Clarion West Alumni News for February 2015
The weather might be cold and damp, but here at Clarion West our hearts are warm and our hands are busy—application season is in full swing! Applications for the 2015 Summer Six-Week Workshop close on March 1. If you’re planning on applying but have been procrastinating, now’s the moment to get in and apply.
Also, check out our upcoming One-Day Workshops with J.M. Sidorova, L. Timmel Duchamp, Ken Scholes, and Cat Rambo. These one-day intensives are a great way to prepare for your writing year.
Alumni, be sure to send your news—both personal and professional—to alumni@clarionwest.org for the monthly news. We all want to hear from you!
New Ventures
Alex Bear (CW ’11) started a freelance copyediting business at Constellation Editing. She comes highly recommended by various authors in the field, and is happy to offer a discount to any Clarion West graduate.
Cat Rambo (CW ’05) has also started a blog to address the dearth of speculative fiction event news in the Pacific Northwest, called Supernatural Seattle. If you’re a Pacific Northwest author, editor, publisher, or publicist who’d like a login in order to post events and articles, drop her a line—contact information is on the site.
Alex Kane (CW ’13) recently accepted the role of Managing Editor at film-criticism publisher The Critical Press.
Awards
Helen Marshall (CW ’12) and Usman Tanveer Malik (CW ’13) are on the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Award.
Nisi Shawl’s (CW ’92) article “Reviewing the Other” was chosen as the top pick for articles in the Strange Horizons Readers Poll.
Maura McHugh (CW ’06) was chosen as the Best Irish Writer in the 2014 Arcade Awards.
Publications
Cat Rambo’s (CW ’05) debut novel, Beasts of Tabat, will be published in late March from Wordfire Press and will be launched at Emerald City Comicon. Later this year, a second two-sided collection titled Neither Here Nor There will be published by fellow CW alumni Tod McCoy’s (CW ’10) publishing house, Hydra House.
Cat’s forthcoming stories in 2015 so far include “Primaflora’s Journey” and “Call and Answer, Plant and Harvest” in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and “Bit Player” and “You Have Always Lived in the Castle” in Daily Science Fiction. Her 2015 anthology appearances include “Tongues of Moon Toad” (The Bestiary Anthology), “The Subtler Art” (Blackguards), “Marvelous Contrivances of the Heart” (Fiction River: Recycled Pulp), “The Threadbare Magician” (Genius Loci), and “The Ghost-Eater” (XIII). Her convention appearances this year include ICFA, Emerald City ComicCon, Norwescon, Griffcon, GenCon, WorldCon, and the Baltimore Book Festival. Visit her site for more details.
Robert Freeman Wexler’s (CW ’97) story “Darkness, and Darkness” has accepted by Postscripts and will be published later in 2015.
Sandra Odell (CW ’10) has had her story “Curtain Call” published in Galaxy’s Edge.
Marlee Jane Ward’s (CW ’14) novella has been shortlisted in the Viva La Novella 3 contest. This novella was expanded from a Clarion West story workshopped under Kij Johnson.
The Washington Independent Review of Books interviewed Craig Gidney (CW ’96) about his new collection, Skin Deep Magic.
Lily Yu’s (CW ’13) story “The Pilgrim and the Angel”, first published in McSweeney’s and later reprinted in Jonathan Strahan’s Best SF & F of the Year, is now available for listening at Podcastle.
Usman Tanveer Malik (CW ’13) has had his story “Resurrection Points” selected for Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume 2, edited by Kathe Koja. The volume will be published by Undertow Publications/Chizine in October 2015.
The first three chapters of Randy Henderson’s (CW ’09) novel Finn Fancy Necromancy are available to read at Tor.com, as well as a fun “interview” with the main character of the novel. Randy will also be appearing at venues across the Pacific Northwest to do readings and author events, including his book launch at the University Bookstore in Seattle on February 10 at 7 pm. For more information, see his schedule at his Web site.
Shannon Peavy’s (CW ’13) story “Animal Magnetism” was published in Urban Fantasy Magazine. The story was inspired by a bit of nineteenth-century pseudoscience—the pasilalinic-sympathetic compass—and was workshopped during her time at Clarion West.