Just one month remains to apply for Viable Paradise, the week-long science fiction writing boot-camp in Martha's Vinyard, Mass, next Sept 30-Oct 5. Viable Paradise is seven days of incredibly intense instruction from a large group of instructors (this year, it's 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!) along with daily peer-workshops. I taught last year as well and left it utterly exhausted, with a permanent grin from all the amazing experiences I had with the writers I met there.
Martha's Vinyard is a gorgeous setting for the workshop, and the homey feeling among participants, volunteers and instructors is furthered y expeditions to see some of the natural beauty (including a midnight run to see the bioluminescent jellyfish). But the real meat is the one-on-one sessions and supervised peer workshopping where the absolutely vital skill of critically appraising a work with an eye to improving it is taught. The workshop runs from first thing in the morning to last thing at night, cramming what felt like a lifetime into a scant week.
I hope to see some of you this fall!
See also: Viable Paradise, 7-day bootcamp for sf/f/h writers
