Announcing our 2023 Octavia E. Butler and Worldbuilder Scholars!

Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Recipient

This summer, the Carl Brandon Society selected Kiran Kaur Saini as its Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship recipient.

Since 2007, the Carl Brandon Society has donated this scholarship in Octavia’s name to writers of color attending Clarion and Clarion West. Octavia attended the Clarion Writers Workshop in Pennsylvania in 1970 and taught at Clarion San Diego and Clarion West for many years; this scholarship offers BIPOC writers a similar opportunity to emerge into the speculative fiction scene.

Kiran Kaur Saini is a Punjabi-American Sikh writer living in North Carolina. At the start of the pandemic, she left 15 years in film production to become a full-time caregiver to her 89-year-old mom. She writes about aging, end-of-life issues, self-definition, and autonomy, along with some stories that embody chardi kala, the Sikh value of indomitable spirit which emphasizes meeting adversity not with hostility or retaliatory violence but with love, grace, optimism, and generosity.

Learn more about the Butler scholarship here.

Worldbuilder Scholarship

Clarion West’s 2023 Worldbuilder scholar is A. M. Barrie.

The Worldbuilder is a full scholarship funded by George R. R. Martin and anonymously judged by Martin’s team. The scholarship is awarded to a budding fantasy writer with superb elements of worldbuilding in their work. As Martin writes in his blog: “The best fantasy carries us far from the fields we know, to worlds beyond the hill, worlds that, once visited, live on in our imaginations for the rest of our lives.”

A.M. Barrie lives in Georgia with his wife and dog. In 2023, he received his MFA from NC State. His work has appeared in FIYAH. From 2023 to 24, he will be a Fulbright scholar visiting Rotterdam.

Learn more about the Worldbuilder scholarship here.