Workshops for people who are serious about writing
Clarion West is a nonprofit literary organization that runs an acclaimed six-week residential workshop every summer, online classes and workshops, one-day and weekend workshops, a reading series every summer, and other events throughout the year.
At Clarion West, you’ll be among award-winning and best-selling writers in science fiction, fantasy, games, horror, and more. Our workshops and classes are taught by world-class instructors from across the field of speculative fiction. Wherever you may be in your career, whether novice or sage, we offer a diverse listing of classes that is packed with valuable information to take your writing to the next level.
Every summer, the Clarion West Six-Week Workshop offers time away from everyday distractions and encouragement to experiment and take artistic risks. The critique sessions are the heart of the workshop: students learn not only by receiving critiques, but by reading others’ work and constructing their own critiques. Instructors work directly with attendees to present group critiques of newly written stories, participate in discussions about writing techniques or professional concerns, and hold individual or small-group conferences. Learn more about the Six-Week Workshop.
In addition, we offer instruction throughout the year with workshops and classes that vary in intensity, topic, and number of sessions. We invite prominent authors from across a broad range of speculative fiction to teach our classes and workshops. A few of our most recent instructors include N. K. Jemisin, Samit Basu, Cat Rambo, Ted Chiang, P. Djèlí Clark, Karen Lord, Daniel Abraham, Elizabeth Hand, Cadwell Turnbull, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Amal El-Mohtar, Nicola Griffith, Karen Joy Fowler, Kij Johnson, and Nisi Shawl. Learn more about our online classes and workshops.
You can support Clarion West’s mission to forge new voices in speculative fiction in many different ways. Learn how you can get involved with the Clarion West community!
Latest News
The 2024 Butler and Worldbuilder Scholars
Tanisha Tekriwal is this year’s Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship recipient This scholarship has been donated annually since 2007 by the Carl Brandon Society to…
Silence Does Not Lend Itself To Change
News of the allegations against Neil Gaiman began breaking as this year’s six-week workshop hurtled into its third week. As we emerge from the workshop…
Week Six in Review
The workshop had a bit of a shake-up this week. Due to the CrowdStrike airline disruptions, our Week Six Instructor, Carmen Maria Machado, was unable…
The 2025 Summer Workshop Instructors & Format
The Clarion West Six-Week workshop will be virtual in 2025, with a new format designed to give students more time to write, additional lecture time…
Week Five in Review
Our Week 5 instructor, Ruoxi Chen, brought her deep knowledge of markets and vast experience as an in-house acquiring editor to the classroom this week….
Week Four in Review
Our Week four instructor, Sarah Pinsker, brought energy to a week traditionally considered to be one of the toughest, with the students’ energy levels crashing…
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