826 Valencia: You Could be a Writer! (Or a Pirate.)

Lately, I've been really excited about my volunteer work at 826 Valencia, San Francisco's inner city writing program. We tutor students after school. They have workshops like converting poetry to song lyrics, podcasting, writing autobiographies, writing about art, and writing short stories. Students K-12 complete quarterly lit mags. Famous local authors line the walls with their marked-up manuscripts to illustrate that perfection doesn't happen the first try. 826 is the brainchild of author Dave Eggers, and features a pirate shop in its storefront, complete with fake eyeballs and eye patches. So if you're interested in being a writer, a volunteer, or just an ordinary run of the mill pirate, click here.