San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
An exclusive author collective strives to welcome more writers of color.
S.F. organization aiming to emerge from shutdown more vital, inclusive
Last year, the Writers Grotto was a month away from having to shutter.
After 25 years of existence as a place for Bay Area writers to commune and create, the organization’s membership fees and a large, private office space South of Market had not kept pace with 21st century work styles and San Francisco’s shifting demographics.
“When I joined, it was a bustling community; you’d get your money’s worth,” said Lyzette Wanzer, who joined the Grotto in 2005 and ultimately became one of its instructors.
But as the economic displacement crisis drained the city of artists, writers and people of color, the Grotto’s once desired, dedicated space for writing had “become like a ghost town.”
And then the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Unlike many arts organizations in the Bay Area and across the globe now scrambling to navigate uncertain futures, the Grotto had a jump on confronting its mortality: Earlier this year, the organization began the process of remaking itself for present economic realities. Among those changes were overhauling its membership strictures and becoming a more multicultural space.
Though talks are still preliminary, writer Roberto Lovato suggested the Grotto will emerge from shelterinplace more prepared to confront its considerable challenges.
“We belong to a great community we all long for and appreciate more, especially in light of what’s happening in the world,” Lovato said.
The Grotto opened in 1994 as a workplace for independent journalists and aspiring authors, and in that time it has successfully nurtured writers from first drafts to contract negotiations and publication of books. But by 2019, the Grotto’s cost of doing business had continued to mount as membership declined.
Facing an existential crisis meant transitioning from a membershipbased model to a nonprofit business in 2019, which makes way for grants and taxdeductible donations. But while taking stock of its situation, another critical aspect to the organization was unearthed: “We recognized our membership was 70% older white women,” said Susan Ito, a member since 2012.
“I think it was obvious to everyone,” said Wanzer, one of the Grotto’s few African American members.
“Changing the perception goes hand in hand with the Grotto’s survival,” she said. “They’re two sides of a coin.”
Ito said the lack of cultural diversity was illuminating. She came to the Grotto as a writer seeking a balance of community and solitude, a sanctuary from a houseful of family and her work as an assistant adjunct professor of ethnic studies at Mills College in Oakland.
“We can and want to welcome young people, people of color,” she said.
As part of the Grotto’s realignment initiative, Ito is the lead organizer of Rooted & Written, a free workshop series by and for writers of color seeking and sharing knowledge on all angles of the publishing industry.
“We had 30 spots and received 160 applications without advertising,” Ito said of her project. “People were overjoyed to be together in the space, with each other.”
Further organizational cures include a slidingscale schedule of fees, more community programming led by writers of color, fellowships granted to emerging writers and author talks aimed at more diverse readerships. Wanzer created a Saturday workshop series on professional development, aimed at writers of color.
“Members were willing to go to unusual measures,” she said. Personal donations were made as members reached into their own pockets to help with operational costs. “From those emergency panic meetings came the idea to appeal to more members, more
“Changing the perception goes hand in hand with the Grotto’s survival.”
Susan Ito, Writers Grotto member
diverse members, and to a wider financial range.”
Current membership is back up and has stabilized at 143 — as many members as ever, give or take. For the first time, the Grotto has an executive director, Mark Wallace, who is also an active member.
“It’s particularly hard for nonprofits to engage the donor community right now, but we’re finding it’s not impossible, and we’re fortunate to have a loyal and generous membership,” Wallace wrote in an email.
The Grotto’s financial future and identity as a multicultural literary destination continues to evolve: Rooted & Written recently received a grant from the California Arts Council that will enable it to expand programming for writers of color and pay instructors, who volunteered in its pilot run. Discussions on ways to coursecorrect continue among active members, now meeting remotely.
“The Grotto has continued many of its groups — short story, novel, publicity and other groups — and added a few gatherings that give us a space to discuss what’s happening, how it impacts us and what we might do,” Lovato wrote in an email.
When the Writers Grotto was started as an idea in the early ’90s — before cafes had been dubbed third spaces, socalled community living rooms — a coterie of writers bound by their commitment to craft sought to rent rooms and eke out or polish longform journalism and manuscripts, away from housemates and other distractions. It seemed like a practical solution to the proverbial room of one’s own.
And the concept worked.
The Grotto’s community and some of its writers blossomed. Alumni include authors Tom Barbash, Janis Cooke Newman and Vendela Vida along with poet Matthew Zapruder.
“When we started, people were still making their way in the publishing world and wanted companionship and to know they weren’t crazy,” said Caroline Paul, a former San Francisco firefighter turned writer who has been associated with the Grotto since its third year.
But as the Bay Area’s divergent voices — writers of color, and others of varying ages, abilities and incomes — struggled to keep their apartments and found powerful communities with each other and at smaller, specialty presses, the Grotto and its writers looked to be moving undisrupted toward success within the publishing mainstream, still operating by its oldworld terms of engagement and agents, practices that contributed toward its writers maintaining a veneer of privilege and status.
Along with the image of its founding team of three white men — Ethan Canin, Ethan Watters and Po Bronson — and the idea of a membersonly club, word on the street among writers of lesser means whispered that the Grotto was run like a fraternity.
“We’re trying hard to combat those perceptions,” said Wanzer, who landed at the Grotto after moving to the Bay Area from Atlanta. Introduced to the fold by author Christopher D. Cook, Wanzer has remained a mem
ber, though not without reservations.
“It’s extremely affordable for an office space, but for writers in general it isn’t affordable,” Wanzer said of the Grotto’s varying room rates, which start at $500 for a private office, plus annual dues ranging from $300 to $500. “Most of the members have spouses who support them. There are a few trust funds. I have neither, and many writers of color have neither.”
Wanzer said she hears feedback about the Grotto from her own circle of friends along the lines of “I can’t afford it, I don’t have an MFA, I don’t have a book out.”
The community’s survival has been an allhandsondeck effort, as members have been called on to assist in ways that dovetail with their respective areas of expertise, from education and finance to crisis management.
Lovato is a journalist and former research associate at the Center for Latino Policy Research at UC Berkeley with a background in business consulting and analysis. He joined the Grotto three years ago with the intention of writing a book about El Salvador’s civil war, gang violence and its migration crisis. “Unforgetting: A Memoir of Revolution and Redemption” will be published by HarperCollins in the fall.
He came to the Grotto’s reorganization meetings armed with a crisis plan not only to save the organization from collapse, but also with an eye on the systemic issues of underrepresentation inside and outside its walls.
“Roberto said, ‘We have to do something,’ ” Ito said of correcting the organization’s racial and cultural imbalance and the public perception of exclusivity, though Lovato knew it wasn’t going to be an overnight process.
“The strategic methods of war are used in corporate business and nonprofits,” Lovato said. “But strategic planning doesn’t work when there is a crisis dynamic. It’s no easy lift to change an organization, but the response has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Back in 1994, when the Grotto’s founders rented their flat for writing on Upper Market in the Castro district, with the intention of getting published and renting out six private rooms to other creatives, it was perhaps a mission more easily accomplished.
By 1996, the Grotto had outgrown its space and moved into two subsequent quarters South of Market where it survived an eviction and a demolition. It’s been at its current location, a wholly unglamorous office block, tucked under the bridge on Second at Bryant, since 2008.
A huge space is accessed by a creaky elevator, and the decor is more functional and funky than it is chic. Private writing rooms are still very much an option and available for rental, but whereas at one time, two people might have shared one space, current economics allow for a rotation of three, four or five people sharing the cost of one office. There remains a fellowship program to which emerging writers of all categories may apply for a writing room and a sixmonth free membership. An evolving schedule of workshops on practical skills like grant writing, and community events — some free — dot the online calendar.
With the shelterathome orders in place, the Grotto was quick to adapt.
“We are still holding our internal groups — short fiction, personal essay, journalism, book club — via Zoom as well as an allGrotto happy hour every Friday,” Ito said. The free and paid workshops for the public easily transitioned to the online format the Grotto has long employed for teaching. Some of the gatherings are also incomeproducing.
Despite having to bail itself out of its old business model, the Grotto has also demonstrated an ability to adapt: Since 2011, it has offered coworking community space as a lowercost alternative to the private offices. In 2012, a publishing arm developed, a natural outgrowth of its workshops: “642 Things” and “Lit Starts” are collective and individual publications by Grotto members, packed with tips and tools for writers. In 2014, Ingrid Rojas Contreras joined the Grotto through the fellowship program; she has since found critical and mainstream acceptance for her work.
“The Grotto is a welcoming place,” Rojas Contreras wrote via email. “When you’re emerging, you don’t know the things you don’t know, so it’s not always clear what to ask — but being at the Grotto and hanging out with seasoned writers exposes you to all kinds of things you didn’t know you needed.”
Born and raised in Bogotá, Rojas Contreras’ novel, “Fruit of the Drunken Tree” tells the story of children growing up in Colombia’s era of drug lord Pablo Escobar. Published in 2018, it became a national bestseller. Though currently on membership hiatus, the author hopes to return to the Grotto.
“I have a writing room finally, and am the kind of writer who likes to roll out of bed and begin to work,” she said.
With the extension of the citywide order to close everything but essential businesses, the Grotto’s future once again hangs in the balance.
“Some questions have arisen about the space going unused while folks are paying for it,” said Wanzer, who has paid for the year, while other members may be paying dues on installments. “No answers on that yet, and probably won’t be for a while.”
“We have a lot of work to do to build a solid foundation for the nonprofit,” said Wallace. “But then we get to turn more of our focus to the impact we can have in the world, not just as a group of topshelf writers but as an organization dedicated to amplifying the voices that often have a hard time getting heard.”
Lovato is keeping his eye on the strategic plan.
“We need to make a number of moves in a short time,” Lovato said. “We have to compete with places that offer space for less, and we have to pay rent. As individuals, we pay rent, we have families, and we live in the most costprohibitive city in the U.S. to be a writer.”
Still, he and the other memberorganizers remain hopeful for the Grotto’s future.
“We’ve had anonymous donations from Grotto members. The list of applicants is long and is waiting to be approved,” said Lovato. “I have people grabbing me and asking if we can have coffee, wondering how they can get involved. Writers of color are no longer on the outside.”