UPCOMING EVENTS
UPCOMING EVENTS
Back Room Break: Kaleidoscopic Reading
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Our Kaleidoscopic Readings are a means of bringing the solitary process of reading into community and is modeled on a teaching practice also known as Text Explosion.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
The Artist's Way, The Sunset Way
The Artist’s Way, the Sunset Way
Looking to reconnect with your artist self? This is a workshop on learning to rediscover the creativity within you.
Over our six meetings, we’ll complete the first half of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way creative recovery program. Guided by three facilitators experienced in teaching and working with The Artist’s Way’s process, you’ll go through the book’s lessons as part of a supportive community. During weekly workshops at The Backstory Above, you'll be reading the book, writing your Morning Pages, brainstorming Artist Date locales to visit during the week, and completing reflection exercises. Your facilitators will also lead small group discussions and writing exercises. In our time together, you'll learn more about your creative self.
This class is open to anyone looking to unblock their creativity, including those feeling stuck or seeking personal growth. The process helps overcome fear, self-doubt, and perfectionism to foster a more inspired life, regardless of prior creative experience.
Materials required: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, notebook/journal, pen/pencil
“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”- The Artist’s Way
Fridays, April 17 to May 22
10-11:30am
(15% discount for Backstory co-working and community members.)
Early Bird Rate: $365. Sign up before April 1. Discount automatically applied at checkout.
Community Reading
Please join us Sunday, April 19th 4:30-6:00 pm for the first installment of our Community Reading Series. April’s theme is the environment. We’re open to any pieces that explore the relationship between humans and their surroundings!
Please RSVP on Google Calendar to attend. If you’re interested in reading a 5-7 minute excerpt, or if you'd like to participate in future events, please email hi@thebackstoryabove.com.
Open to members and their guests.
Memoir: An Evening Series with Laura Fraser
Susan Orlean's Joyride is both a memoir and a master class in memoir. In this class, we'll read the book together and discuss students' own memoir processes -- how to start, themes, structure, writing about people you know. Each class will include an exercise to help students work on their own memoirs.
The class comes with an optional half hour consultation and critique with Laura about your own work. In advance of your conversation, she will read up to five pages of your memoir, or a description and outline.
Tuesdays, 7-8:30 pm
April 21, April 28, May 5
$260 (15% off for Backstory co-working & community members)
+ Optional Individual Consultations with Laura
$75 (15% off for members)
Back Room Break: Writing Warm Up
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Join us for a quick writing exercise as a palette refresher.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
The Artist's Way, The Sunset Way
The Artist’s Way, the Sunset Way
Looking to reconnect with your artist self? This is a workshop on learning to rediscover the creativity within you.
Over our six meetings, we’ll complete the first half of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way creative recovery program. Guided by three facilitators experienced in teaching and working with The Artist’s Way’s process, you’ll go through the book’s lessons as part of a supportive community. During weekly workshops at The Backstory Above, you'll be reading the book, writing your Morning Pages, brainstorming Artist Date locales to visit during the week, and completing reflection exercises. Your facilitators will also lead small group discussions and writing exercises. In our time together, you'll learn more about your creative self.
This class is open to anyone looking to unblock their creativity, including those feeling stuck or seeking personal growth. The process helps overcome fear, self-doubt, and perfectionism to foster a more inspired life, regardless of prior creative experience.
Materials required: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, notebook/journal, pen/pencil
“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”- The Artist’s Way
Fridays, April 17 to May 22
10-11:30am
(15% discount for Backstory co-working and community members.)
Early Bird Rate: $365. Sign up before April 1. Discount automatically applied at checkout.
Independent Bookstore Day
We’ll be joining Green Apple Books on the Park and celebrating Independent Bookstore Day! In addition to their exciting offerings (we hear tarot readings are on the menu), we’ll be opening up the mezzanine for blind contour drawings, a kaleidoscopic reading amongst friends & strangers, and more!
The Four Hour Retreat
Carve out four hours from your weekend to dedicate to your creative work. We’ll use each other for accountability and companionship as we dive into individual projects. Focus of this half-day retreat is still to be determined.
The day will be broken into two 1.5 hour sections with a guided intention setting exercise to start us off, a break for movement in the middle, and a closing reflection.
Warm beverages will be provided. Bring a snack if you need one.
Provided at no cost to community and co-working members. Please RSVP below.
(Members only)
Memoir: An Evening Series with Laura Fraser
Susan Orlean's Joyride is both a memoir and a master class in memoir. In this class, we'll read the book together and discuss students' own memoir processes -- how to start, themes, structure, writing about people you know. Each class will include an exercise to help students work on their own memoirs.
The class comes with an optional half hour consultation and critique with Laura about your own work. In advance of your conversation, she will read up to five pages of your memoir, or a description and outline.
Tuesdays, 7-8:30 pm
April 21, April 28, May 5
$260 (15% off for Backstory co-working & community members)
+ Optional Individual Consultations with Laura
$75 (15% off for members)
Back Room Break: Kaleidoscopic Reading
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Our Kaleidoscopic Readings are a means of bringing the solitary process of reading into community and is modeled on a teaching practice also known as Text Explosion.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
The Artist's Way, The Sunset Way
The Artist’s Way, the Sunset Way
Looking to reconnect with your artist self? This is a workshop on learning to rediscover the creativity within you.
Over our six meetings, we’ll complete the first half of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way creative recovery program. Guided by three facilitators experienced in teaching and working with The Artist’s Way’s process, you’ll go through the book’s lessons as part of a supportive community. During weekly workshops at The Backstory Above, you'll be reading the book, writing your Morning Pages, brainstorming Artist Date locales to visit during the week, and completing reflection exercises. Your facilitators will also lead small group discussions and writing exercises. In our time together, you'll learn more about your creative self.
This class is open to anyone looking to unblock their creativity, including those feeling stuck or seeking personal growth. The process helps overcome fear, self-doubt, and perfectionism to foster a more inspired life, regardless of prior creative experience.
Materials required: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, notebook/journal, pen/pencil
“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”- The Artist’s Way
Fridays, April 17 to May 22
10-11:30am
(15% discount for Backstory co-working and community members.)
Early Bird Rate: $365. Sign up before April 1. Discount automatically applied at checkout.
Memoir: An Evening Series with Laura Fraser (Copy)
Susan Orlean's Joyride is both a memoir and a master class in memoir. In this class, we'll read the book together and discuss students' own memoir processes -- how to start, themes, structure, writing about people you know. Each class will include an exercise to help students work on their own memoirs.
The class comes with an optional half hour consultation and critique with Laura about your own work. In advance of your conversation, she will read up to five pages of your memoir, or a description and outline.
Tuesdays, 7-8:30 pm
April 21, April 28, May 5
$260 (15% off for Backstory co-working & community members)
+ Optional Individual Consultations with Laura
$75 (15% off for members)
Lunch & Learn with Agent Mark Tauber
Join us a for a co-working members’ pizza lunch and a conversation about the publishing industry with Mark Tauber of The Watermark Agency. Bring your questions about querying, submission, the path to publication or whatever else you’ve been wondering about.
We’ll be picking up vegetarian pizza from Arizmendi. You can view their flavor of the day here.
The Artist's Way, The Sunset Way
The Artist’s Way, the Sunset Way
Looking to reconnect with your artist self? This is a workshop on learning to rediscover the creativity within you.
Over our six meetings, we’ll complete the first half of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way creative recovery program. Guided by three facilitators experienced in teaching and working with The Artist’s Way’s process, you’ll go through the book’s lessons as part of a supportive community. During weekly workshops at The Backstory Above, you'll be reading the book, writing your Morning Pages, brainstorming Artist Date locales to visit during the week, and completing reflection exercises. Your facilitators will also lead small group discussions and writing exercises. In our time together, you'll learn more about your creative self.
This class is open to anyone looking to unblock their creativity, including those feeling stuck or seeking personal growth. The process helps overcome fear, self-doubt, and perfectionism to foster a more inspired life, regardless of prior creative experience.
Materials required: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, notebook/journal, pen/pencil
“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”- The Artist’s Way
Fridays, April 17 to May 22
10-11:30am
(15% discount for Backstory co-working and community members.)
Early Bird Rate: $365. Sign up before April 1. Discount automatically applied at checkout.
Back Room Break: Kaleidoscopic Reading
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Our Kaleidoscopic Readings are a means of bringing the solitary process of reading into community and is modeled on a teaching practice also known as Text Explosion.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
The Artist's Way, The Sunset Way
The Artist’s Way, the Sunset Way
Looking to reconnect with your artist self? This is a workshop on learning to rediscover the creativity within you.
Over our six meetings, we’ll complete the first half of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way creative recovery program. Guided by three facilitators experienced in teaching and working with The Artist’s Way’s process, you’ll go through the book’s lessons as part of a supportive community. During weekly workshops at The Backstory Above, you'll be reading the book, writing your Morning Pages, brainstorming Artist Date locales to visit during the week, and completing reflection exercises. Your facilitators will also lead small group discussions and writing exercises. In our time together, you'll learn more about your creative self.
This class is open to anyone looking to unblock their creativity, including those feeling stuck or seeking personal growth. The process helps overcome fear, self-doubt, and perfectionism to foster a more inspired life, regardless of prior creative experience.
Materials required: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, notebook/journal, pen/pencil
“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”- The Artist’s Way
Fridays, April 17 to May 22
10-11:30am
(15% discount for Backstory co-working and community members.)
Early Bird Rate: $365. Sign up before April 1. Discount automatically applied at checkout.
The Four Hour Retreat
Carve out four hours from your weekend to dedicate to your creative work. We’ll use each other for accountability and companionship as we dive into individual projects. Focus of this half-day retreat is still to be determined.
The day will be broken into two 1.5 hour sections with a guided intention setting exercise to start us off, a break for movement in the middle, and a closing reflection.
Warm beverages will be provided. Bring a snack if you need one.
Provided at no cost to community and co-working members. Please RSVP below.
(Members only)
Back Room Break: Writing Warm Up
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Bring a pen and yourself, and join us for a quick writing exercise.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
The Artist's Way, The Sunset Way
The Artist’s Way, the Sunset Way
Looking to reconnect with your artist self? This is a workshop on learning to rediscover the creativity within you.
Over our six meetings, we’ll complete the first half of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way creative recovery program. Guided by three facilitators experienced in teaching and working with The Artist’s Way’s process, you’ll go through the book’s lessons as part of a supportive community. During weekly workshops at The Backstory Above, you'll be reading the book, writing your Morning Pages, brainstorming Artist Date locales to visit during the week, and completing reflection exercises. Your facilitators will also lead small group discussions and writing exercises. In our time together, you'll learn more about your creative self.
This class is open to anyone looking to unblock their creativity, including those feeling stuck or seeking personal growth. The process helps overcome fear, self-doubt, and perfectionism to foster a more inspired life, regardless of prior creative experience.
Materials required: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, notebook/journal, pen/pencil
“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”- The Artist’s Way
Fridays, April 17 to May 22
10-11:30am
(15% discount for Backstory co-working and community members.)
Early Bird Rate: $365. Sign up before April 1. Discount automatically applied at checkout.
Memoir Pt. 2: An Evening Series with Laura Fraser
Mary Karr is a master memoirist, and her book The Art of Memoir is indispensable for the aspiring memoirist. It demystifies the craft of writing memoir, blending personal anecdotes from her own life and teaching career with insights from other writers. It's an accessible, irreverent, and honest exploration of the genre, covering the mechanics, history, and emotional truths of writing about one's own life.
The class comes with an optional half hour consultation and critique with Laura about your own work. In advance of your conversation, she will read up to five pages of your memoir, or a description and outline.
Please read The Art of Memoir ahead of class if you can. Copies are available at Green Apple Books on the Park for purchase. Class limited to 10 people.
Tuesdays, 7-8:30 pm
May 26, June 2, June 16
Please note that there will be no class Tuesday, June 9.
$260 (15% off for Backstory co-working & community members)
+ Optional Individual Consultations with Laura
$75 (15% off for members)
Memoir Pt. 2: An Evening Series with Laura Fraser
Mary Karr is a master memoirist, and her book The Art of Memoir is indispensable for the aspiring memoirist. It demystifies the craft of writing memoir, blending personal anecdotes from her own life and teaching career with insights from other writers. It's an accessible, irreverent, and honest exploration of the genre, covering the mechanics, history, and emotional truths of writing about one's own life.
The class comes with an optional half hour consultation and critique with Laura about your own work. In advance of your conversation, she will read up to five pages of your memoir, or a description and outline.
Please read The Art of Memoir ahead of class if you can. Copies are available at Green Apple Books on the Park for purchase. Class limited to 10 people.
Tuesdays, 7-8:30 pm
May 26, June 2, June 16
Please note that there will be no class Tuesday, June 9.
$260 (15% off for Backstory co-working & community members)
+ Optional Individual Consultations with Laura
$75 (15% off for members)
Pizza Lunch!
Join us a for a co-working members’ pizza lunch. Take a break, grab a bite and chat with other co-working members.
We’ll be picking up vegetarian pizza from Arizmendi. You can view their flavor of the day here.
The Backstory Book Club: Just Watch Me by Lior Torenberg
This month we’re reading…
Fleabag meets Big Swiss in this bold debut about a charismatic misfit who livestreams her life for seven days and nights to raise money to save her comatose sister—a poignant and darkly funny exploration of grief, forgiveness, and redemption.
Dell Danvers is barely keeping it together. She’s behind on rent for her studio apartment (formerly a walk-in closet), she’s being plagued by perpetual stomach pain, and her younger sister, Daisy, is in a coma at a hospital that wants to pull the plug. Freshly unemployed and subsisting on selling plants to trust fund kids, Dell impulsively starts a 24-hour livestream under the username mademoiselle_dell to fundraise for private life support for Daisy.
Dell is her stream’s dungeon master, banishing those who don’t abide by her terms and steadily rising up the platform’s ranks with her sympathetic story and angry-funny screen presence. Once she discovers she has a talent for eating spicy food, her streaming fame explodes and her pepper consumption escalates from jalapeño to ghost to the hottest pepper on earth: the Carolina Reaper. Dell is finally good at something—but as her behavior becomes riskier and a shadowy troll threatens to expose her dark past, Dell must reckon with what her digital life ignores, and what real redemption means.
Narrated in seven taut chapters, one for each day of Dell’s livestream, Just Watch Me careens through a week in the life of this misguided striver with a heart of gold. Voyeuristic and visceral, audacious and outrageous, Lior Torenberg’s debut is both a razor-sharp tragicomedy about the internet economy and a surreptitiously moving tale about the desire to be watched, and the terror of being seen.
About the Author
Lior Torenberg’s work has been published by One Story, MAYDAY, the Poetry Society of New York, and others. She received her MFA in creative writing from New York University and graduated from the Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s Book Project. Just Watch Me is her first novel. Learn more at LiorTorenberg.com.
This event is restricted to Backstory co-working and community members and their guests. If that’s not you (yet), but you’d like it to be, apply for a community membership today for $20/month + onboarding fee.
* Backstory Members: all in-person purchases at Green Apple Books on the Park receive a 10% discount. Remember to show your membership card.
$20 per month
Plus one-time $60 onboarding fee.
Our community membership affords:
Access to all free community programming including Four Hour Retreats, Sound Baths, Social Events, Book Club etc.
Ability to purchase co-working day-passes and packages
5 pack (expires in 3 months): $165
10 pack (expires in 6 months): $310
20 pack (expires in 12 months): $585
15% discount on all paid programming (classes, workshops etc.)
10% off books purchased at Green Apple Books on the Park (with membership card)
Access to The Backstory Book Club
Access to member only web portal
Monthly newsletter
Back Room Break: Writing Warm Up
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Bring a pen and yourself, and join us for a quick writing exercise.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
Memoir Pt. 2: An Evening Series with Laura Fraser
Mary Karr is a master memoirist, and her book The Art of Memoir is indispensable for the aspiring memoirist. It demystifies the craft of writing memoir, blending personal anecdotes from her own life and teaching career with insights from other writers. It's an accessible, irreverent, and honest exploration of the genre, covering the mechanics, history, and emotional truths of writing about one's own life.
The class comes with an optional half hour consultation and critique with Laura about your own work. In advance of your conversation, she will read up to five pages of your memoir, or a description and outline.
Please read The Art of Memoir ahead of class if you can. Copies are available at Green Apple Books on the Park for purchase. Class limited to 10 people.
Tuesdays, 7-8:30 pm
May 26, June 2, June 16
Please note that there will be no class Tuesday, June 9.
$260 (15% off for Backstory co-working & community members)
+ Optional Individual Consultations with Laura
$75 (15% off for members)
Back Room Break: Kaleidoscopic Reading
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Our Kaleidoscopic Readings are a means of bringing the solitary process of reading into community and is modeled on a teaching practice also known as Text Explosion.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
Pizza Lunch!
Join us a for a co-working members’ pizza lunch. Take a break, grab a bite and chat with other co-working members.
We’ll be picking up vegetarian pizza from Arizmendi. You can view their flavor of the day here.
The Backstory Book Club: The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
This month we’re reading…
An era-defining novel about five Black women over the course of their twenty-year friendship, as they move through the dizzying and sometimes precarious period between young adulthood and midlife—in the much-anticipated second book from National Book Award finalist Angela Flournoy.
Desiree, January, Monique, and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood, and of big-city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood—overwhelming, mysterious, and full of freedom and consequences—swoops in and stays.
Desiree is estranged from her sister Danielle, and the two nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January’s got a relationship with a “good” man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life.
As these friends move from the late 2000’s into the late 2020’s, from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another—amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability, and the increasing volatility of modern American life.
The Wilderness is Angela Flournoy’s masterful and kaleidoscopic follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut The Turner House. A generational talent, she captures with disarming wit and electric language how the most profound connections over a lifetime can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship.
About the Author
Angela Flournoy is the author of The Turner House, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, an Indie Next pick, and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, and she has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Flournoy has taught at the University of Iowa, Princeton University, and UCLA. She lives in New York.
This event is restricted to Backstory co-working and community members and their guests. If that’s not you (yet), but you’d like it to be, apply for a community membership today for $20/month + onboarding fee.
* Backstory Members: all in-person purchases at Green Apple Books on the Park receive a 10% discount. Remember to show your membership card.
$20 per month
Plus one-time $60 onboarding fee.
Our community membership affords:
Access to all free community programming including Four Hour Retreats, Sound Baths, Social Events, Book Club etc.
Ability to purchase co-working day-passes and packages
5 pack (expires in 3 months): $165
10 pack (expires in 6 months): $310
20 pack (expires in 12 months): $585
15% discount on all paid programming (classes, workshops etc.)
10% off books purchased at Green Apple Books on the Park (with membership card)
Access to The Backstory Book Club
Access to member only web portal
Monthly newsletter
Back Room Break: Kaleidoscopic Reading
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Our Kaleidoscopic Readings are a means of bringing the solitary process of reading into community and is modeled on a teaching practice also known as Text Explosion.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
Marriage to the Sea: A Reading and Conversation Between author, Sarah Stone, & David Haynes
Sarah Stone
(she/they)
Sarah Stone is the author of the forthcoming Marriage to the Sea (Four Way Books, March 2026), Hungry Ghost Theater (a finalist for the 38th annual Northern California Book Awards), and The True Sources of the Nile, as well as co-author, with Ron Nyren, of Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers. Sarah’s work has appeared in Image, Ploughshares, Necessary Fiction, 100 Word Story, StoryQuarterly, The Millions, Scoundrel Time, The Believer, CRAFT, Alta Journal online for the California Book Club, and A Kite in the Wind: Fiction Writers on Their Craft. Her writing was included in the list of distinguished stories of 2020 in The Best American Short Stories 2021 edited by Jesmyn Ward.
David Haynes
(he/him)
David Haynes is the author of eight novels for adults and five books for younger readers. He is an emeritus professor of English at Southern Methodist University, where he directed the creative writing program for ten years. From 1996 through 2024 he taught regularly in MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. His most recently novel is A STAR IN THE FACE OF THE SKY, and in 2023 he published a 30th anniversary edition of RIGHT BY MY SIDE as part of the Penguin Classic series. MARTHA’S DAUGHTER: A NOVELLA AND STORIES, his first collection of short fiction was released by McSweeney’s in September.
David serves as Board Chair for Kimbilio, a community of writers and scholars committed to developing, empowering, and sustaining fiction writers from the African diaspora and their stories.
Back Room Break: Writing Warm Up
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Bring a pen and yourself, and join us for a quick writing exercise.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
The Four Hour Retreat
Join us for a half-day retreat.
Carve out four hours from your weekend to dedicate to your creative work. We’ll use each other for accountability and companionship as we dive into individual projects. This retreat will focus on macro-revision. Please bring or keep in mind a draft of an entire work. (If you have one! If not, don’t let that stop you from coming!)
The day will be broken into two 1.5 hour sections with a guided intention setting exercise to start us off, a break for movement in the middle, and a closing reflection.
Warm beverages will be provided. Bring a snack if you need one.
Provided at no cost to community and co-working members. Please RSVP below.
(Members only)
Back Room Break: Kaleidoscopic Reading
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Our Kaleidoscopic Readings are a means of bringing the solitary process of reading into community and is modeled on a teaching practice also known as Text Explosion.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
Pizza Lunch!
Join us a for a co-working members’ pizza lunch. Take a break, grab a bite and chat with other co-working members.
We’ll be picking up vegetarian pizza from Arizmendi. You can view their flavor of the day here.
Back Room Break: Kaleidoscopic Reading
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Our Kaleidoscopic Readings are a means of bringing the solitary process of reading into community and is modeled on a teaching practice also known as Text Explosion.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
The Four Hour Retreat
Join us for February’s second half-day retreat.
Carve out four hours from your weekend to dedicate to your creative work. We’ll use each other for accountability and companionship as we dive into individual projects. This half-day retreat will focus on revision. Please bring a writing sample of no more than 250 words that needs work and that you are comfortable sharing.
The day will be broken into two 1.5 hour sections with a guided intention setting exercise to start us off, a break for movement in the middle, and a closing reflection.
Warm beverages will be provided. Bring a snack if you need one.
Provided at no cost to community and co-working members. Please RSVP below.
(Members only)
Back Room Break: Writing Warm Up
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Bring a pen and yourself, and join us for a quick writing exercise.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
The Four Hour Retreat
Join us for February’s first of two half-day retreats.
Carve out four hours from your weekend to dedicate to your creative work. We’ll use each other for accountability and companionship as we dive into individual projects. This half-day retreat will focus on tapping into mood via song. Please bring headphones and whatever device you use to listen to music.
The day will be broken into two 1.5 hour sections with a guided intention setting exercise to start us off, a break for movement in the middle, and a closing reflection.
Warm beverages will be provided. Bring a snack if you need one.
Provided at no cost to community and co-working members. Please RSVP below.
(Members only)
Pizza Lunch!
Join us a for a co-working members’ pizza lunch. Take a break, grab a bite and chat with other co-working members.
We’ll be picking up vegetarian pizza from Arizmendi. You can view their flavor of the day here.
The Backstory Book Club: Take It From Me by Alia Hanna Habib
This month we’re reading…
Take It From Me: An Agent's Guide to Building a Nonfiction Writing Career from Scratch, Alia Hanna Habib. Join us Sunday, February 1st at 4:30 pm for the first conversation of 2026 with the author herself (!!!)
What are we reading?
Alia Hanna Habib remembers what it was like to be on the outside of the publishing world, looking in. Arriving in New York, a first-generation college student with a love of reading and loads of ambition, she had no idea how to break into the business of books. Now, years later, in her career as an agent, she hears from prospective clients who, whether they’re experts at the top of their fields or wholly new to the writing game, consider finding success in publishing to be a mysterious and daunting endeavor. Ever determined to flout the stereotype of agent as gatekeeper, however, Habib is prepared to hand emerging writers the key.
Drawing on wisdom from her star-studded list of clients, including Hanif Abdurraqib, Judy Batalion, Merve Emre, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Clint Smith, Habib provides context and clarity to each step of the publishing process, from the germination of a book idea to finding an agent to represent it, from crafting an engaging proposal to navigating the perils of publicity. Readers will find real-life samples of her authors’ pitch letters and book proposals, as well as templates writers can use when querying agents or promoting their work on social media. She also incorporates the advice of trusted industry colleagues—attorneys, accountants, editors, publishers, publicists, and more—gifting readers with a full team of experts to answer all the questions they’ve had about the publishing world, but were too afraid, or didn’t know, to ask.
Essential for both the aspiring novice and the seasoned professional, Take It from Me is a guidebook writers will return to again and again. At times laugh-out-loud funny, at others brutally honest about her own experiences in publishing and in life, Habib offers a clear-eyed look at the challenges facing today’s aspiring nonfiction writers and then gives them the comprehensive, expert guidance they need to put those roadblocks in the rearview mirror.
Why?
Well, we are a book club for writers, and this is a book written with emerging writers in mind. More than that, we are enormous fans of Habib’s contributions to the world of books both as a writer and an agent. In addition to being a debut author and one of New York Magazine’s Most Powerful New Yorkers You’ve Never Heard Of, Alia Hanna Habib is also a Vice President and literary agent at The Gernert Company, where she represents MacArthur Fellows, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, National Book Award finalists, and numerous New York Times bestselling authors.
Her perspective on and position within the industry is singular. To get a sense of her insight, generosity and excellent instincts, check out her Substack, Delivery & Acceptance, or any of the incredible works that she’s helped bring into the world. An incomplete list: Nikole Hannah-Jones’ The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, Hanif Abdurraqib’s There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, Clint Smith’s How the Word Is Passed, and Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts.
This event is restricted to Backstory co-working and community members and their guests. If that’s not you (yet), but you’d like it to be, apply for a community membership today for $20/month through January 31.
* Backstory Members: all in-person purchases at Green Apple Books on the Park receive a 10% discount. Remember to show your membership card.
$20 per month
Plus one-time $60 onboarding fee.
Our community membership affords:
Access to all free community programming including Four Hour Retreats, Sound Baths, Social Events, Book Club etc.
Ability to purchase co-working day-passes and packages
5 pack (expires in 3 months): $165
10 pack (expires in 6 months): $310
20 pack (expires in 12 months): $585
15% discount on all paid programming (classes, workshops etc.)
10% off books purchased at Green Apple Books on the Park (with membership card)
Access to The Backstory Book Club
Access to member only web portal
Monthly newsletter
Golden Poppy Awards
(Members & Guests)
Join us for a celebration of all the Golden Poppy nominees, including local novelist and Backstory community member, Jon Hickey, whose debut novel, Big Chief, is nominated in the Fiction category. We will be projecting the awards above the bookstore. Read more on the 2025 Golden Poppy Awards below!
The California Independent Booksellers Alliance (CALIBA) presents the 2025 Golden Poppy Awards in recognition of the most distinguished books written and illustrated by creators who have made California their home.
Committees for each category are made up of booksellers throughout the state tasked with developing a final ballot that will be voted upon by CALIBA's bookstore membership and their employees.
Our goal is to elevate California voices and recognize the unique and diverse talents within our state as voted upon by the booksellers who know them best.
Back Room Break: Kaleidoscopic Reading
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Our Kaleidoscopic Readings are a means of bringing the solitary process of reading into community and is modeled on a teaching practice also known as Text Explosion.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
Back Room Break: Writing Warm Up
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Join us for a quick writing exercise as a palette refresher.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
Back Room Break: Kaleidoscopic Reading
Grab some tea and come to the back room for a midweek break and a chance to connect with other members over words. Our Kaleidoscopic Readings are a means of bringing the solitary process of reading into community and is modeled on a teaching practice also known as Text Explosion.
(Community & Co-Working Members)
Creative Manifestations for the Year Ahead with Carrie Mar & Cal Calamia
Kick off the new year in a reflective and generative space. Expect goal setting, open-ended writing prompts, and ways to nourish your creative self all year long. Bring the future you want to life through the creative use of all your senses.
This 90 minute generative class led by local poets Carrie Mar and Cal Calamia is designed for writers and non-writers of all levels and disciplines. Please bring a pen and notebook (or a laptop, if preferred).
Sunday, January 11 from 2:30 - 4 pm
(15% discount for Backstory co-working and community members.)
The Four Hour Retreat
Join us for the first half day retreat of 2026.
Carve out four hours from your weekend to dedicate to your creative work. We’ll use each other for accountability and companionship as we dive into individual projects. This half-day retreat will focus on taking stock and setting intentions.
The day will be broken into two 1.5 hour sections with a guided intention setting exercise to start us off, a break for movement in the middle, and a closing reflection.
Warm beverages will be provided. Bring a snack if you need one.
Provided at no cost to community and co-working members. Please RSVP below.
(Members only)