I had the privilege of attending the prestigious Clarion Writer's Workshop at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UCSD in 2013, where I learned about writing from Cory Doctorow, MacArthur Award-winner Kelly Link, and other fantastic speculative fiction authors.
Clarion not only taught me that I could make a living as a writer, but it also introduced me to a wonderful community of other writers, who cared about the things I did. Clarion has been a kind of "training ground" for a lot of successful sci-fi and fantasy writers, but it's also a pretty scrappy program, with not a lot of extra funding lying around. As such: it's been tremendously hurt by the pandemic, and the inability to host its usual 6-week workshop on campus at UCSD. (As the rare person who worked through my Clarion experience, I can assure you: the communal aspect is hard to replicate remotely.)
This year, Clarion is trying several new strategies to expand its programming, including a new winter writer's series in 2 parts:
- Writing the Magic and the Real – February 24, 2021, 5pm PT / 8pm ET (register here)
On February 24th, join us for a conversation between Andrea Hairston, Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi and Sanjena Sathian about how they approach blending elements of realism—including historical events and contemporary culture—and the fantastic in their fiction. - Science Fiction: Balancing Worldbuilding and Narrative – March 24, 2021, 5pm PT / 8pm ET (register here)
Join us for a conversation about the art of creating science fictional worlds and the stories that bring them to life with Cory Doctorow, Karen Osborne, and Kali Wallace, three incredible writers and Clarion alumni.
The winter writer's series will be presented over Zoom, co-sponsored by San Diego's Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore. They're both free and open to the public, and will include some Q+A time with the audience.