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…
After another overwhelming response to our call for applications, we have selected a class of fifteen students for Clarion West’s 2023 Six-Week Virtual Workshop. The selected class includes students in Ghana, the U.K. by way of Pakistan, Brazil, the Bahamas, Mexico, and the United States. We can’t wait to get to know them better and…
Dear Clarion West family and friends, I am so pleased to share the Clarion West 2020-2021 Combined Annual Report, a testament to our collective community power. There’s been a lot to do and think about over the past two years, but I’m forever grateful to everyone who has stepped forward to focus on the speculative…
“[A less privileged writer] leaves a disempowering workshop and faces the same disempowerment on a larger scale: though they should be in charge of their story, they are again made to listen to other people telling them what their story is or should be. The result is exactly the opposite of finding their voice —…
May was a busy month! We kicked it off with our first virtual gala, Clarion West Nerdlesque: Our Next Evolution Revealed. With your support, we blew our fundraising goals out of the water. On May 16 and 17, we held the final two panels of our Beyond Afrofuturism: Black Editors and Publishers in Speculative Fiction…
It’s awards season! In March, we were delighted to congratulate the finalists of the 2021 Nebula Awards. This month, it’s three cheers for the finalists of the 2021 Hugo Awards and FIYAHCON’s Ignyte Awards. We’re especially proud to announce that Clarion West is on the shortlist for the Ignyte Awards’ Ember Award for Unsung Contributions to Genre! We’re in…
It’s been a long month. A year of pandemic-normal has come and gone, and the racially motivated, white supremacist violence of the Atlanta shootings on March 17 is a stark reminder that those of us in the United States live in a country that loves very few of us. Clarion West stands in solidarity with the…
Dear Alumni and Friends, Autumn is upon us in the Northern Hemisphere! In Seattle, we made it through a heat wave and the smoke from the U.S. Pacific Coast wildfires. As 2020 continues to give us all plenty to write (and worry) about, we want to share all of our good news with you. Despite…
Dear Alumni and Friends, We’re kicking off the sixth and final week of our annual Write-a-thon. With over 500 global participants writing together, taking free workshops, making friends, and building community, this is our biggest Write-a-thon ever. We’re getting closer and closer to our $20K minimum goal. We hope to hit $30K to offset this year’s…
Dear Alumni and Friends, The year 2020 continues to be a turbulent one. Who’s ready for some good news? We proceed in our mission of supporting diverse, underrepresented genre writers and making our programs as inclusive and accessible as possible. We stand with Black Lives Matter, and we condemn police brutality. This is an awe-inspiring time to witness…