science fiction

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.

Leaving America: the Radio Series

jstueart9 Comments

Hey, looks like it’s a go!  CBC Yukon is airing my radio series starting Monday, June 2, between 7:15 and 7:30am.  The episodes are about 6 min apiece and there’s seven of them.  Five from Mon-Fri and then two left over on Mon, the 9th and Tues, the 10th.

The seven episodes cover my road trip from Midway TX to Whitehorse, YT–4000 miles of stopovers, national parks and interesting things that I did and thought about and interesting people I met along the way–not all of them, of course.  I only had a total of 49 minutes, tops!

Mostly it’s about Immigration and what you think about when you change your national identity.  But there’s a lot of science fiction in there too because they are so intertwined.  (see earlier post on Immigration and Aliens).

Hope you enjoy it.  I had a lot of fun doing the audio edits and choosing music and sound effects.  I’ve hidden a lot of science fiction music cues in the piece–and hearing what I did with Klingon battle music is worth getting up that early!  LOL.

Immigrants and Aliens

jstueart1 Comment

I’ve wondered if the history of science fiction aliens is actually a reflection of the history of immigration. And the Fantasy journey, is that not just a long migration looking for a “home” made by wandering, often restless characters, sojourning here and there. There is a long history of the association of immigrants and aliens and science fiction/fantasy. Being an immigrant, I can feel the resonance now more than ever before: the quest to get to some other place, the endless traveling, the passing through towns–that fantasy quest part, and also the outsider/alien that science fiction loves to cast in the starring role–the uncomfortable character facing crowds of others who are “alike” or who have something in common , or the invading horde of “aliens” taking away our lives, changing our culture, threatening our identities–and surprisingly bonding those who used to think they were so different into a “same” so there can be a common villain in the “Alien.”

Not that everyone takes a negative view of “aliens”—E.T. is simply a lost anthropologist/researcher, and Close Encounters is a giant Cultural Exchange Program (we take some of yours, you take some of ours…).

A few nights ago, me and some Clarionites (go CLARION SAN DIEGO, 2007) were talking about the lone-status of “aliens” in Star Trek, a time and series which touted such huge cultural exchanges between species, but we often saw only one of any particular race in Starfleet. One Ferengi (Nog), one Klingon (Worf), two trills (Judzia and Ezri–and them only one at a time, sharing the same symbiant), one Betazed (Troi), one from Tasha Yar’s planet (Tasha), one Vulcan at a time (Spock and then Tuvok), one changeling (not in starfleet, but still alone), one hologram, one android. These are planets full of people all mixing together and in the 24th Century we are still having problems understanding other cultures, still having problems seeing whole mixes of populations in Starfleet, on ships, etc.

Yes, the storylines reflect where we are in relation to aliens. We are seeking to understand them one person at a time–we concentrate on the loneliness of the immigrant adapting to all the human (white) people on the Enterprise or Voyager. But they don’t reflect the movement towards globalization that even today we are experiencing–where populations have a wider diversity, where there is no singular pure population in many places that reflect ONE culture. Star Trek may have cured poverty, cured all illness, solved political rifts, but they cannot conquer “alienation.” They only underline and reflect how essential alienation is to science fiction…it probes the human spirit as outcast, alone, different.

As authors are we trying to make all the Others familiar? Or do we just identify with those outcast “aliens”, those that were not born somewhere, but who live there anyway? What is the relationship between chronicling the journey of an immigrant and the journeys of our science fictional/fantastical outcasts?

I don’t know. I just know that it’s interesting that in a future of an endless universe with endless cultures and repeated exploration, there remains the story of movement through strange lands with strangers all around us who see us, too, as strange. It’s as if, as authors, we must tell an immigrant story.