The 2025 Washington State Legislature passed Senate Bill (ESSB) 5814, which added new business activities to the definition of retail sales. As a result, businesses and nonprofits will be required to begin collecting sales tax on live presentations, including online and in-person classes, seminars and workshops, starting Oct. 1, 2025. This statewide law, passed to…
We are delighted to welcome a new group of writers to the Clarion West family! Clarion West will be running virtually this summer, and we’ll be managing time travel over at least eight time zones for a group of 15 joining us from Sri Lanka, Germany, Nigeria, Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia (by way of Pakistan),…
We have a change to announce for this summer’s instructor lineup. Now joining us for Week 3 is Carlos Hernandez! Carlos is a New York Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed short story collection The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria, the novel Sal and Gabi Break the Universe (winner of the 2019 Pura…
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…
The Clarion West staff are thrilled to announce the students of our inaugural Novel Writing Workshop with Samit Basu, a veteran instructor of our Six-Week Workshop. This group will embark on nine months of weekly meetings and writing sessions with the goal of completing a first novel draft! Please join us in congratulating these twelve…
Workshop Report by Jae Steinbacher (CW ’14), Workshop Manager; In Session! Fall Classes, Spring Classes, & More by Rashida Smith (CW ’05), Program Director; Steamy in Seattle 2024 by Marnee Chua, Executive Director; Clarion West Turns 40+! by Jae Steinbacher; Summer 2025: Virtual Six-Week Workshop Format & Instructors by Jae Steinbacher; Donor Spotlight: Linda Breneman…
Tanisha Tekriwal is this year’s Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship recipient This scholarship has been donated annually since 2007 by the Carl Brandon Society 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;…
News of the allegations against Neil Gaiman began breaking as this year’s six-week workshop hurtled into its third week. As we emerge from the workshop and have time to process this news, our board and staff want to take a moment to recognize that a culture of silence and protecting prominent authors has been widespread…
The workshop had a bit of a shake-up this week. Due to the CrowdStrike airline disruptions, our Week Six Instructor, Carmen Maria Machado, was unable to join us in person. The class adjusted to a hybrid format easily, which involved an all-seeing and all-hearing owl. Very on-brand. While we missed Carmen’s presence on-site, she was…
The Clarion West Six-Week workshop will be virtual in 2025, with a new format designed to give students more time to write, additional lecture time with instructors, and more experimentation with workshopping models. If you’re interested in learning more about our housing situation and our decision to alternate virtual and in-person workshop years, click here….