Tag: Jo Beckett-King

The Lost Jewels of Room 713

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

by Jo Beckett-King

An exciting continuation of the Bea Bellerose adventures is here! You heard chapters from it at the San Francisco Writers Workshop first, and now buy the book for all the 8-12 year olds in your life.

Twelve-year-old Bea from Passaic, New Jersey, receives her cousin and aunt visiting from Paris. The girls are looking forward to a fun week of sightseeing in New York City, while Aunt Juliette is there to write a profile on a famous French actress, Eva, who’s starring in a stage adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train. But when the priceless diamond necklace Eva plans to wear on opening night is stolen from her hotel suite, Bea and Céline find themselves once again at the center of a mystery.

Don’t miss the exciting sequel to the middle grade mystery, available for sale from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. Order on Bookshop or Amazon. Don’t forget to rate and review!

Reminder: Come Crawl with us on Saturday!

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment
An image of a blackboard with a stack of yellow pencils in the foreground. Text in yellow and white reads: San Francisco Writers Workshop Presents Five writers read their stories and share the feedback that made them great. Then YOU get to critique a juicy story, Live! Below: Author's portraits with signatures: Beverly Parayno Peng Ngin Tim Sullivan Jo Beckett-King Tony Tepper Below: We've Got Notes for You! October 25, 2025 Lit Crawl, Phase II, 6:30 pm Noisebridge, 272 Capp Street

This Saturday, we hope to see many of you at our Lit Crawl event on October 25, 2025. Come support the workshop and our amazing writers, and bring your friends!

Our theme this year is “We’ve Got Notes for You!” Five of our current and former regulars will read their work and tell us how workshop feedback has informed their revision process. Then, we’ll offer you all a chance to provide a live critique on a piece of writing.

As many of you know, Lit Crawl is the final night of San Francisco’s annual Litquake festival. Beginning October 9, Litquake is bringing a slew of amazing international and local authors for signings, readings, panels, and parties. Then, it all ends with a literary pub crawl (aka Lit Crawl) through the Mission District. Our event is scheduled for Phase 2 of 3.

We will see you on:
October 25, 2025 at 6:30 pm
Noisebridge, 272 Capp Street

Our featured readers:

Beverly Parayno is from East San Jose. Her debut story collection WILDFLOWERS (PAWA Press, 2023) was shortlisted for the 43rd Annual Northern California Book Award in Fiction, winner of a 2024 IPPY Bronze Medal and 2024 National Indie Excellence Award in AAPI Fiction. She lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Jo Beckett-King is the author of the Bea Bellerose mysteries published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. Her debut middle-grade novel, The House of Found Objects, was published in July 2025, and a sequel is scheduled for release in summer 2026. In addition to her middle-grade fiction, she writes for adults; her work has been listed for the Bath Children’s Novel Award, the Bristol Short Story Prize, and the Bridport Prize in the UK.

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.

Tim Sullivan is a San Francisco–based educator and theatre director whose fiction explores reinvention, queer life, class, and labor. He’s writing a debut novel inspired by his time as a toll collector on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Tony Tepper: 1954 Born, lovechild of Audrey Hepburn and Sherlock Holmes, left on doorstep of Tingpangoli Monastery in the Pamir Mountains. 1963 Learns to eat oatmeal. 1995 Listens to Bob and Ray while working for Dickensian firm, accidentally swallows butterfly. 2012 Falls in love with language, but love is unrequited. 2023 Dreams of beauty in eye of storm.

Come Together for Our Writers and Literature at Lit Crawl 2025!

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment
An image of a blackboard with a stack of yellow pencils in the foreground. Text in yellow and white reads: San Francisco Writers Workshop Presents Five writers read their stories and share the feedback that made them great. Then YOU get to critique a juicy story, Live! Below: Author's portraits with signatures: Beverly Parayno Peng Ngin Tim Sullivan Jo Beckett-King Tony Tepper Below: We've Got Notes for You! October 25, 2025 Lit Crawl, Phase II, 6:30 pm Noisebridge, 272 Capp Street

Dear San Francisco Writers Workshop community, we hope to see many of you at our Lit Crawl event on October 25, 2025. Our theme this year is “We’ve Got Notes for You!” Five of our current and former regulars will read their work and tell us how workshop feedback has informed their revision process. Then, we’ll offer you all a chance to provide a live critique on a piece of writing!

As many of you know, Lit Crawl is the final night of San Francisco’s annual Litquake festival. Beginning October 9, Litquake is bringing a slew of amazing international and local authors for signings, readings, panels, and parties. Then, it all ends with a literary pub crawl (aka Lit Crawl) through the Mission District. Our event is scheduled for Phase 2 of 3.

We will see you on:
October 25, 2025 at 6:30 pm
Noisebridge, 272 Capp Street

Our featured readers:

Beverly Parayno is from East San Jose. Her debut story collection WILDFLOWERS (PAWA Press, 2023) was shortlisted for the 43rd Annual Northern California Book Award in Fiction, winner of a 2024 IPPY Bronze Medal and 2024 National Indie Excellence Award in AAPI Fiction. She lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Jo Beckett-King is the author of the Bea Bellerose mysteries published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. Her debut middle-grade novel, The House of Found Objects, was published in July 2025, and a sequel is scheduled for release in summer 2026. In addition to her middle-grade fiction, she writes for adults; her work has been listed for the Bath Children’s Novel Award, the Bristol Short Story Prize, and the Bridport Prize in the UK.

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.

Tim Sullivan is a San Francisco–based educator and theatre director whose fiction explores reinvention, queer life, class, and labor. He’s writing a debut novel inspired by his time as a toll collector on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Tony Tepper: 1954 Born, lovechild of Audrey Hepburn and Sherlock Holmes, left on doorstep of Tingpangoli Monastery in the Pamir Mountains. 1963 Learns to eat oatmeal. 1995 Listens to Bob and Ray while working for Dickensian firm, accidentally swallows butterfly. 2012 Falls in love with language, but love is unrequited. 2023 Dreams of beauty in eye of storm.

Tomorrow! Jo Beckett-King at Books Inc

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

Dear San Francisco Workshop Writers Community,

Our own Jo Beckett-King will appear at Books Inc. in the Marina tomorrow, Sunday, August 3rd, 2025, at 5 pm, to present her debut THE HOUSE OF FOUND OBJECTS.

This mystery about a twelve-year-old Bea from Passaic, New Jersey is aimed at middle-grade readers, so feel free to bring your kids (RSVP here) and/or buy a copy for yourself and all the young readers in your life. Jo has been a loyal regular at SFWW for the last few years and we’ve loved her novels and stories and benefited greatly from her feedback. If you can’t make it to the event tomorrow, please order a copy through Books Inc. or elsewhere and make sure that your local library carries a few copies. Let’s make sure Jo’s debut is a huge success!

More about the book: Bea is visiting her family in Paris for the summer when her grandmother’s most precious heirloom—a drawing by Henri Matisse—goes missing. After a cryptic clue arrives on Bea’s doorstep suggesting its whereabouts, Bea is determined to pursue the lead. Without the French skills to navigate her way around the landmarks of Paris, she teams up with her cousin, Céline, whose clear-eyed French directness makes her a perfect partner for curious, problem-solving Bea. The girls embark on a city-wide search, deciphering riddles, solving puzzles, and cracking codes as they try to locate the Matisse, find a thief, and identify their mysterious benefactor.

We look forward to celebrating Jo’s book with some of you tomorrow!

Judy, Kurt, Monya, Olga

The House of Found Objects

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ 1 Comment

by Jo Beckett-King

Twelve-year-old Bea from Passaic, New Jersey, is visiting her family in Paris for the summer when her grandmother’s most precious heirloom—a drawing by Henri Matisse—goes missing. After a cryptic clue arrives on Bea’s doorstep suggesting its whereabouts, Bea is determined to pursue the lead.

Without the French skills to navigate her way around the landmarks of Paris, she teams up with her cousin, Céline, whose clear-eyed French directness makes her a perfect partner for curious, problem-solving Bea. The girls embark on a city-wide search, deciphering riddles, solving puzzles, and cracking codes as they try to locate the Matisse, find a thief, and identify their mysterious benefactor.

Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. Order on Bookshop or Amazon. Don’t forget to rate and review!

San Francisco Writers Workshop Presents: Lit Crawl Reading

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

San Francisco Writers Workshop is proud to participate in San Francisco’s Lit Crawl 2023 festival. For more than eight decades, this free, drop-in critique group has met weekly, nurturing a wide range of local authors. Come hear from the recent participants at our home base!

Event details:
October 21, 5 pm
Noisebridge, 272 Capp Street

Originally from the North of England, Jo Beckett-King is a writer and translator currently based in San Francisco. Her fiction has been short- or longlisted for the UK’s Bridport Prize, the Bristol Short Story Prize, and the Bath Children’s Novel Award. She is represented by Elise Howard at DeFiore & Company.

Tahirah Nailah Dean is a lawyer by day and writer by night. She writes about the difficulties of finding love and marriage from the perspective of a Muslim woman. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera and Insider. She is a recipient of the 2023 Hurston/Wright Fellowship and winner of the 2021 MFest Short-Story Competition. Tahirah is currently working on a novel.

Cynthia Gómez writes feminist anti-capitalist horror and speculative fiction. Her work has been published in Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, and elsewhere. Her collection, “The Nightmare Box and Other Stories,” will be published by Dread Stone Press in summer 2023.

Mike Karpa’s short fiction and memoir has appeared in Tin House, Tahoma Literary Review, Oyster River Pages and Foglifter Journal. His first novel Criminals was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2022. His new novel, The Wealthy Whites of Williamsburg, won best gay book at the 2023 SF Book Festival.

Graham Smith built a solar-powered car in a locomotive shop and once traveled to an uninhabited island just to get some eggs. He was dredged, like an ancient bicycle, from the mud of the Upper Mississippi and continues to roll on through the hinterlands of San Francisco Bay.

Joel Streicker’s stories have been published widely. Recent winner of Cutthroat Magazine’s and Blood Orange Review’s fiction contests, he has also published poetry and nonfiction in English and Spanish. His translations of such writers as Samanta Schweblin, Mariana Enríquez, and Pilar Quintana have appeared in numerous journals.

Jason Tan graduated from St. Olaf college with a degree in Latin and Asian Studies. He writes primarily fantastical novels about people who are trying to figure out the rest of their lives. He lives in San Francisco.