Between February and April 2010, Oakland Word offered twenty free creative writing workshops to the general public. Featuring a range of voices from the workshops, there are myriad themes in this collection--childhood, life transitions, immigration, injustice, romance, bereavement, war legacies, spirituality, and the simple joys of life. Playful, serious, contemplative, and humorous, these stories give glimpses of Oakland you won't find anywhere else. Oakland Word's mission is to provoke dialogue and encourage creativity, literacy, and self-sufficiency by providing opportunities for underrepresented youth and adults to write, publish and perform works about their lives.