Viable Paradise, 7-day bootcamp for sf/f/h writers


Admissions are still open for Viable Paradise — but not for long!

Viable Paradise is a long-running, week-long science fiction/fantasy/horror writing workshop held every autumn on Martha's Vineyard, a writerly bootcamp that combines a high instructor-student ratio with an incredibly packed schedule to deliver a career's worth of information in seven days. I taught the workshop last year (and I'm teaching again this year) and I was amazed by the caliber of the students and the effectiveness of the methodology. There's about one instructor for every four students, and every student has two manuscripts workshopped by four of the instructors (along with classmates), then meets one-on-one with the other instructors. There are long daily lecture/seminars, exercises and special tutorials, and so on. There are big communal meals, late-night hikes to see the bioluminescent jellyfish (Martha's Vineyard is a stunning place to hold a writing workshop and it's awfully lovely at that time of the year) and a group reading of Shakespeare.

Steve Gould (author of Jumper and Reflex) is one of the long-serving instructors at Viable Paradise, and he's been doing a regular podcast of interviews with VP alumni and instructors called Podible Paradise — it's a great way to get up to speed on the VP experience.

This year's instructors include Campbell Award winner Elizabeth Bear, the writing team of Debra Doyle and James D Macdonald, the editorial team of Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, and Steven C Gould and Laura Mixon — and me!

I hope to see some of you next autumn — Viable Paradise is a great way to jump-start your writing career.

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