“Open Your Soul Without Spilling It All” with Kevin Fisher-Paulson, LIVE January 21st, 2024

We are excited to welcome TWO great speakers as we experimenting with a return to the real world in January, meeting in Downtown Oakland at 1955 Broadway, right outside the 19th Street BART Station. You can also dial into the meeting LIVE with Google Meet. Advance tickets recommended; walk-ins welcome.

Working with Word Limits

Every writer has one column in him. The trick is to be the kind of writer who has one column in him every week.

Kevin Fisher-Paulson talks about the craft of writing from the perspective of purpose and structure.  Specifically, Kevin talks about the process of writing a weekly column for a major newspaper, like say the San Francisco Chronicle. The writer must learn how to open his soul without telling every secret, how to establish a rhythm and a voice.  The writer must learn to tell the truth, but let the world act as fact checker.

Kevin grapples with great issues but knows that the narrative must be satisfied in a 750-word count.  As the reputation of the column grows, he must be aware of consistency, fresh perspective, and the assertive reader.

The writing process begins with a commitment to the creative self. As Kevin explains, everyone has an autobiography but not everyone has a memoir.

Kevin talks about choices, not habits, that usher the individual through the creative door.  

Writing is a search for meaning, and Kevin talks about how the different forms represent different means of exploring experience.

About Kevin

Kevin Fisher-Paulson is a weekly columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. He earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies at the University of Notre Dame and a master’s degree in Something Useless from the University of Michigan.  He has completed post-graduate coursework at the University of Iowa, the University of Oregon, Rutgers University and the New School.

In addition to the weekly column, he has published three books, A Song for Lost Angels, How We Keep Spinning…, and Secrets of the Blue Bungalow.  Song was nominated, and a finalist for both the Benjamin Franklin Award as well as the Independent Book Publishers award. A portion of his memoir was published in the anthology When Love Lasts Forever by Pilgrim Press.

Kevin’s works have been produced by ODC Summerfest, the San Francisco Bay Area Dance Series, the National AIDS Theater Festival and the Vital Signs Benefit for Healing Alternatives. 

Kevin lives in the mysterious outer, outer, outer, outer Excelsior with two sons who have adopted him, two dogs who adore him, and a husband who endures him.

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SPECIAL: Our Member in the Spotlight is Oakland’s Poet Laureate, Ayodele Nzinga.

We are honored that one of our most notable members will be welcoming us back to our LIVE meetings in a very changed city.

Ayodele aka “Wordslanger,” founder and director of Oakland’s Lower Bottom Playaz theater troupe and BAMFEST, Oakland’s annual celebration of the Black Arts Movement, has been instrumental in transforming downtown Oakland into the city’s first Black Cultural Zone. 

Learn more about the opening of BAM House at the former Flight Deck theater space on Broadway, a few blocks down from where we’ll be meeting, on KQED.

Ayodele will speak for 15 minutes before our Keynote speaker.