San Diego

Clarion Write-A-Thon: Helping Writers Reach their Dreams

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Writers Andrew Emmott, myself, Desirina Boskovich and Matthew Cody at Clarion

 

I signed up for the Clarion Write-A-Thon, a fundraiser that puts a whole bunch of writers into a sensory deprivation tank while they write for six weeks.  

Oh wait, there’s no sensory deprivation tank….

But still, the writers are joining together to keep Clarion San Diego alive and well for years to come by raising money to provide scholarships.  I’ve already written a whole essay about how life-changing my Clarion experience was.  I know it has been for my whole group of cohort writers–all 18 of them.  

The Link to My Writer’s Page lets you know what I’ll be doing for six weeks, and encourages you to donate a bit of money–maybe per day, per word, or just a small sum ($20, $50, $100) in total.  All proceeds go to Clarion for scholarships, helping more people like me get to attend.  Most of us who attend a six week workshop make sacrifices to be there, and certainly the costs can be high to spend six weeks anywhere in the world (even my apartment is $1050 just in rent for six weeks), but the benefit each student receives from that time is ginormous.  

Each Student gets:

  • individual instruction from 6 major writers in the field
  • connections to agents, publishers, editors
  • advice on how to create a writerly business
  • a cohort, band of writers that encourages during the long haul
  • a lifetime of mentoring
  • six weeks of time free to write, concentrate on their art

It’s very difficult to shave off time for writing, and this six weeks is a huge jumpstart.  I have sold 4 out of the 5 stories I wrote for Clarion, and frequently I take out that notebook that I kept during Clarion to record what the teachers/writers said, and I go through it again.  You can’t GET this kind of instruction anywhere else but with publishing writers, established in their fields.  

Enjoying the 4th of July: Jeff and Ann VanderMeer, Matthew Cody and myself

 

If you have trouble imagining what this would be like (maybe you don’t write science fiction), imagine a workshop of six weeks where each week you got to spend with these people: Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, John Updike, John Irving, Kazuo Ishiguro and Alice Munro.  And then editors from Harper Collins, Random House, etc came by to chat with you and take your pitches, and agents came by, and you went to a giant convention where all the big writers hung out.  You got to eat and drink with people who were doing your career— like job-shadowing, except they became your friends–for SIX WEEKS.  It’s just like that but with the big names of Science Fiction and Fantasy!

In the Golden Age of Science Fiction, a writer learned by joining up with a pulp magazine and writing stories every week to push into those magazines–they trained with writers around them, doing the same thing, encouraging each other.  

Nowadays, we’re all trying to get stories into those “pulp” magazines, Asimov’s, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy–but we’re not in a room full of other writers writing together–we’re strung out across the world.  The only places we get that kind of training are these workshops–they stand in for the kind of on-the-job writing/training you would get at a magazine.  The intensity is the same.  I think the quality is higher.  But without Clarions, writers wouldn’t have that avenue for training, and many who might not figure out how to write for the magazines, or their novels by osmosis, wouldn’t get published. 

For the six weeks, I will be working on chapters of my first novel, chapters a publisher is expecting and has asked for.  

Please consider donating even a small amount to the cause of helping writers in the Science Fiction and Fantasy field.  We brought you space shuttles and cell phones, fax machines and computers, rockets and really great entertainment.  

If you talked on your cell phone today, hug a science fiction writer for imagining it!  

And consider a small donation to the workshop that helps the visionaries think up such an interesting future.

Clarion San Diego accepting applications till March 1st

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If you want to write science fiction and fantasy there is no better crucible and proving ground, classroom and community, than Clarion San Diego.  I have already written a whole page on it, and updated the writers for 2010.  It looks to be awesome.  You have about six weeks to turn in applications to go.  If you want a career in writing science fiction and fantasy, this is the right investment.  After this, you don’t have to invest in another writer’s workshop for more… this is all you need.  The writers are some you know and some you might not yet:  Samuel R. Delany, George R.R. Martin, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, Delia Sherman and Dale Bailey.  The opportunities you get to move your work around and let people see it are great.  

See more information here.

Go to their website here. 

That’s us in the picture, on the bluffs outside La Jolla, near San Diego.  That’s me pointing to the future.  I say, “Hey, look, I can see a whole group of published writers!”  And then someone says, “Out to sea, huh?”  Okay, we didn’t say that.  But these people became some of my closest friends.  

  I seem to be doing more pointing.  I do that a lot.  People just stare at me like I’m one of those people.  

Clarion solidified my “calling”–not only because everyone sacrificed to get there, but because we were taken seriously.  I wrote a lot and wrote intensely.  I was challenged.  Wow, was I challenged.  And I experienced some great moments of my life.  I would love to relive this again–and really relish it this time.  You get so busy writing you sometimes forget.  

If you think it’s too much, it will be.  But I took a third of everything I had and put into this workshop financially, and I wasn’t the only one.  I love where it brought me, and where it let me stay for six weeks, and where it’s carrying me in the future.  I think you will too.  

There are a lot of workshops–Odyssey, Clarion West, etc—but I think this one is the best.  And if you respect the 18 other students there, you will get the most out of the workshop.  If you feel defensive about your work before you go, you might not get as much out of the workshop.  Because certainly the work will be up for critique–but not you.  You are up for amazing moments and good, solid career information. 

Go.  You’ll be glad you did.  

Clarion 2009 open for submission Jan 2-Mar 1

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Announcing the

2009 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop

@ UC San Diego

June 28 to August 8, 2009

The Clarion Workshop is widely recognized as the premier training ground for aspiring writers of fantasy and science fiction short stories. Many graduates have become well-known writers, and a large number have won major awards. Instructors are among the most respected writers and editors working in the field today. The 2009 writers in residence are Holly Black, Larissa Lai, Robert Crais, Kim Stanley Robinson, Elizabeth Hand, and Paul Park. The six-week workshop is held on the beautiful beachside campus of the University of California at San Diego .

Since its inception in 1968, Clarion has been known as the “boot camp” for writers of speculative fiction. Each year 18-20 students, ranging in age from late teens to those in mid-career, are selected from applicants who have the potential for highly successful writing careers. Students are expected to write several new short stories during the six-week workshop, and to give and receive constructive criticism. Instructors and students reside together in campus apartments throughout the intensive six-week program.

The application period for the 2009 workshop is January 2 – March 1. Applicants must submit two short stories with their application. Scholarships are available. Additional information can be found here.

For my testimonial, click on Clarion Page above.

Nostalgia, thy name is Clarion

jstueart8 Comments

It was this time last year when I had the greatest experience of my science fiction writing life. I’m talking Clarion’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop, held in San Diego (really La Jolla) at UCSD (2007).

I was in the middle of a move out of the country—a summer I had little money to spare–but I threw a quarter of what I had into this workshop, in hopes of learning new technique, honing my writing skills and re-invigorating my desire to write science fiction and fantasy. I had no idea what I was in for…

It was 6 weeks of writing–completely devoted to writing and learning from 18 other writers like myself, who had come to pick up skills too, and from 6 writing teachers, all published writers in their fields: Greg Frost, Jeff and Ann Vandermeer (the editor of Weird Tales), Karen Joy Fowler, Cory Doctorow, Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman. We were visited by Stan Robinson, Vernor Vinge, and got to go to the ComiCon held in San Diego.

The core part of it –despite all the superheroes of writing around us–was the group of us, living and writing together in the dorms at UCSD. It was six weeks of hard work, but I look back and I think it was the best work I have ever had—creating. It was electric. Everyone was creating fantastic stories. I’m serious. People were on a level I have never been around–and they were pumping out stories, and what was great about it and allowed me to keep my head up above water, is that everyone else had rough stories too—we were at the same level, AND we were interested in each others ideas (not at all the competitive nature of grad school–colleagues actually cared about your success–I saw no jealousy.). And we learned from each other.

We also bonded as a family. We drank blueberry beer, and badly colored Vitamin water, we visited a haunted tree at night, we walked to the beach, we had squirt gun wars, drew mystic chalk circles on the sidewalk, we lived and breathed science fiction and fantasy writing, we lived a dream for six weeks, really….

I don’t know if I will ever have an experience like that in my life again. But it was beautiful, and taught me a great deal. Some of it I’m still sifting through. Some of it I absorbed and don’t know I gained it when I did…other stuff I can quote to you.

If you ever have a chance to go to Clarion (and I favor San Diego, though Clarion West is probably good, and other workshops have good things too, I’m sure) then scrimp, save, get your significant other’s permission to be encamped along these hills of light, where the joy of writing science fiction and fantasy is shared by 18 other people, and your teachers, where you are encouraged to write. Where others will look at your stuff with honesty and say, “This part here is miracle. This part here is crapola.” You will not regret it–though you have sold all you have, buy Clarion….

I can tell you truthfully, that I still talk to Clarion folks (not as much as I want) and still visit when I can, though once you get to the outer boonies of the Yukon it is hard. And call. And everyone is still writing and publishing.

Often I go back to that time and think now, i wish i had six weeks and 18 people breathing down my neck! Try it out for yourself.