Announcing a Scholarship for Trans Writers

We are delighted to announce the Sea Star Scholarship, an annual full-tuition scholarship for our flagship Six-Week Workshop, offered by an anonymous donor, which will be awarded each year to one qualifying student who identifies as two-spirit, trans, nonbinary, or under the gender expansive umbrella.

Through the generosity of our donors, Clarion West provides a number of scholarships for writers every year. Approximately 60–90% of our Six-Week Workshop participants receive full and partial-tuition scholarships. Interested students must indicate financial need when applying to the summer workshop. Applications are reviewed without regard to financial aid requests. You can learn more about scholarships for the Six-Week Workshop here. 

At Clarion West we are proud to be part of a supportive community for trans, two-spirit, nonbinary, and other gender expansive authors who continue to change and inform the landscape of speculative fiction for the better. We know that trans writers are and will continue to be essential in expanding the boundaries of SFFH and are equally essential in inviting new exciting voices into the field.

We know the journey for each trans writer is different, and that trans people represent all racial and ethnic backgrounds, faith traditions, and countries around the world. And we know that while there has been significant progress in the publishing world, the transgender community is still facing significant political and personal attacks through discrimination and violence, especially against Black and Brown trans women. 

We remain committed to supporting trans authors and learning how to better support them in a field that can be hostile and unwelcoming. We do this through our efforts to provide an intersectional framework of support for trans authors. The organization welcomes trans faculty, seeks to create supportive spaces for trans authors in workshop groups, and makes every effort to create an inclusive community throughout our programs. 

Transphobia is not welcome or tolerated in our classrooms, at our events, nor in our workspace. We support our students and community members with robust community guidelines and anti-harassment reporting policies. When we are informed of instructor or participant misconduct, Clarion West makes every effort to verify, follow up with those who may have been harmed, and to ensure that we take the steps necessary to prevent future misconduct, up to and including exclusion from Clarion West classes and events.

In the spirit of celebrating the contributions of trans and nonbinary writers to our field, we are working on a recommended reading list of trans and nonbinary writers who are either Clarion West alumni (students who have attended the Six-Week Workshop, One-Day Workshops, online classes and workshops, and Flash Fiction Group participants) and/or Clarion West faculty! If you would like your website or stories on this list, please contact us at !