Clarion West Alumni News for April 2018

Happy April from Clarion West!

If you missed our anouncement a few weeks back: we officially have a Class. The Clarion West Class of 2018 has been selected, and is one of our most international classes ever, with members hailing from Nigeria, Brazil, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Greece, the U.K., Croatia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the USA — nine countries and territories across five continents (Australia and Antarctica are sadly unrepresented this time.) We can’t wait to welcome them all to Seattle this summer.

If you applied but didn’t make it in this year, we sincerely hope you’ll consider trying again next year. We are forced to turn away so many talented applicants each year, and a rejection from us is not an indictment of your worth as a writer. Keep writing and pressing forward!

May 9 is Seattle’s annual GiveBig! Clarion West is partnering with the Seattle Foundation again to join in this 24-hour online fundraiser. This year’s theme is “For All,” an especially apt rallying cry for Clarion West. With our newest class flying in from all corners of the Earth, we are hoping to raise an additional $1,500 to help with travel expenses for our students. Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor, we will match a portion of the donations during the event — with your help, we hope to reach $8,000 in 2018!

Early giving for GiveBig starts on Thursday, April 26. To schedule a donation, simply create an account on givebigseattle.org. Your donation will be processed on May 9. Then, join us on Twitter with the hashtag #GIVEBIG!

Spaces are still available for our final One-Day Workshop of the Spring season: Break the Rules! with Rachel Swirsky. This workshop will take place on May 6, in the University District of Seattle. Learn rule-breaking with Nebula Award-winning Rachel Swirsky: discover your true writing voice and walk away with renewed confidence to break convention — the right way. Register for the workshop on the Clarion West website.

We’ve got plenty of readings, activities, events, parties, and One-Day Workshops already in the works for the next few months, so stay tuned here and on Twitter for all the latest updates.

Alumni News

On March 8, Patrick Weekes (CW ’00) released his new YA novel: Feeder, published by McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Henry Lien (CW ’12) released his debut novel, Peasprout Chen, Future Legend of Skate and Sword, which started out as his Clarion West writing sample.

Andy Duncan (CW ’94) stayed busy at the 39th annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, March 14-18 in Orlando, Florida. He introduced Guest of Honor John Kessel at his Thursday-evening talk; performed a fiction reading; and participated on the panel “What Can SFWA Do for You?” As part of the conference’s Flash Play Festival, Andy starred as Frankenstein’s creature in a staged reading of “A Perfect Mate,” and his one-act play, “Future Expense,” closed the evening, starring John Chu, Max Gladstone and James Patrick Kelly.

Sonia Lyris (CW ’92) delivered book two in her Seer Saga, The Stranger, to Tony Daniel at Baen Books. Publication is scheduled for 2019.

Georgina Kamsika (CW ’12) has a story, “Samsara,” in Not So Stories, coming out April 11. She has also sold a novel, Goddess of the North, to Reuts Publishing for a 2019 release. She is represented by Jennie Goloboy of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

Curtis C. Chen (CW ’14) has a story, “Go, Space Racer!“, published in Playboy magazine. The story is online for free reading–and is reportedly Safe For Work. 🙂 This was Curtis’s CW Week 2 story, workshopped with Kij Johnson, and he has written a post detailing the story of how he sold it to Playboy. He also narrated a story, “The Heaven-Moving Way,” for the Apex magazine podcast earlier this year. This was his third podcast narration to date.

E. Lily Yu (CW ’13) has a new story out in Terraform today: “Music for the Underworld.”

Jude-Marie Green (CW ’10) has a short story, “Endless Summer,” in the anthology Made In L.A., being released at the L.A. Times Festival of Books this month. Her other recent short story sales include “Hang Twenty” to Fantasy for the Throne: One-Sitting Reads and “Weapons of Mass Destruction” to Re-Launch. Her flash fiction piece “Jasmine Spain” will appear on the Toasted Cake podcast this spring.

Lynette Aspey (CW ’02) has a story, “Painted Ocean,” appearing in Aurealis’ April 2018 issue. The story started life at CW in 2002, during Joe and Gay Haldeman’s week, when Joe challenged the class to “write something hard.” She has also written a lovely blog post (and video!) about the story’s history.

Robert Guffey (CW ’96) has a short story, “Collision,” in the debut issue of New Reader Magazine. New Reader #1, entitled “Multivision,” is free to download and read here.

Rich Larson (CW ’14), has a cavalcade of announcements this month, including “Safe Space,” a new story up at Daily SF, “In Event of Moon Disaster,” a podcasted story previously published in Asimov’s, “Our King and His Court,” a new story up at Tor.com, and “God Decay,” a story reprinted in Clarkesworld. His story “The Old Man” is also online as a finalist for the AnLab Readers’ Award.

Michael R. Underwood (CW ’07) has launched a new project, Born to the Blade, an epic fantasy series from Serial Box Publishing. He is the creator and lead writer, working in collaboration with Marie Brennan, Malka Older, and Cassandra Khaw. The series features “diplomacy and intrigue, magic and swordplay, and dynamic characters forced to choose between friendship and duty.” The first episode has been released online for free.

Siobhan Carroll (CW ’09), has a story, “Nesters,” in Ellen Datlow’s upcoming Best of the Best Horror of the Year anthology.

Kathleen Alcala (CW ’87) has a story, “The Doll’s Eye,” in Women Up To No Good, a feminist anthology of dark fiction.

The Tiptree Award and Honor List have been announced for this year, and among the works honored are The Devourers by Indrapramit Das (CW ’12) and The Black Tides of Heaven and The Red Threads of Fortune by JY Yang (CW ’13). Also appearing on the Tiptree long list are The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley (CW ’00), Provenance by Ann Leckie (CW ’05), and “Her Sacred Spirit Soars” by S. Qiouyi Lu (CW ’16).

Continuing the the year’s major award announcements, the list of Hugo-nominated works for this year have been released. We are thrilled to see Ann Leckie (CW ’05) nominated for Best Novel, JY Yang (CW ’13) nominated for Best Novella, Vina Prasad (CW ’17) nominated for Best Novelette, Best Short Story and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Caroline M. Yoachim (CW ’06) nominated for Best Short Story, and Mimi Mondal (CW ’15) nominated for Best Related Work.

Finally, a special shout out to the classes of 2016 and 2017, who continue to churn out amazing feats month after month. In addition to their Tiptree Longlist and Hugo nominations above, they’ve racked up 8 new publications in the past 30 days:

Cae Hawksmoor (CW ’16) has a new story, “Barleycorn,” in Abyss & Apex.

Emma Osborne (CW ’16) has a new story, “Don’t Pack Hope,” in Nightmare Magazine.

Lora Gray (CW ’16) has not one but two stories out this month: “Necessary Threads” in the anthology Fell Beasts and Fair, and “The Imitation Sea” in the March/April issue of Shimmer.

Elly Bangs (CW ’17), has a new story, “The Cool Kids,” in Daily SF.

Izzy Wasserstein (CW ’17) has three releases this month: a flash fiction piece, “Ports of Perceptions,” in GlitterShip, a story, “Their Eyes Like Dead Lamps,” in the most recent issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and a poetry collection, When Creation Falls, now available from Meadowlark Books.

Congratulations, all! Send in your news for next month!