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…
Last year, we asked our community to help support sliding scale applications for the Six-Week Workshop — and you came through! This gives us the confidence to continue, thank you! We’ve seen a significant increase in applicants who cannot afford to pay for the application even at what used to be our early bird rate…
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;…
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….
Our Week 5 instructor, Ruoxi Chen, brought her deep knowledge of markets and vast experience as an in-house acquiring editor to the classroom this week. Among lightning feedback rounds and deep dives into comps and influences, Ruoxi encouraged the class to imagine the markets to which they might eventually send their work. Actively considering the…
Our Week four instructor, Sarah Pinsker, brought energy to a week traditionally considered to be one of the toughest, with the students’ energy levels crashing and stories taking strange turns. But strange is where fiction gets good, and Sarah encouraged the students to lean into the weird. A singer and songwriter known for her nontraditional…