Clarion West Alumni News for July 2020
Dear Alumni and Friends,
We’re kicking off the sixth and final week of our annual Write-a-thon. With over 500 global participants writing together, taking free workshops, making friends, and building community, this is our biggest Write-a-thon ever.
We’re getting closer and closer to our $20K minimum goal. We hope to hit $30K to offset this year’s investment in free online classes. As we enter the final week, will you donate or sponsor a writer to help us meet the goal? Many participants are offering special sponsor rewards; check this link to see what donors can receive.
As we come to the end, the Summer Reading Series is nearly complete. Did you catch the editors roundtable live on our YouTube channel? Genre superstars Scott H. Andrews (Beneath Ceaseless Skies), Chinelo Onwualu (Anathema and Omenana), Julia Rios (Fireside), and Wendy Wagner (Nightmare and Lightspeed) gave us the convention panel we’ve all been missing during the pandemic. See the recorded discussion at this link and subscribe to our channel for more genre geniuses! Tonight, we wrap up with a live-streamed flash fiction open mic, in partnership with Two Hour Transport and featuring Write-a-thon participants. Special guest readers include Clarion West alumni Thersa Matsuura, Nibedita Sen, and Cadwell Turnbull.
Alumni Publications, Awards, and Nominations
For the latest list of alumni publications, please click on this link. July 2020 features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, with alumni ranging from Class of 1987 to Class of 2019.
We congratulate Cynthia Ward (CW ’92), Nisi Shawl (CW ’92), and K. Tempest Bradford (CW ’03) on winning the Locus Special Award 2020: Inclusivity and Representation Education for their work through Writing the Other.
Nisi Shawl (CW ’92) made us all extra proud by also winning the Locus Award for their anthology New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color.
Congratulations to Greg Cox (CW ’84) on winning the Scribe Award for Original Novel (Speculative) for Batman: The Court of Owls.
Indrapramit Das (CW ’12) just won the Shirley Jackson Award for his short story, “Kali_Na.” Well done, Indra!
The following alumni are nominated for awards this season, and you may be able to vote for them! With pride, we congratulate and recommend:
Rebecca Campbell (CW ’15)
Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, Short Story
“The Fourth Trimester is the Strangest”
in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Dr. Helen Marshall (CW ’12)
Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, Adult Fiction
The Migration (Random House Canada)
Anne Toole (CW ’11)
Scribe Award, Graphic Novel
Pet Noir (with Christie Yant & Pati Nagle) (Kymera)
Colleen Anderson (CW ’87)
Dwarf Stars Award, Science Fiction Poetry Association, horror haiku
“knife blade flutters”