California Writers Club
About Us
Who We Are
California Writers Club, founded in 1909, is one of the nation’s oldest professional clubs for writers. We are a 501c3 nonprofit educational corporation with 21 branches in California. Our organization is dedicated to educating writers of all levels and disciplines in the craft of writing and in the marketing of their work. The Club has more than 1,900 members.
Our branches hold regular meetings with informative speakers and opportunities for networking with your fellow writers and publishing industry pros through our workshops, contests, seminars, and conferences. Join us and improve your writing and build your career.
Our Mission
The California Writers Club (CWC) shall foster professionalism in writing, promote networking of writers with the writing community, mentor new writers, and provide literary support for writers and the writing community as is appropriate through education and leadership. CWC supports all genres, writing styles and related professions such as editing, publishing, photographic journalism and agents.
History
The informal gatherings of Jack London, poet George Sterling and short story writer Herman Whitaker, among others, eventually formed the Press Club of Alameda. In 1909, a faction of the membership split off to form the California Writers Club with Austin Lewis, an English civil libertarian, as the first president. Under the leadership of Dr. William S. Morgan, a quarterly bulletin was started in 1912, and California Writers Club incorporated in 1913, choosing the motto “Sail On!” from Joaquin Miller’s poem, “Columbus.”
Early honorary members included Jack London, George Sterling, John Muir, Joaquin Miller, and the first California poet laureate, Ina Coolbrith. The first WEST WINDS, a hardcover collection of fiction by members, was published in 1914 and was illustrated by California artists. Since that time three other WEST WINDS have been published.
“Writers Memorial Grove” at Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland celebrates California’s great writers with the planting of trees. The first tree was planted for Joaquin Miller. Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, Edward Roland Sill, Ina Coolbrith, Jack London, Mark Twain, Charles Fletcher Lummis, and Edwin Markham are so honored as well as Dashiel Hammett, Gertrude Stein, and historians Will and Ariel Durant.
The first California Writers Club Conference was held in Oakland in 1941. Today, one-to-three-day conferences are held by various CWC branches around California. Each attracts from 100 to 400 writers and each conference hosts editors, authors and publishers from all over the United States presenting lectures, workshops, and panel discussions on all aspects of writing.
Columbus by Joaquin Miller
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: “Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Adm’r’l, speak; what shall I say?”
“Why, say: ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’”
My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak.”
The stout mate thought of home;
a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
“What shall I say, brave Adm’r’l say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?”
“Why you shall say, at break of day:
‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’”
They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
“Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Adm’r’l; speak and say”
He said: “Sail on! sail on!, and on!”
They sailed, they sailed, then spake the mate:
“This mad sea shows his teeth to-night;
He curls his lips, he lies in wait,
With lifted teeth, as if to bite:
Brave Adm’r’l, say but one good word;
What shall we do when hope is gone?”
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
“Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!”
Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness.
Ah, that night Of all dark nights!
And then a speck —
A light! a light! a light! a light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: “On! sail on.”
California Writers Week
In 2003, the California State Assembly officially declared the third week in October each year as California Writers Week. For several months in early 2003, with the expert help of Anthony Folcarelli, the Central Board of the California Writers Club worked to establish California Writers Week. The plan was successful and on September 4, 2003 at 10 a.m., California Writers Club members gathered on the Assembly floor in Sacramento to receive a Joint Legislative Resolution from Assemblyman Tim Leslie. The Resolution is endorsed by the California Library Association.
California Authors of Note: The following authors were selected for the California Writers Club Joint Legislative Resolution in 2003.
CWC Collection Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley)
The California Writers Club archives its historic original papers at the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, one of the largest and most heavily used libraries of manuscripts, rare books, and unique items in the United States.
The collection contains club correspondence, meeting minutes, photographs, scrapbooks, and clippings, and is stored part onsite, part offsite. Advance notice is required for use. The CWC marked its centennial by presenting a time capsule recording the changes unfolding in the world of publishing. It is scheduled to be opened in 2035 in commemoration of Mark Twain’s bicentennial.
Also included in the collection is material documenting the origins of Woodminster Amphitheatre and Writers Memorial Grove, an early CWC project in Joaquin Miller Park, Oakland, CA.
The Bancroft additionally maintains papers of early California writers associated with the CWC, among them Gertrude Atherton, Ina Coolbrith, and Jack London.For information about accessing these resources, visit http://bancroft.berkeley.edu, email bancref@library.berkeley.edu, or phone 510-642-6481.