A Writing Group · San Francisco
Writing by and for working people since 2005
The story of the LaborFest Writers, 2005–present
It began with an item in the LaborFest schedule in 2005:
July 23 (Saturday) — 1:00 p.m. — Free
Writing Workshop for Working People
The stories and lives of working people have been hidden by the corporate-controlled media to prevent a growing consciousness among labor. Labor writer Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz will conduct a workshop to show how working people can write about their lives for themselves and others. Telling your story is part of the need to liberate the truth. EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy St., San Francisco
The workshop was part of LaborFest, the annual cultural and arts festival that celebrates the history and culture of working people. Largely held in San Francisco, it begins every July 5th — the anniversary of "Bloody Thursday" in 1934. On that day, two workers, Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise, were shot and killed in San Francisco while supporting the longshoremen and maritime workers' strike. The incident triggered the San Francisco General Strike, which shut down the entire city and led to hundreds of thousands of workers joining the trade union movement, closing every port on the West Coast from Bellingham to San Diego.
On Saturday we went in the afternoon to the writers' workshop, part of LaborFest. The workshop was held at the Exit Theater on Eddy Street, down in the Tenderloin near Market, in their little café with dark walls. There were three tables and eight or nine people sitting around them. At the head of the table were Roxanne and Lauren, who had organized the workshop.
First, we went around and introduced ourselves: a lesbian woman from Minnesota; an old-time activist; a cab driver fighting to keep their union alive; a man who had been in a seminary but found Marx and has never been the same since. Also present was Emmie, a woman activist for the Green Party; someone who works at a nonprofit and does not have time for writing; a graduate student who was also the son of Lauren.
We did a short exercise to write about our first job. I wrote about working at the local butcher shop on Hercies Road, the Millers. I just scribbled for five minutes. I thought it came out pretty well and I ended it with: "After my experiences at the butcher's, I became a vegetarian." People laughed at that. Others wrote about waiting for a lie detector test in a bank in Chicago, being a store clerk in 1967, and many other things.
Roxanne emphasized the importance of specificity in our writing. We did two other exercises. One was to describe a person you admire whose story has not been told — I wrote about the life of my father, Percy Cooley, a union printer. The second was to tell the story of a labor strike or struggle that has been neglected. At the end we all agreed to exchange email addresses and perhaps form a writers' group in the future.
Present at the workshop were Margaret and Keith Cooley, Alice Rogoff, Jerry Path, and Phyllis Holliday. Weeks later we exchanged emails and arranged to meet the following month at Roxanne's home on Russian Hill. Susan Ford came to that meeting and subsequently joined the group.
After meeting a couple of times at Roxanne's, the group started to meet independently at the Quaker Center on 10th Street. In 2007 we moved to New Valencia Hall on Mission and 15th Street — home of Radical Women and the Freedom Socialist Party.
Adele Kearney, a friend of Phyllis, joined the group in 2008 and traveled in from Sacramento by bus every second Saturday. Adele had been involved in the Civil Rights movement and was an active member of the Peace and Freedom Party. New Valencia Hall moved first to Larkin and Eddy in 2009 and later to Polk and Ellis; the LaborFest Writers moved with it.
Nellie Wong joined the group in 2008. She wrote:
"I joined LaborFest Writers when we were meeting at New Valencia Hall at 15th and Mission. I'd listen to all of you discuss your writings, then realized what was I doing? I wanted to be a part of the workshop and so I joined. As you all know, the space New Valencia Hall was being rented from the Freedom Socialist Party, and at that time I was its Bay Area branch organizer, for 16 years.
To have a space to meet and critique our work was so important to the LFW's development and growth. The emphasis on the working class was and is like none other. I think our readings have gone well and have enriched the labor movement through memoir, fiction, poetry, and song. And the fact that our group is comprised of mature folks has led to a richness that I've appreciated — for narratives unheard-of and welcomed." — Nellie Wong, 1934–2025
Nellie Wong passed away in December 2025. A poet of fierce beauty and lifelong dedication to the working class, she brought to every meeting a voice shaped by decades of activism and art. She is deeply missed.
In 2011, Richard Chen joined. Adele Kearney stopped coming to the group in 2013 and passed away in 2014. Richard Chen left the group in 2023. Robert Rubino joined in 2022, and Barbara Saunders in 2024.
Gradually the LaborFest Writers evolved a format for our meetings. For many years we met on the second Saturday of every month for two hours, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Since the pandemic we have met weekly on Zoom, every Thursday morning.
At each meeting, two writers workshop a piece of their writing: the writer reads their piece aloud, and then we spend 15 to 20 minutes providing feedback and comments. We aim to develop each other — with constructive criticism aimed at making us better, and with praise for what we think is good. Each writer provides printed copies for everyone, which can be marked up by the reviewers as the piece is read aloud.
We have a facilitator for each meeting, a duty that rotates throughout the group. The meeting begins with ten minutes of announcements — poetry readings, events, spoken word performances, or books relevant to the group. The final 15 to 20 minutes are reserved for a writing exercise. The facilitator provides a prompt: something to get us started, an inspiration, a phrase, a quotation, a situation. For ten or twelve minutes we furiously scribble. When the timer goes off, each writer reads aloud without comment — except perhaps some exclamations of encouragement, or a chuckle or two.
Our first public reading as part of LaborFest was in July 2007 at the New College of California on Valencia Street in San Francisco. The following year — 2008 — we joined with the Waterfront Writers at City Lights Bookstore.
In subsequent years the readings became a tradition at LaborFest, held at Farley's Café on Potrero Hill, Bird and Beckett bookstore in Glen Park, Modern Times Bookstore on 24th Street, and the Green Arcade on Market Street. Phyllis Holliday made her last appearance reading at the Green Arcade in July 2017. Two months later she passed away.
In 2006 we launched a website at www.laborfestwriters.org.
Roxanne had told us that everyone has the capability to tell a story and write it down — that it is a basic human ability, like singing and dancing. The corporate-controlled media amplifies the voices of the powerful and diminishes the voices of working people. We have been educated to believe that creativity is not expected of working people, that we should not expect it of ourselves. This is internalized oppression, and we are dedicated to overcoming it.
We are outside the literary mainstream. We have radical politics on the left — rabble-rousers, activists, Marxists of one stripe or another, union members, immigrants, and native-born. We are involved in the struggles to have our voices heard — our outsider voices. Even though our writing appears in the same anthology, please recognize that we are all very different. The themes and concerns of our writing are as varied as we are. This collection contains memoir, fiction, and poetry.
Is there a commonality that connects us beyond membership in the LaborFest Writers' Group?
It is for you, the reader, to decide.
— Keith David Cooley, LaborFest Writers History