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…
Dear Alumni and Friends, A heartfelt THANK YOU for all of our GiveBIG donors this year! Your support overwhelmed us and will go a long way to paying for our spring and summer free classes and workshops that we have been offering in support of writers during these very trying times. By the time that…
Dear friends, What a month! Since our previous alumni e-newsletter, we launched our new series of free online workshops and sprints. Response was so huge that it overwhelmed our server! We followed up with more online offerings with pay options as well as a lottery for free/scholarship spots. This went much more smoothly. To reiterate…
Dear friends, We hope you are staying safe and healthy, and we expect that, no matter where you are on this planet, you may have some extra time to read and write. We can find solace and strength in both of these activities, and thankfully, our community continues to deliver amazing publications. Keep reading below…
Dear friends, 2020 is off to a great start! We hope you’re staying warm wherever you are, and having a peaceful late winter. We have many announcements, so check ’em out below! Applications for Clarion West’s Six-Week Summer Workshop are still open, so if you or someone you know are thinking of applying, visit our summer workshop page. Applications…