levels and a flexible undergraduate major with various options, so if you are interested in traditional or modern literature, language and linguistics, or creative writing, you will certainly find a match in our major. Our interdisciplinary option allows you to include courses from other departments. The CSUEB English Department also supports several writing contests annually. Students in the English department proudly create and publish Occam’s Razor—our student-run literary magazine (IG @occams.razor.zine).
The Department of English at SSU is one of the university’s largest. Students who wish to major in English may choose one of three plans, each of which provides a coherent program with a particular emphasis. After a core of required courses, students will follow programs leading to a Bachelor of Arts in English degree with a concentration in English and American Literature, Creative Writing, or English Education (that is, preparation for students entering post-baccalaureate English Single Subject teacher credentialing programs). The English Department offers one of Sonoma State University’s most robust graduate programs; the M. A. in English offers students the choice of an emphasis in literary criticism, creative writing, or rhetoric and English education.
The programs and courses of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at SSU make accessible to students the languages, literatures, and cultures of France and the Francophone world, Germany and other German-speaking countries, and Spain and Latin America. Studying a foreign language also provides a multitude of benefits that impact many aspects of life and enhance your career opportunities.
The MFA program at Dominican University of California fosters a vibrant community of talented writers who are encouraged to experiment across genres and with new forms of writing. In addition to Poetry, Fiction and Creative Nonfiction, Dominican offers an optional track in Narrative Medicine, which allows students to embrace the special role that creative writing can play in the process of healing. Our low-residency program offers a combination of in-person writing residencies at the Dominican campus in San Rafael and one-on-one mentorships online.
Feather Press is an independent literary press dedicated to printing poetry and prose by female writers. We believe the female voice should be amplified and encouraged to soar far and wide. We believe in the concept of creative abundance, and that every woman has an exciting and rich history, a story, and a vast lineage to draw from. We embrace cultural and racial diversity and wholeheartedly support a community of established and emerging voices. Our aim is to increase the visibility of women through publishing skillfully crafted and designed books and creating a supportive community through our events. featherpress.org
The Flash Fiction Forum is a hybrid curated reading series for the writers' community featuring work from the San Jose area nationwide, and sometimes internationally. Not an open mic event. https://www.flashfictionforum.com/
An expression of Studio Saraswati, Jambu Press is an independent endeavor run by a small collective of San Francisco poets, editors, and activists devoted to poetry as a positive path to social change. We are guided by our current managing editor, Minister of the Interiors, Bobby Coleman. We specialize in anthologies by diverse voices focused around intriguing themes. Our tiles include RED: a Hue Are You anthology, Light on the Walls of Life: a tribute anthology to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, OCCUPY SF - poems from the movement, and more. Our books are distributed by Small Press Distribution. https://www.studiosaraswati.com/jambupress
La Raíz Magazine expands culturally-relevant arts engagement opportunities to create, present, publish, and experience creative works that celebrate shared culture and inspire conversation on important issues, consciously making space for people who identify as women, girls, and members of the global majority (People of Color, BIPOC); with an emphasis on work by people whose heritage is rooted in lands that are now Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America, who identify as: Chicana/o, Indigenous, Raza, from their country of origin, Latinx, or Hispanic. Our publication, La Raíz Magazine, is a literary journal featuring visual art and multilingual poetry by community members, writers, and artists based in San José, California and Santa Clara County, while also welcoming creative work from the greater San Francisco Bay Area, California, and our national and international community. www.laraizmagazine.com
Manic D Press is an award-winning, internationally distributed independent press publishing poetry, fiction, memoir, graphic novels, and radical children's books, founded in 1984, and based in San Francisco. Manic D's Poet Laureate authors include Juan Felipe Herrera, Maw Shein Win, Jack Hirschman, and Kimi Sugioka, among others.
From our beginning in 1927 in the basement of the old Marin County Courthouse in San Rafael, the Marin County Free Library has grown to a network of 10 branches throughout the County as well as two outreach vehicles: our Bookmobile and our Learning Bus (a free preschool on wheels). In 2016-2017 we served more than 1.1 million visitors and our visitors checked out more than 1.7 million books, audiobooks and DVDs. We provide welcoming, equitable and inclusive opportunities for all to connect, learn and explore. https://marinlibrary.org/
The Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference is a vibrant gathering that offers Morning Workshops in a wide range of genres. Afternoons are packed with craft seminars, panels, one-on-one consultations, and open mics; and every evening offers an opportunity to enjoy the camaraderie and connection that make this conference, in the words of one participant, “life changing.” https://mcwc.org/
Midnight Chem is committed to providing more equal footing when publishing genre-bending and experimental works. Our approach to aesthetics is eclectic—we seek pieces ranging from pop to literary to nonconformist; we aim to avoid the banal. Our journal seeks to publish underrepresented artists and writers as well as more established voices. To spotlight the new, the unheard, the marginalized. Surprise us! Bring your messenger bag full of oddities and facts rehammered. Hold the flashlight under your chin and spin your wildest yarn for us around the literary campfire. Midnight Chem is a place for the indelible and unpredictable, the ambitious and effervescent. We accept art, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and blends of those genres, including digital poetry, interactive fiction, comics, scripts, and more. https://www.midnightchem.org/
Mumblers Press is a San Francisco micropress launching its sixth and seventh books this year, with four more in the pipeline for 2025 and beyond. Our first five novels were from LGBTQ writers, but we branch out to straight authors this year. From unearthing a buried past, to coming out, coming of age and coming unstuck, Mumblers books have range. Their settings, characters, genres and topics are highly diverse. What do all these books have in common? Good stories. https://mumblerspress.com/
Since 1981, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference has provided literary fellowship and a craft-focused experience among the foothills and vineyards that have made this region famous.In a literary culture often dominated by concerns of business and marketing, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference has maintained its emphases on process and craft, featuring a faculty as renowned for the quality of their teaching as for their work. Small workshops foster an unusual rapport between faculty writers and conference participants, who find the Napa Valley experience nurturing and challenging. The conference is suited to experienced writers, but enthusiastic beginners are also encouraged to apply. http://www.napawritersconference.org/
North Bay Letterpress Arts is a center of teaching and practicing letterpress printing located in Sebastopol California. It is also an experimental commons for those who are fascinated by the graphic presence of words and images formed & printed by hand. Our amazing group of Studio Printers pay a membership fee to use the facilities and push their own creative boundaries as well as the process and medium. Our shop hosts workshops, tours, exhibits, poetry readings, book launches, musical performances, movie nights and a virtual bemusement park. https://www.northbayletterpressarts.org/
Noyo Review is the literary journal of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference, an annual gathering of writers held on the beautiful Mendocino Coast of northern California. All of its editors and those published in its pages are affiliated with the Conference in some way or another—as participants, scholarship winners, keynote speakers, board members, or volunteers. https://noyoreview.org/
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The Personal Creed Project Organization is a multigenerational team of students and educators who share an excitement for the Personal Creed Project, a learning experience that demonstrates how weaving self-discovery into curriculum at any level can galvanize students’ engagement and depth in learning. The project has developed steadily with help from three generations of students where it began at American High School in Fremont CA, and from teachers and professors and their students who have adapted the project in their classrooms around the country. Wherever it lands, the Creed Project seems to generate enthusiasm for self-discovery as a natural component of learning. The project has been recognized by the National Council of Teachers of English and the National Writing Project with the James Moffett Award for Teacher Research. It is featured in John Creger’s book, The Personal Creed Project and a New Vision of Learning (Heinemann 2004), in a number of professional and articles and teaching memoirs (2002-2024), and in several interviews (2009-2024). We have formed the Personal Creed Organization to increase access to the Personal Creed experience, and to build cross-platform and face-to-face communities to support and promote self-discovery in learning in and beyond school. https://personalcreed.
Poetry Center San José's mission is to nurture and promote diverse literary expression in our community as a means of exploring, defining, and enriching the human experience. In furtherance of our mission, we offer programs and services to stimulate passion for the literary arts and to inspire and support emerging and established writers. We collaborate with other organizations to ensure that these programs and services reflect the diversity of our community and to involve people from a wide range of backgrounds as audience and members. www.pcsj.org
Poetry Flash: Literary Review & Calendar (Poetryflash.org) features book reviews, interviews, essays, poems, translations, calls for submissions, and a literary calendar for California. Submissions of book reviews, poems, and more are welcome. Recent issues have featured reviews of Mary Mackey’s Creativity: Where Poems Begin, Alicia Ostriker’s The Volcano and After: Selected and New Poems, Jack Foley on the late California Poet Laureate Al Young, Ramón Garcia in conversation with L.A. poet Gail Wronsky, a Poetry and Healing column by David Shaddock, and more. Poetry Flash also curates and produces a poetry reading series in Berkeley, the annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival in Berkeley, and the annual Northern California Books Awards in San Francisco. See Poetryflash.org or the Poetry Flash YouTube channel for more!
Red Light Lit is a mashup of live music, photography, storytelling, and poetry set to a live score. The performers explore love relationships, sexuality and gender. https://www.redlightlit.com/
Redwood Writers, a branch of the California Writers Club in operation since 1975, provides a forum for educating both members and the public in the craft of writing and in marketing their works. This is served by the monthly public meetings, workshops, and seminars which are open to all writers and is conducted for the purpose of educating writers of all levels of expertise. California Writers Club networks with and is a model for other groups and agencies involved in similar pursuits.
Reed Magazine is California’s oldest literary journal. Tracing its heritage to 1867, the journal started as a mere pamphlet published by students of the California State Normal School, the precursor of San José State University. The members of the Reed Magazine staff are committed to publishing writers and artists who might be marginalized or excluded in traditional publishing, and value the diversity of voice and perspective that such authors bring to our magazine. https://www.reedmag.org/
Russian River Books & Letters was born In December of 2021 to fulfill that need and create a gathering place for bibliophiles, writers, or just anyone who wants to hang out and browse. Stay tuned for special events including music, readings, book clubs, and writing workshops. https://www.booksletters.com/
Sebastopol Center for the Arts is committed to cultivating creativity and inspiring appreciation for the transformative power of art. We produce, promote and present artists - local, national, international – through curated gallery exhibits, artists open studio events, arts lectures, poetry readings, concerts, adult and youth education, a state of the art ceramics studio and an acclaimed documentary film festival. We are dedicated to honoring diversity, encouraging creative excellence, and providing a welcoming gathering place for the community to: Experience Art, Make Art, Share Art and Celebrate Creative Thought. https://www.sebarts.org/
Sixteen Rivers Press is a shared-work, nonprofit poetry collective dedicated to providing an alternative publishing avenue for Northern California poets. Founded in 1999 by seven writers, the press is named for the sixteen rivers that flow into the San Francisco Bay. Since 2001, we have produced fifty-eight outstanding books of poetry, sharing our commitment to excellence with the poetry world. https://sixteenrivers.org/
The Sitting Room Library is a reading room and archive in Penngrove, California, US, that provides the community with access to women's literature and art. Inspired by the Morrison Reading Room at the UC Berkeley University Library, the Sitting Room began as a place for women to gather, hold salons, and celebrate the cultural contributions of women artists and writers.[3] The library's collection of books began with donations provided by early visitors and volunteers and has expanded to over 7,000 titles. https://sittingroomlibrary.org/
Somos en escrito Literary Foundation Press is dedicated to publishing raza authors to express the narratives and needs of our communities, which typically get overlooked by the mainstream presses. We intend to be the institution nobody else will build for us. We seek to publish books that look to the future, where gente exist, that finds solutions in storytelling, rather than provide mere visibility. We promote narratives that break cycles, call to action: fiction that goes hand in hand with our nonfiction books that allow our community to do more than gaze in the mirror, but meditate on solutions within, the future, and transformation. https://www.somosenescrito.com/
Sonoma County Library is the heart of our community. We are known for our innovation and connection to residents and communities. Our mission is to bring information, ideas, and people together to build a stronger community. The Wine Library contains both materials to check out and a local history collection. We are here to help with all your wine research! https://sonomalibrary.org/visit/locations/wine
Take Place is a reading series run by graduate students in the Creative Writing program at San Francisco State University. Throughout the school year, we invite emerging authors to come read from their work, with an emphasis on featuring current MFA/MA students and alumni of our program. Readings are usually followed by an open mic or a Q&A.
VOLT is an annual literary magazine founded in 1991 by Gillian Conoley. It publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art. VOLT has received many awards and honors, including several Pushcart Prize Anthology selections, a Fund for Poetry grant, and several selections for The Best American Poetry (Scribners). VOLT was named one of the top literary magazines in the country by Every Writers Resource and has received praise from the City Lights Booksellers and Publishers Blog
Weavers Press is the only independent publishing effort which solely focuses on South Asian American writers while also encouraging them to write more about our lives in the US. It is based in San Francisco and is run by a small team of dedicated literature lovers. Weavers Press believes in promoting quality works that resist exoticism, especially with regard to South Asia. The theme of weaving and weavers runs through classical Punjabi poetry. The name is also a tribute to the legendary American music group: The Weavers. Also, we think writing and reading mimic weaving of ideas, art, message, intellect and so on. https://weaverspress.com/
Wet Cement Press is a small press based in Berkeley, California, with editors in Reno, Nevada, and Asheville, North Carolina. We typically publish 3-5 books a year, with a focus on poetry, innovative memoir / creative non-fiction, experimental fiction and hybrid work combining image and text. Our first love is creating simple yet wonderful print volumes, but we are also exploring eBooks and other modes of digital publishing. www.wetcementpress.com
Wordrunner Press is a small, independent publisher of fiction, memoir, poetry and art in trade paperbacks and ebooks, based in Petaluma, California. Since 2010, we have also published a hybrid, online literary journal and prose chapbook series, Wordrunner eChapbooks (at https://echapbook.com). The eChapbook press opens for submissions twice a year. In January and February, we read fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry for our annual themed anthology (published in April) and in May and June, we read prose collections and select two, published in summer and winter (usually four to six stories or essays by one author and occasionally flash fiction). These collections are also released in e-book editions. AUTHORS ARE PAID. In 2024 we are trying something new: We are reading micro-prose in April (250 words per piece) and will be publishing between 5 to 10 of these on the website in May. For details and guidelines, see https://echapbook.com/submissions.html
Writing Between the Vines offers writers a space to work, a place to contemplate, and time to create while surrounded by the beauty and majesty of vineyards. Funded through application fees and in partnership with Sonoma County wineries, Writing Between the Vines provides writers the time to focus on works in progress or cultivate new ideas in residencies of up to one week in length at no charge. Established in 2012, Writing Between the Vines has hosted over 60 writers, poets and screenwriters in solo and co-resident collaborative retreats. http://www.writingbetweenthevines.org
WTAW Press is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit publisher devoted to discovering and publishing exceptional literary books of prose. WTAW publishes and champions a carefully curated list of titles across a range of genres (literary fiction, creative nonfiction, and prose that falls somewhere in between), subject matter, and perspectives. WTAW welcomes submissions from writers of all backgrounds and aims to support authors throughout their careers. Betty is a new imprint of WTAW Press that focuses on books of prose by women for everyone with a mission to showcase and celebrate the diversity of women’s voices. WTAW's Alcove Chapbook Series publishes prose chapbooks through its annual competition. For more information, wtawpress.org
Zaum, which will release its 28th print issue this spring 2024, is entirely edited and designed by students. Any student, at either SSU or any other university, may submit their work to Zaum. Each issue publishes over 100 pages a year of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or visual art, providing students with professional experience in layout, design, and marketing. The magazine is distributed throughout the Bay Area, and also receives national and international distribution, as many contributors are students in other states and countries. Zaum has received several national student awards from the Associated Writing Programs: for editorial vision, and for graphic design. Multiple student works featured in Zaum have also been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. https://zaum.sonoma.edu