Announcing Clarion West’s 2024 Six-Week Summer Workshop Instructors

On Tuesday, during N.K. Jemisin’s hybrid reading from Astoria Bookshop in New York, Clarion West’s Workshop Facilitator, María Alejandra Barrios, announced our instructors for the upcoming 2024 Six-Week Summer Workshop! The Clarion West 2024 Six-Week Summer Workshop will take place from June 16 – July 27, 2024. Applications for the 2024 Six-Week Workshop are planned…

Clarion West Workshop Needs New Home

Clarion West has a long history of partnering with universities and organizations in the Seattle area to house the Six-Week Workshop. As we’ve honed in on what our students need for their workshop experience and focused on affordability, equity, and accessibility, the number of potential partners has narrowed. Even before the pandemic, we couldn’t secure…

Summer 2023 Workshop Report

The Six-Week Workshop moved back online this summer, with a cohort that embraced the flexibility of working from their homes and making global connections remotely. Our 15 students joined from Brazil, Ghana, the U.K., Mexico, the Bahamas, and the U.S., with a high concentration of East Coasters! Although the group was faced with the challenge…

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…

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Octavia E. Butler honored with a street in her name

On Saturday, July 29th, 2023, friends, former neighbors, and fans of acclaimed science fiction author Octavia E. Butler gathered at the intersection of NE 165th Street and 37th Avenue NE in Lake Forest Park to celebrate the renaming of the stretch of 37th Avenue NE to “Octavia Butler Avenue.” Octavia spent her final years on…

Clarion West is Delighted to Announce a $10,000 Donation Toward 2024 Workshop Housing

Clarion West is delighted to announce a generous donation of $10,000 from David D. Levine (CW ’00). We are incredibly grateful for David’s support toward workshop housing. Clarion West hopes to be in person in 2024 and has a tentative hold on accessible housing on the beautiful University of Washington campus! More information will be…

Seattle’s Speculative Fiction Writing Workshops Join Forces

Writing the Other and Clarion West, two Seattle-based writing organizations, announce the beginning of a new partnership.  Clarion West will serve as the fiscal sponsor for Writing the Other, as the organizations explore partnership opportunities and shared resource development. Fiscal sponsorship will enable the two mission-aligned organizations to share resources, which keeps administrative expenses down….

Interviews with Samit Basu, Sagan Yee (CW ’21), and Fawaz Al-Matrouk (CW ’21)

This year, in lieu of our usual Spring Seventh Week newsletter, we decided to feature a few interviews from our Clarion West Six-Week Workshop community! We’re excited to share a conversation with Week 3 instructor Samit Basu, where he discusses his work, publishing journey, and what he’s looking forward to with Clarion West. We’ve also…

Final Report on Clarion West’s Evolving Workshop Culture Project

The Clarion West Writers Workshop was founded on the belief that writers from diverse backgrounds need an opportunity to be heard — and to experiment with new forms of storytelling. Clarion West has historically been successful in reaching women writers and LGBTQIA+ writers, and many of our graduates are actively publishing in the field.  With…