Community resources
Please support the folks who support Writing Ourselves Whole, and please let me know about your services, workshops, calls for submissions, fundraisers, and community events — send a blurb about the event, and tell me you’d like me to add it to our resource list! Updated 11/15/18
See below for where to find calls for submissions…
- Join the Transformative Language Arts Network for the 16th Annual Power of Words Conference: Transformation, Liberation, and Celebration Through the Spoken, Written, and Sung Word September 26-29th, 2019 at The Casa Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale, Arizona.
- Elana Story, LCSW offers sliding scale therapy in Oakland focusing on healing for survivors of trauma. She uses a gentle, body-based technique called Lifespan Integration to offer healing from past trauma. www.elanastorylcsw.com 510-671-1297
- “Allies in Healing,” a support group for partners and loved ones of survivors of sexual trauma, meets every second Monday of the month at 7:30pm at the San Francisco LGBT Center. FMI: alliesinhealinggroup@gmail.com or www.facebook.com/aihgroup
- Charna Cassell offers body-centered, trauma-aware psychotherapy and sex therapy in the SF Bay area: www.passionatelife.org
- Lifting The Mask: Therapy Group for Adults Who Have A Parent With Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), with Pamela Rosin Kaplan, MA, MFTI. If while growing up, your parent had what is referred to in the therapeutic community as Borderline Personality Disorder, you may find it challenging to set boundaries, trust yourself, and feel at ease in your body. This 8- week group incorporates mindfulness practices, trauma healing techniques, story sharing, emotional regulation skills. Participants receive mirroring, integration, the support of community, and a break from the isolation of the past. click to learn more.
- Jacks McNamara offers creative trauma healing groups in Santa Fe and online (and sometimes in the SF Bay area, too!)
- If you’re in recovery around addiction and PTSD, check out the resources at The Recovery Village
- If you haven’t already, make sure you get your copy of Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices from Within the Anti-Violence Movement, edited by Jennifer Patterson.
- If you’re looking for a supportive and fun place to share your words more widely, remember to check out our local Bay Area Queer Open Mics: The San Francisco Queer Open Mic meets every 4th Friday of the month with hosts Baruch Porras-Hernandez and Blyth Baldwin in San Francisco (free, donations requested, no one turned away); the Oakland Queer Open Mic meet every Tuesday (yes, weekly!)with hosts Kin Folkz + Blackberri! At Grand Lake Coffee House aka Perch – 440 Grand Ave. Oakland, 6pm (free, donations requested, NOTAFLOF).
- Sade Huron offers intuitive energy healing at Cariad Healing in Oakland. “Intuitive healings are a powerful way to get clarity and insight into patterns and belief systems that are shaping your life. Clients often feel a powerful positive shift in their energy, and a profound sense of rejuvenation.”
- Peggy Simmons (founder of Green Windows Writing Workshops) offers her Uniquely Yours writing group every 4th Sunday of the month in Oakland! $1 – $25, sliding scale, all writers welcome. Visit the links for information about ongoing writing groups and other opportunities to work with Peggy!
- Expressive arts therapy group for women and trans* identified survivors of sexual trauma is now accepting members! Please reach out to Phoenix Song (registered marriage and family therapist intern #77857, supervised by Therese Noel Allen LMFT #46690) for more information. Phoenix also works with individuals, couples, and relationships. phoenixsongtherapy.com
- Laguna Writers announces the arrival of their online Birdland Journal!Birdland Journal showcases excellent writing from weekly workshops, Saturday retreats, and international retreats. If you’ve written something great under the auspices of Laguna Writers, we would like to consider it for publication.
- Rachel Grant is the owner and founder of Rachel Grant Coaching and is a Sexual Abuse Recovery Coach. She works with survivors of childhood sexual abuse who are beyond sick and tired of feeling broken, unfixable, and burdened by the past. rachelgrantcoaching.com
- Apply for a writing residency at Hedgebrook! My residency at Hedgebrook allowed me to embrace and nourish myself as a writer; it was an astonishingly powerful experience. I encourage all writers who identify as women to apply for a fully-funded residency of their own so they, too, can experience Hedgebrook’s “radical hospitality” firsthand.
- Michelle and Ruth, a joyful long-term couple, recently started Conscious Girlfriend for lesbians and queer women seeking truly happy and healthy relationships. Check out this video to learn more — and they’re on a mission to make love easier for you!
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Chrysalis: The Journal of Transformative Language Arts accepts submissions for: Academic theory-based essays on TLA; Narrative accounts of TLA in practice; Creative writing products with accompanying process papers. chrysalisjournal.org
- Tina D’Elia Consulting offers acting techniques and performance training for business professionals! Tina is a Bay Area Performance Coach for business professionals who want to improve their public speaking on camera and live. To learn more, visit tinadelia.com, call 415-312-1470 or email info@tinadelia.com.
- Sexual trauma survivor? Looking for support? Contact the brilliant, generous folks at San Francisco Women Against Rape or CUAV.
- Chris DeLorenzo has been offering weekly, generative writing workshops through Laguna Writers in San Francisco for more than a decade — he now also offers local weekend retreats, special topic writing groups, and international week-long writing opportunities. I can’t recommend Chris highly enough — if you get the chance to write with him, grab it and go.
- The brilliant Rae Gouirand offers Creative Nonfiction workshops in Napa, Sacramento and online!
- Eanlai Cronin, B.Ed, H.Dip, offers Writing the Soul Awake writing workshops for women. This workshop focuses on writing about our lives and telling our truths. Tuesday evenings, $300-350 sliding scale. Group meets in Alameda, CA. Email Eanlai at eanlai@yahoo.com or call 831 252 0004.
- Jodie Stein, MA, helps women in transition to be fierce about loving themselves. She offers a women’s divorce therapy group and drop-in support group for women in the early stages of divorce. jodiestein.com.
- Elana Dykewomon offers a quarterly writing group for lesbians: Writing from Life Experience for Lesbians. Check out www.dykewomon.org
- Naomi Rifkin and Brush Fire Painting use “the power of the arts to heal hearts and transform lives. We teach Process Oriented Painting to unleash the therapeutic qualities of the creative process. Creativity is a basic human need; we strive to bring art to the lives of marginalized youth throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.” Naomi offers workshops for youth and adults; visit website to learn more.
- Renee Garcia offers writing prompts, one-with-one writing coaching/encouragement, and online writing community at Write the Fuck Now. Renee is a brilliant writer and a powerful advocate – get her in your corner.
- Writing Ourselves Whole <hearts> The Center for Sex and Culture. There’s no other organization in the Bay Area that does the kind of incredible sexual-culture work that the CSC does — and we want to keep it going! Check out their website for events and classes, and please donate!
- Marty Williams offers a writing workshop in North Oakland, A Thousand Words. Contact Marty at 510-928-7032 or at thousandwordspress@gmail.com FMI.
- If you’re interested in facilitating your own writing groups, check out the Amherst Writers and Artists‘ facilitator training schedule.
- The Survivors Healing Center in Santa Cruz offers expressive arts (and lots of other) therapy groups for survivors of sexual trauma.
- If you’re up in the Sacramento area, check out AWA Sacramento for powerful workshops and a fun, supportive and engaged writing community.
- The folks over at the National Association of Memoir Writers offer many workshops and other resources — check them out!
- Ellen Morrison, ASW, offers intuitive painting workshops (in addition to individual therapy and support groups). Learn more at SoulStudios.org.
- If you are looking for places to submit your erotic writing, please remember to check out Rachel Kramer Bussel’s calls for submissions: she always has several projects open, and welcomes new writers.
- Check out the incredible work that Vanissar Tarakali, Ph.D., is doing around embodiment, trauma, deep self-care and allyship.
- Have you read Trauma Stewardship? Remember: taking care of ourselves is a part of doing ethical, sustainable work in the world. We deserve it, our communities deserve it, the folks we work with deserve it… please be easy with you!
Writer resources: Calls for submissions and more:
Lambda Literary’s Calls for Submissions
Publishing and other forms of insanity
Erika Dreifus – Practicing Writing
Additional community organizations:
San Francisco Women Against Rape
Hotline: (415) 647-RAPE
Resources, support, advocacy and education for all those responding to and healing from sexual violence.
SFSI: San Francisco Sex Information
Free, accurate, non-biased, non-judgmental sex information.
Email ask-us @ sfsi.org or call 415-989-7374
Center for Sex and Culture
(not always safe to view at work)
1349 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA
Provides judgment-free education, cultural events, a library/media archive, and other resources to audiences across the sexual and gender spectrum
Bay Area Women Against Rape
Hotline: 510-845-7273
For persons in Alameda County who are dealing with the trauma of a recent sexual assault.
LYRIC San Francisco (Lavender Youth Recreation & Information Center (L.Y.R.I.C.))
415/703-6150
Programs and support for LGBTQQ youth and allies (24 and younger).
Larkin Street
(800) 669.6196
Larkin Street provides youth between the ages of 12 and 24 with the help they need to rebuild their lives. Shelter, drop-in center, case management and referral services.
Lyon Martin Health Services
415-565-7667
1748 Market Street, Suite 201, San Francisco, CA 94102
Lyon-Martin Health Services provides excellent health care to women, lesbians and transgender people in a safe and compassionate environment, with sensitivity to sexual orientation and gender identity; all services are regardless of ability to pay.
The Trevor Project
1-866-488-7386
A national 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide hotline for gay and questioning youth.
RAINN (Rape and Incest National Network)
RAINN allows you to search by state and/or zip code in order to find the rape crisis center nearest you.
SF4TAY
SF4TAY.org is an online citywide resource guide for services and programs for young adults. Comprehensive listing of housing, education, employment and health opportunities and resources in San Francisco.
San Francisco Suicide Prevention
Crisis Line: 415/781-0500
TTY: 415/227-0245
WOMAN, Inc. (Women Organized to Make Abuse Nonexistent, Inc.)
Hotline: (415) 864-4722
Community-based, multi-service agency, serving survivors of domestic violence in San Francisco and the larger Bay Area.
Communities Untied Against Violence (CUAV)
(415) 333-4357
San Francisco-based services and support for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQQ) survivors of sexual violence, hate crimes, and intimate partner abuse.
La Casa de las Madres
Adults call: 1.877.503.1850
Teens call:1.877.923.0700
Crisis support and resources for survivors of domestic violence.
Asian Women’s Shelter
crisis line (415) 751-0880
San Francisco-based counseling, advocacy, emergency shelter and support services for battered women and their children. Specialized services for non-English speaking Asian women and their children.
Shalom Bayit
(510) 451-8874
A grassroots organization dedicated to empowering battered Jewish women.
PO Box 10102, Oakland, CA 94610
Cooperative Restraining Order Clinic
Assists battered women in obtaining and enforcing restraining orders.
3543 18th Street, #5, San Francisco, CA 94111
ph: (415) 864-1790
Bay Area Legal Aid
ph: (415) 982-1300
Civil legal assistance to low-income SF residents; services for survivors of same-gender DV; outreach/education to youth and others.
1035 Market Street, 6th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Confronting HIV through free prevention, care services, and advocacy.
(Including Magnet: Free sexual health services in the heart of the Castro, 4122 18th Street at Castro)
Native American Health Center
510.535.4406 (Oakland)
415.621.8056 (San Francisco)
Comprehensive services to improve the health and well-being of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and residents of the surrounding communities. Locations in San Francisco, Oakland, Alameda and Richmond
St. James Infirmary
(415) 554-8494
A peer-based occupational health and safety clinic for sex workers and their families. 1372 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Survivorship
Support and community for survivors of ritual abuse, mind control, and torture.
TGI Justice
TGI Justice Project is a group of transgender people—inside and outside of prison—creating a united family in the struggle for survival and freedom.
