Author: Olga Zilberbourg

Olga Zilberbourg’s English-language debut LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES (WTAW Press) explores “bicultural identity hilariously, poignantly,” according to The Moscow Times. It also dives into topics of bisexuality and immigrant parenthood. Anthony Marra called it “…a book of succinct abundance, dazzling in its particulars, expansive in its scope,” and Karen Bender said, “Olga Zilberbourg is a writer to read right now.” Zilberbourg’s writing has appeared in World Literature Today, The Believer, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Born in Leningrad, USSR in a Russian-speaking Jewish family, she makes her home in San Francisco, California. She has published four collections of stories in Russia, including most recent Задержи дыхание [Hold Your Breath] from Vremya Press. She serves as a consulting editor at Narrative Magazine and as a co-facilitator of the San Francisco Writers Workshop. Together with Yelena Furman, she has co-founded Punctured Lines, a feminist blog about literature from the former Soviet Union. She is currently at work on her first novel.

Wildflowers

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

by Beverly Parayno

It often takes more than ten years for a talented workshop writer to gather the tools they need to publish their first book. We congratulate Beverly Parayno with her powerful debut WILDFLOWERS (PAWA Press). In these nine unforgettable stories, spanning several generations and traversing the Philippines, the Bay Area, and Ireland, Parayno illuminates the emotional and psychological journeys of Filipino and Filipino American girls and women experiencing fear, desire, loneliness, and despair.

Parayno was born in the Bay Area and raised in East San José by immigrant parents from the Philippines. Her fiction, memoir, essays and author interviews appear in Narrative Magazine, Bellingham Review, The Rumpus, Warscapes, Huizache, and Southword: New Writing from Ireland, among others. Her work has been translated into Mandarin and published by World Literature, a journal of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.  

Buy the book here.

Window Eyes

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

by Philip Jason

WINDOW EYES is a novel about an eccentric comic book artist and writer Kellan Savoy who, in the wake of a tragedy, created one final work and then disappeared. That work, a series about a man who tries to make a golem to replace his dead lover, is presented here for the first time: Window Eyes is a collection of annotated issue summaries as remembered by the only person to read the work before it vanished with Kellan, Kellan’s best friend Thomas Levi, who hopes that in sharing it, he might be able to shed some light on the mystery of its creation and disappearance. 

Philip Jason attended the workshop in 2014. His stories can be found in Prairie Schooner, The Pinch, Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, and J Journal; his poetry in Spillway, Lake Effect, Canary and Summerset Review. He is a recipient of the Henfield Prize in Fiction. His first collection of poetry, I Don’t Understand Why It’s Crazy to Hear the Beautiful Songs of Nonexistent Birds, is available from Fernwood Press.

Buy WINDOW EYES from Unsolicited Press.

Wordhacking: San Francisco Writers Workshop Reads at Noisebridge

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ 1 Comment

San Francisco Writers Workshop is hosting a benefit for our current venue, Noisebridge. This legendary maker and hackerspace in the Mission prides itself on being open to all and provides infrastructure to people interested in art and technology. Our workshop, for instance, has been meeting in the sewing room equipped with machines for professional sewing projects. Like all creative venues in San Francisco, Noisebridge needs help making rent. This event will be a celebration of our writing and creative communities and a fundraiser for one of the coolest spaces in the Mission.

The event will include featured readers, a storytelling game, refreshments, cash bar, and an opportunity to tour Noisebridge. PLEASE HELP US SPREAD THE WORD!

Mark your calendars for 7 pm on April 6, 2023, at Noisebridge, 272 Capp Street. Suggested donation starts at $10, and please give as much as you can!

If you can’t come to the event and want to help, please use one of the donations options listed on Noisebridge’s website.

Our featured readers:

Abi Ramanan was born in India, grew up in the UK and has lived in San Francisco since 2018. In a narrowly won race, she chose fiction writing over bread baking during the pandemic and has been on a beautiful (sort of) journey ever since. Her writing won the Space to Write Project contest and has been featured in Metro. She is currently working on her debut novel, PROPHET, a project of speculative fiction about emotion transference, and otherwise can generally be found seeking out a good time in her free time. Connect: Facebook, abi.ramanan1, Twitter @abilalayo

Liz Henry is a writer, translator, blogger, zine publisher, and hackerspace fan. You can find their poetry in the book Unruly Islands, many zines digitized for Kindle, and translations on bookmaniac.org or as part of Carmen Berenguer’s autobiography in poetry, Mi Lai. Connect: bookmaniac.org, Facebook: lizhenry, Twitter @lizhenry, @lizzard@mastodon.social

Raised in rural Colorado, on the Rio Grande river, Michael Lukso nurtured prize winning chickens in 4H. At UCSB, he received his B.A. in psychology, before moving to San Francisco for his M.S. in organizational psychology. He worked as a management consultant for over 10 years. Then he started smoking meth. Homelessness; incarceration; failed suicide attempts; toenail fungus. If something sucks, Michael insisted on adding it to his resume. However, in San Francisco’s criminal law system and mental health services, Michael discovers you don’t have to quit meth, to get better. With a working title of “There’s Another Way,” Michael is writing this memoir to show harm reduction can lead to recovery and happiness.

Peng Ngin left his native Malaysia to attend Vassar College. He moved to the Bay Area for graduate school at UC Berkeley, where he took his first creative writing classes. Peng returned to his lifelong interest in writing and literature during the pandemic. He lives in San Francisco and works as an investment manager.

Tahirah Nailah Dean is a lawyer by day, writer by night. Tahirah (she writes under her middle name Nailah) enjoys writing about the difficulties of finding love and marriage as a young Muslim woman. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera and Insider. She is a blogger for a popular Muslim dating app, Salams, and is currently working on a novel. She lives in Oakland with her husband. Connect: nailahdean.com, Facebook: tnd0029 IG: @nailahdean28

Thomas Hobohm grew up in Texas and now lives in San Francisco. They are the web editor at The Adroit Journal, and their work has appeared in places such as SmokeLong Quarterly, So to Speak, and HAD. You can usually find them at the Roxie Theater. Connect: thomashobohm.com, Twitter: @thomashobohm, Instagram: @skyferreiraofficial

The Wealthy Whites of Williamsburg

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

by Mike Karpa

The author of delightful CRIMINALS (Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2022) and RED DOT, Karpa published a novel he’s been workshopping on Tuesday nights, THE WEALTHY WHITES OF WILLIAMSBURG. As a very positive Kirkus review puts it, this is a story of “an affluent Brooklyn family navigates family drama, career trouble, and long-kept secrets.” Told by several members of this family, this story pulls together several threads, each of which develops in unexpected ways, coming together at the end.

Buy this book on Amazon.

My Year as a Boy

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

by David Ira Cleary

Recent workshop participants know Cleary as the author of a historical fantasy set in the ancient Rome. A science fiction writer of considerable repute, Cleary regularly publishes in Asimov’s. Don’t miss his novella “My Year as a Boy” in their Winter 2023 issue. This story is set in the same world as his story “The Kewlest Thing of All,” that ran in Asimov’s in March 2006. Cleary says, “The inspirations for it are many but include P.G. Wodehouse and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”

Buy this issue of Asimov’s.

Sinking the Arc

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

by Tamim Ansary

Our own Tamim Ansary, who moderated the workshop for many years, has a new novel out! Published by Kajaki Press, it tells the story of a fictional “alternative” weekly in Portland, Oregon, the Rose City Ark, the newspaper of the city’s counterculture. In 1974, the paper embarks on a bold experiment: to dispense with all hierarchy and embrace pure democracy: no more managing editor, no more assigned roles, no more some-people-telling-other-people-what-to-do: under the new plan, every person will decide for themselves how to contribute to the paper.

Buy this book now on Amazon (and rate and review!)

August 2022: In-person at Noisebridge

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ 1 Comment

Starting on August 2nd and ongoing, we’ll be meeting at Noisebridge Hackerspace, 272 Capp Street in San Francisco (near 16th Street BART). We will be assembling at 7 pm as usual in the 2nd floor lounge. Let us know if you have any accessibility issues, and we will try to accommodate. 

We will continue to ask for donations to support this venue (San Francisco rents!) and we continue to ask that everyone masks. 

Coming July 2022: In-person at SOUR CHERRY COMICS

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

We’re happy to announce that after two years on Zoom, San Francisco Writers Workshop is moving back to in-person format. A new bookstore has generously agreed to host us on Tuesday nights: SOUR CHERRY COMICS, 3187 16th St. SF, CA, 94103.

We hope to see you at SOUR CHERRY COMICS, 7-9 pm, starting July 12, 2022 — and ongoing.

There are a couple of things to note:

1. For the time being, we will be asking everyone–except the person reading–to mask.

2. It’s a new bookstore, and the owner, Leah, needs our support, very much so. We will be passing a bucket around and encouraging everyone to give money and to buy books.

3. Leah’s letting us come in on a trial basis through the end of July, and though we are really hoping to make a good impression and stay on, we do have backup options. We are at this time planning on continuing as an in-person group!

Seven Fabulist Comedies

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

by Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller

Conrad and Elizabeth have been writing and performing together since 1971, running a theater ensemble, The Independent Eye. Their latest book, Seven Fabulist Comedies, is a compendium of plays they have produced over the years, some inspired by commedia dell’arte, and including solo shows, an urban fantasy, and a surreal black comedy.

This book is available for sale on their website.