New Scholarships to Encourage Black, Indigenous, and Writers of Color to Attend

Applications are open for the 2022 Clarion West Workshop for speculative fiction writers. Offered every summer in Seattle, Clarion West has over 600 graduates, including Russell L. Bates (winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival), editor Sheree Renée Thomas (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction), Nisi Shawl (multiple award-winning writer and editor based in Seattle), and Cadwell Turnbull (winner of the 2020 Neukom Institute Literary Award). 

Clarion West is set apart by its focus on creating a thriving community that can inspire and encourage writers to continue their writing goals. As part of its commitment to addressing the barriers that Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) face in the writing and publishing world, the program seeks to create a more inclusive, welcoming, and safe space for BIPOC writers in the community. Toward that end, Clarion West offers a number of scholarships to attendees of the Six-Week Summer Workshop. We’re excited to highlight three that are offered to BIPOC writers, including a new scholarship offered in 2022 to Latinx/e writers.

• The Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship: managed by the Carl Brandon Society, the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Award is a full-tuition award given to one student who identifies as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color.
• The Blue Corn Creations Scholarship: donated by Blue Corn Creations, this scholarship is a full-tuition award given to writers who identify as Native American/Indigenous writers from the Americas. 
• The Flores Scholarship *new*: two full-tuition scholarship awards given to students who identify as Latinx/e.

We look forward to applying these awards to our 2022 cohort! 

Clarion West offers full and partial tuition scholarships for all writers in need. For a full list of Clarion West scholarships, visit https://www.clarionwest.org/programs/summerworkshop/scholarships/. For more information about the workshop and to apply, visit https://www.clarionwest.org/programs/summerworkshop/.

Workshop Culture and Accessibility

Clarion West is committed to an inclusive workshop environment. In 2020, we began the process of updating our critiquing practices in order to make our classroom a more accessible, inclusive, and safer space. A few of the updates we’re making:

• Providing a trained facilitator in every class session who is present to advocate for all participants and help each new instructor get to know their class and their critique goals better;
• Providing a variety of critique options for the group to decide what will work best for their unique needs. Every group is different, and we want to recognize this by providing the time and space for each group to develop their own rules; 
• Allowing greater agency for authors to determine their critique goals and to set their own limits; 
• Encouraging the use of an author’s letter or introduction to each story, allowing the author’s needs to frame the response; and
• Providing time during a critique for authors to respond to comments or pose additional questions of their own.

In addition to determining how to make our classroom more accessible, Clarion West is committed to hosting in-person events in accessible spaces. In 2022, our Six-Week Workshop will move to Highline College in Des Moines, Washington.

A New Location

Clarion West will partner with Highline College to host the 2022 Six-Week Workshop. This new location features accessible accommodations, with a short walk to the classroom and other coworking and social spaces. Clarion West participants will have access to the student center and cafe, and the campus is close to beautiful Saltwater State Park and Marine View Park. The college is about a 20-minute drive from downtown Seattle and downtown Tacoma.

About Clarion West

The Clarion West Writers Workshop has been held annually in Seattle, WA, since 1986. Our program was founded on the belief that writers from diverse backgrounds need an opportunity to be heard — and to experiment with new forms of storytelling. With over 600 graduates from the Six-Week Summer Workshop, Clarion West has been a significant actor in helping the careers of speculative fiction writers, including women and other writers who have been traditionally underrepresented in the field. Clarion West provides year-round programs to over 1,500 writers annually.

Learn more at www.clarionwest.org.