Clarion West Alumni News for January 2018
Happy New Year from all of us at Clarion West! As we begin 2018, we look back with gratitude at all our accomplishments and changes in 2017:
- We had another unforgettable Summer Workshop, starring 18 brilliant new alumni from all around the world. Daryl Gregory, Kij Johnson, John Chu, Connie Willis, Daniel Jose Older, and Pat Cadigan bestowed wisdom as the Class of 2017 learned, bonded, spun fidget spinners, kayaked, serenaded their teachers, and wrote incredible stories for six weeks straight. Welcome to the CW family, Team Eclipse.
- Our Workshop Director, Neile Graham, won a World Fantasy Award in the Special Award category for “fostering excellence in the genre through her role as Workshop Director, Clarion West.”
- We forged ahead with our newest crop of One-Day Workshops, holding a total of nine specialized workshops in the Seattle area for local writers and Clarion West alumni.
- Clarion West alumni everywhere released over 150 works, including award-winning novels, short stories, translations, poems, graphic novels, video games, and essays.
- Over 200 writers participated in the summer Write-a-Thon, pushing themselves to write novels, short fiction, poems, emails, PhD theses, movie reviews, and all kinds of other works over a six-week period, and raising $20,689 to support our workshops at the same time.
- We bid a fond farewell to two beloved staff members, Communications Director Kris Millering and Workshop Administrator Micaiah Huw Evans. Thank you, Huw and Kris, for all you do. Taking over from them in 2018 are our new Workshop Administrator, Julie “Jae” Steinbacher, and Communications Specialist, Jeremy Sim. Say hi if you see them.
In 2018, we stand by our commitment to provide support and community for the novice writer everywhere, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds in the literary world. We hope to keep supporting you too, dear alumni, in any way we can. You can always reach us at alumni@clarionwest.org with thoughts, suggestions, or event ideas. Don’t forget to keep reporting your personal and professional achievements to us, too. We want to hear from you!
Thank you so much for being part of our family. By the way, if one of your resolutions is to do more for good causes around the world, a great way to support Clarion West is to sign up for Amazon Smile. Select Clarion West as your charity, and Amazon will donate 0.5% of your eligible purchases to Clarion West — at no cost to you.
Alumni News
Huge congratulations to Indrapramit Das (CW ’12), Richard William Larson (CW ’14), Vina Prasad (CW ’17), Caroline M. Yoachim (CW ’06), Ian McHugh (CW ’06), and Daniel Abraham(CW ’98) (as James S.A. Corey), who all have stories in Gardner Dozois’s “The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection”!
Indrapramit Das (CW ’12), Richard William Larson (CW ’14), Vina Prasad (CW ’17), Caroline M. Yoachim (CW ’06), Daniel Abraham (CW ’98), and many CW friends and instructors will also be showcased in Jonathan Strahan’s upcoming “Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Vol 12.”
Greg Beatty (CW ’00) took second place in the 2017 Ligonier Valley Writers Flash Fiction Contest with his short story, “The Cup Isn’t Haunted.” His poem “Snow Falls on Dachau” will be published in the “Untimely Frost” dark poetry anthology. An untitled work of his flash fiction was a finalist in Gotham’s “A Very Short Story” contest.
Jon Lasser (CW ’16) has a story, “The Leviathans Have Fled the Sea,” in Diabolical Plots this month.
Shannon Fay (CW ’14) has a new story, “Prodigal Daughter,” up at Daily Science Fiction.
Caroline M. Yoachim (CW ’06) has a new story, “A Rabbit Egg for Flora,” up at Fireside Fiction.
S. Qiouyi Lu (CW ’16) has a story, “Mother Tongues,” in the Jan/Feb issue of Asimov’s.
Steve Miller (CW ’73), with co-writer Sharon Lee, released a new novel, “Neogenesis,” available this month from Simon and Schuster.