If you’re reading this, you’re in the right place at the right time. 

And we want to share stories about San Francisco with you!

Dispatches from the City of Awe is story gathering project dedicating to telling true and positive stories about San Francisco. 

Story Gathering:

We are a group of independent local writers from all over the country and world who are based in the SF Bay Area. Over the past few months, we have been going out into the streets to collect the stories of the everyday San Franciscan and what makes them experience awe when living, working and playing here.
Interesting in volunteering to be a story gatherer?  Sign up to join our street team.

Interested in sharing your story? Read on…DEAR WRITER.

 We want to publish and make space for as many stories and perspectives on San Francisco as possible.

We will be hosting a series of pop-up listening booths where we will be recording the stories of passerby, as well as a spate of free classes where we teach you how to edit and structure your story. We will also be inviting a number of local writers to this space to publish their work. Want to get an invite? You don’t have to wait for us to know you. Just submit your work. We’d love to meet you.

In partnership with Illuminate the Arts and SF Public Library, look out for one of our listening booths, our workshops, or our readings soon! Thanks to a generous Culture Forward Grant from the SVANE Family Foundation, the project will last throughout 2026. Sign up here to be first on the list for our free (often sold out) writing workshops.

Do you feel inspired by San Francisco? Or have something you want to say about living, being from, or working here. Let us know.

Call to Action

Writers, lift up your pens. San Francisco is reemerging yet again after boom and bust times. It is our job as citizens and artists to tell its story. We invite you, dear ones, to tell us your San Francisco story. Your Dispatch from the City of Awe. Write a story about your experience with the City, where the city emerges as a significant character as well as a setting. Have you or your loved ones lived here, loved here, died here? What struggles have you overcome in your time in the City. What challenges do you face? Where do you find beauty in the everyday? Let us know in the work you make.

Welcome back, San Francisco. We’d love to connect with you.

Requirements: Story length 50-1200 words. Poems – 1 page.  Less is also ok.
Format: Journal entry, creative nonfiction, essay, and/or fiction. This can be a stand alone piece or an excerpt of a larger literary work. Must be written in the first person POV. Should be truthful. If fiction, then emotionally truthful.
Where to Send? If you have any questions, you can ask us:
dispatches@sfwriting.institute

You can also email us submissions there or submit your dispatch here..

(Human-generated and edited work only please. No AI. Thanx.)
  
Here is a pic of Baker Beach at Sunset during the recent heatwave in March 2026. Photo by: Alexandra Kostoulas