Lit Crawl Submissions

Dear SFWW community,

We’re putting together our proposal for an event in San Francisco’s Lit Crawl festival, and this year we’re asking you to submit your work for a chance to read on stage!

Lit Crawl organizers want audience participation, so we’ve come up with a format to do that and also support a wide variety of stories. At the end or in the middle of your reading, you’ll ask the audience for a simple prediction of what would work best for the story. It can be a yes-no question or limited multiple choice; it can be about plot or a character’s state of mind or the story world.

To be considered, please email sftuesdaywriters@gmail.com by Wednesday April 14 with the following:

1)  an expression of interest confirming your availability to read the evening of Saturday, October 24th 

2) a draft (or idea) of a new or finished piece before that could be modified for this exercise

3) the draft of the question you’d ask the audience

4) a <75-word bio of yourself

Though we won’t be able to accommodate everyone, we’re looking forward to reading your work!

We should know whether we’ll be hosting a Crawl event by the end of the summer.

SFWW moderators

PS: Here’s how we’re describing it in our Lit Crawl submission:

Who hasn’t suffered a devastating split? Whether from a lover, a lifestyle, reality, or the known world, such partings are never easy (though they may be exhilarating). Regulars of the San Francisco Writers Workshop share stories of characters on the cusp of a major transition: such as breaking with a spouse, shattering a window of goodwill (or of glass), placing an irrevocable bet on a comforting illusion, or just crossing a red line.

At a suspenseful point in each story, the reader will have the audience weigh in by asking for simple input about what would be best for the story. Should the widow ignore her phone? Should the astronaut leave the capsule? Should that purring noise be coming from a space heater, a ghostly visitor, or inside Veronica’s head? 

After gauging audience response, readers will share any portion of the story remaining, reflect on outcomes they’d considered, and how they just might take participants’ input onboard for revision.