A free workshop to kick off the new year!
Michael David Lukas: A Few Simple Questions That Might Save You A Lot of Time
Free Revision Workshop 5:30-7:00PM PT January 29th 2026
Michael David Lukas is an award-winning novelist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. He has also taught at the University of San Francisco, the University of the Pacific, and 826 Valencia. In January, to kick off our writing year, Michael is kindly coming to give us a free revision workshop (not a free-revision workshop, note) centered on a few simple questions that might save you a lot of time. Having spent almost ten years on revising and re-revising a novel, I wish I’d asked him to come speak to us about this earlier!
The proof of Michael’s revision pudding is the success of his books. The Oracle of Stamboul was a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and was translated into more than a dozen languages. The Last Watchman of Old Cairo won the American Library Association’s Sophie Brody Award, the National Jewish Book Award in Fiction, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the Prix Interallie, and was named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the BBC.
If you’d like to learn from someone with these writing chops (and there’s more—check out his website), save your seat here for A Few Simple Questions that Might Save You a Lot of Time, 5:30-7:00pm PT, Thursday January 29th, 2026.
If you missed last month’s interview with Julia Park Tracey, here is the recording of our energetic discussion, throughout which insights into the publishing game, the editorial life, and the mind of this particular acquisitions editor kept popping like popcorn.
And now, while I’m on the subject of the publishing game, here’s an end-of-year wrap up and some well-deserved congratulations!
Uninventable and long-time community member Amy Lutz is the proud recipient of the Nonfiction prize in the Orison Books 2025 Best Spiritual Literature Awards. Judge Athena Dixon described Amy’s essay, Umbraphiles, as “…a revelation to read. Full of tenderness toward both the self and the world at large, the work unfurls from a need to belong, to find common ground, and to be loved without condition or caveat.” Whooot, Amy!
Uninventable and community member Jennifer Hu attended the Tin House Summer Workshops, meeting Rebecca Makka, being nominated for Best of the Net, and (pictured here) facilitating her first book talk at On Waverly in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Hopefully 2026 will be just as eventful and Jen will find her agent!
Community member Julie Zigoris is no stranger to bylines as a freelance journalist for the likes of The San Francisco Standard, KQED, SFGATE, Mission Local, and The Gazetteer. But she was thrilled to land her first New York Times byline this September with Tiny Love Story. Julie continues to work on her book project, Beyond the Frame: Lost Art, Found Story and a San Francisco Mystery, that emerged from her reporting.
Raji Pillai has a shiny new feather in her cap: she has gone from short story and novel-in-stories writer to voice talent and recorded her first audiobook, Looking for an Address by Nabaneeta Dev Sen, translated from Bengali by Chhanda Chattopadhya Bewtra, and published by Parabaas. Congratulations, Raji! And for all those of you with audiobooks in the making, please keep Raji in mind when you need voice talent!
For me, this was a HUGE year. I submitted my MS to my agent, Heather Jackson, on March 20, received her contract on April 26, sent in a revised manuscript on June 11, was on submission on June 12, went to auction on July 15 and sold to Whitney Frick at Dial Press—in what was named the Deal of the Week by Publishers Weekly on September 25. Just two days ago on November 30, I submitted a revised draft to Whitney, who dropped me a line after the first 50 pages to say that she was “obsessed.” It’s been a great year. Thank you for being part of it.
