by Nate Hoffelder | Dec 10, 2025 | Events
Perfect Pitch!
Elevator Pitch Workshop with
Brenda Knight
Feb 3 & 17, 2026
6:00 pm
Mill Valley Public Library
Creekside Room
An elevator pitch is a key component to selling your art, whether it’s a novel, a play, or other written concept. Crafting an elevator pitch requires you to think critically about your message and distill it to its core elements. This process helps you gain clarity on your goals, values, and what makes you or your offering unique.
You may not be ready to make a formal pitch to agents and publishers, but you should always be ready to talk about your book with clarity and confidence. You never know who you will meet. The time to practice your pitch is before you find yourself sitting on a plane next to a publisher. This special two-part event will get you ready!
Part 1: Create Your Elevator Pitch. Tues. February 3rd, 6:00-7:30 pm. Pitch-O-Rama veteran publisher Brenda Knight will coach us through the basics of a great elevator pitch: what do publishers and agents want to hear? What will turn them off, and what will pull them in? RESERVE MY SPOT (https://millvalleylibrary.libcal.com/event/15421513)
Part 2: Now, Practice It! Tues. February 17th, 6:00-7:30 pm. Stand up before a friendly, informal audience and deliver your 3-minute pitch. If you wish, the audience can provide feedback. CWC Marin Board Member Daniel Bacon will be the moderator. RESERVE MY SPOT (https://millvalleylibrary.libcal.com/event/15421514)
About the Coach: Brenda Knight is a twenty-year publishing veteran, starting at HarperCollins. She authored American Book Award-winning Women of the Beat Generation, Rituals for Life and Wild Women and Books. She is President of the San Francisco Chapter of the Women’s National Book Association, which hosts the annual Pitch-O-Rama. Knight has worked with many bestselling authors including Mark Nepo, Phil Cousineau, Congresswoman Jackie Speier, and Paolo Coehlo. She is founding editor of Viva Editions, a division of Cleis Press.
Want to know more about Pitch-O-Rama? Check it out here:
https://wnba-sfchapter.org/register-for-virtual-pitch-o-rama-2026/
by Nate Hoffelder | Nov 14, 2025 | Events
Unlocking Voice on the Page
Writing Workshop with Jordan Rosenfeld
Jan 11, 2026
1:00 – 3:00 pm
Mill Valley Public Library
Creekside Room
RSVP HERE
Ideal for any writer who wants to polish prose and write vibrant characters and improve sentence level writing.
Your characters are sassy or stern, enthusiastic and effusive, and they’re waiting to leap off the page into readers’ minds. This confab unspools the essentials of voice, from character’s secrets and fears, their attitudes and personality, and teases apart the mysteries of syntax and sentence structure in ways that will not remind you of high school English class. You’ll come away from this confab with an overarching sense of what comprises voice and how to wield it more confidently in your own work. This class is for:
We’ll Cover:
- Essentials of character voice, like experience and attitude
- Essentials of tone, like imagery and mood pieces
- Key elements of syntax and sentence structure (not dull grammar!)
- And more….
Jordan Rosenfeld is author of the novels Fallout, Women in Red and Forged in Grace and six books on the craft of writing, including the Sound of Story: Developing Voice and Tone in Writing, How to Write a Page-Turner, the bestselling Make a Scene, Writing the Intimate Character, A Writer’s Guide to Persistence, Writing Deep Scenes and Write Free. Her freelance writing has been published in hundreds of publications, including: The Atlantic, The New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, Scientific American, Writer’s Digest Magazine, and many more. She is also an editor, writing coach and teaches online classes. Jordanrosenfeld.net
RSVP HERE
by Nate Hoffelder | Oct 15, 2025 | Events
CWC Marin Members-Only Holiday Party
Sunday, Dec 7, 2025
4 to 6 pm
Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera
Come celebrate our 2025 accomplishments and toast the New Year with us! Our ranks have swelled this year: CWC Marin is now too large to fit into anyone’s home, so we’re graduating to Book Passage. It’s free, but let’s show our love for Book Passage by buying something on the way in.
- Current CWC Members (any branch) and their guests (one per member) are welcome
- Potluck – please bring a drink or hors d’oeuvres to share
- Book Exchange! Details below.
- Can you help us with clean up or break down? Please specify in the RSVP form.
How the Book Exchange Works
- Bring a book (unwrapped) — It can be your book, or even better, a book you just bought at Book Passage. It should be a book you love. We’ll lay them out on a table for everyone to admire.
- Everyone will be given a chance to introduce his/her book — thirty seconds — (I chose this book because x. I love this book because y)
- Everyone takes a number from a hat
- The person with #1 goes first. He/she chooses a book.
- Person #2 can either choose a book from the table or steal the book from #1.
- If stolen, #1 goes back to the table and chooses another book.
- #3 goes next. He/she can choose a book from the table or steal one.
- * No ‘steal-backs’. A book can only be stolen twice.
- When stealing, you must address your ‘victim’ by name.
- Nobody ‘has to play’. Feel free to just watch!
by Nate Hoffelder | Sep 22, 2025 | Events
A Poetry Writing Workshop
Saturday, Nov 1
1:00 – 2:30 pm
Mill Valley Public Library
FREE, but seating is limited
Poets often write their poems in response to the work of other poets. Sometimes, these poets are close friends, sometimes they are separated by years and generations. In this workshop, we’ll discover and read great poems that have inspired later poets, and write our own poems inspired by these sources. Come to the workshop with pen, paper, and a willingness to be surprised.
About the presenter: Judy Halebsky is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged). With Ayako Takahashi, she translated a collection of Wago Ryoichi’s poems from Japanese to English titled, Since Fukushima. Her honors include fellowships from MacDowell, Millay Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center as well as a Graves Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Humanities. She directs the MFA in Creative Writing program at Dominican University of California.
This program is presented in collaboration with the California Writers Club of Marin and Dominican University.
by Nate Hoffelder | Aug 26, 2025 | Events
Creative Writing Retreat
Saturday, October 4
10:00 am – 3:30 pm
Edgehill Mansion, Dominican Univ Campus
$85 Non-CWC Members
$35 for CWC Members (any branch – use discount code CWCDISCOUNT)
As autumn comes to Marin County, the heat begins to ease, the days get shorter, and writers get a second wind. Could you use some fresh inspiration and camaraderie to help you sprint to the 2025 finish line?
Join Dominican University of California MFA faculty for morning writing workshops followed by a shared meal (included in the registration fee). In the afternoon, editors share tips on how to prepare your writing for publication. At the end of the day, new book authors share their work and their stories. Come to the Dominican campus to grow as a writer and connect with a writing community. CWC Members: use the Member Discount to get more than forty percent off!
Workshops
- Multi-media Ekphrastic Writing for Poets & Writers with Maw Shein Win.
- Point of View: The Craft and Complexity of Third Person in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction with Claudia Morales.
- Live Storytelling – A Quick Start Guide with Judy Halebsky.
- Fiction Workshop
Lectures
- Tips from Editors to Writers with Julia Park Tracey of Sibylline Press and Marthine Satris of Heyday Books
- First Books Panel with Weijia Pan and Mary Alice Stephens.
- MFA Info Session with Judy Halebsky (optional)
$85 (CWC Members, use the discount code CWCDISCOUNT and pay only $35!)
Don’t wait! Seats are limited and October will be here before you know it!
