Pat Murphy, Karen Joy Fowler, and three other stellar Clarion West supporters gave a reading at San Francisco's Borderlands Bookstore on July 10. The reading raised over seventy dollars and unquantifiable awareness for our 2010 Write-a-thon and also featured Tim Pratt, Rachel Swirsky, and Katherine Sparrow. The appreciative audience included Ellen Klages, Jed Hartman, Nick Mamatas, Maggie Croft, Christopher Reynaga, and many more CW, Clarion, and Clarion South alumni and friends.

Thanks to Borderlands for hosting this reading, and to Erin Cashier for organizing it. If you’d like to organize a Clarion West-themed reading in your area, you can contact Erin Cashier at writeathon@clarionwest.org. We’re working out the details right now and looking forward to coordinating similar events soon.

In the first three days of our 2010 Write-a-thon, we've had 42 donors take up multiple-award-winner Michael Swanwick on his offer to include their names in all 42 of the stories he's writing. Swanwick is sold out! Thank you all so much, and a special thank you to Cory Doctorow and Boing Boing for spreading the word so fast.

There are still several weeks of Write-a-thon to go. If you'd like to donate in support of another participating author (some will also include your name, or that of a cherished friend or enemy, in a new story), go here. You'll find links to Write-a-thon pages for Eileen Gunn, Kij Johnson, Andrea Hairston, Vonda N. McIntyre, and many more.

At our Annual Meeting March 5, three new members joined our Board of Directors and two longtime board members retired. Kelley Eskridge is our new board chair, and Kij Johnson ('87) is now our vice chair. Karen G. Anderson will take on some development duties such as grant writing, as well as her general board responsibilities. Both Kelley and Kij are award-winning authors with close ties to the Clarion West community, while Karen has a background in digital journalism and is active in the Seattle-area fan community, especially with the Foolscap convention.

Our outgoing chair, Deborah Fisher, remains on the board. Eileen Gunn, our outgoing vice chair, has retired from the board but remains active as a volunteer, as does outgoing Development Director Kate Schaefer.  Read more »

If you're a Clarion West member, you've been receiving our biannual newsletter through the mail since you joined. Now the Seventh Week will be available as a PDF--starting with our Fall 2010 issue. Although the old printed-on-paper edition will still be delivered to those who prefer it, we’re hoping most members will choose the new electronic option because:  Read more »

• We can offer better content, including color photos and more in-depth articles and interviews.
• Fewer trees will die.
• We’ll save a ton on printing and mailing costs.

Potlatch 19 is in Seattle March 5 – 7, with special Clarion West guests and events. Hugo Award winner David Levine (‘00), fresh from his (simulated) Mars mission, is there, as are Nebula Award winner Ellen Klages, Vonda N. McIntyre (who has won both awards and founded CW’s first incarnation to boot), and others including--we hope--you. You won’t want to miss our scholarship auction Saturday night at 8 p.m., featuring Octavia E. Butler memorabilia, signed first editions from Jack Cady, Charles de Lint, Kathe Koja, and others, and a range of beautiful and peculiar craft objects.  Read more »

Clarion West will receive $3200 from Norwescon 33 to fully fund a scholarship for one of our 2010 writing workshop students. We'll select the scholarship recipient from among the eighteen applicants chosen to attend this summer's session of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. You can learn more about the workshop and the application process here. Incoming Clarion West Board Chair Kelley Eskridge and alumna Caren Gussoff ('08) will officially accept the donation during Norwescon 33's Awards Banquet, to be held on April 1, 2010.  Read more »