The Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop at the University of California at San Diego has announced its 2009 instructor lineup: Holly Black, Larissa Lai, Robert Crais, and Kim Stanley Robinson with Elizabeth Hand and Paul Park. Clarion is the oldest science fiction writing workshop, a legendary boot-camp for writers (I'm a proud graduate, instructor, and director of the charitable Clarion Foundation). — Read the rest

It's that time of year again — time to make some charitable donations while the giving spirit is on you and while you have the chance to shelter some of your income from the revenooers. I'm rerunning last year's Charitable giving guide for the end-of-year, with a few updates. — Read the rest

Next Thursday at 9PM Pacific, the magnificent fantasy writer Nina Kiriki Hoffman will host a live chat on the Clarion Foundation Website, open to Clarion Circle members. The Clarion Foundation oversees the Clarion science fiction/fantasy writers' workshop at UCSD (I'm a Clarion grad, and I'm in good company: Bruce Sterling, Octavia Butler, Lucius Sheppard, Kathe Koja, Jeff VanderMeer and many other writers are also grads). — Read the rest

This summer marks the first year that the venerable Clarion Writers' Workshop will run at the University of California at San Diego. Previously, the legendary science fiction writers' boot-camp was hosted at Michigan State, where I attended it in 1992 and taught in 2005. — Read the rest

If you're in the Bay Area and you love science fiction, this is an extraordinary opportunity to do good: a fundraiser for a Clarion writers' workshop scholarship in Octavia Butler's name, being held in Berkeley this Sunday.

Join Nalo Hopkinson, Jewelle Gomez, Susie Bright, Jennifer de Guzman, and Guillermo Gomez-Peña for a fundraiser reading to benefit the Octavia E.

It's time to donate — the time of year when you have to give your money to charity or turn it over to the gubmint. I've just done a marathon round of end-of-year charitable giving:

US Charities

Electronic Frontier Foundation: EFF always gets my largest annual donation. — Read the rest

Alex Wilson, a student at the legendary Clarion science fiction writers' workshop, has posted a roundup of the blogs of this year's Clarion and Clarion West workshops, who are currently at week five of their six-week programs. Clarion is an intensive, boot-camp style workshop, taught by leading professionals, with an excellent track-record of graduating talented, successful writers like Dale Bailey, Octavia Butler, Ben Rosenbaum, Bruce Sterling, Lucius Sheppard and many others. — Read the rest

The Clarion Foundation is the charitable organization that oversees the legendary Clarion science fiction writers' workshop, and it's seeking your help in the form of donated banner-space on your site.

I'm on the Board of the Foundation, a new nonprofit, and we've just produced our first-ever marketing campaign with the generous volunteer assistance of Grad Conn, my friend and old business-partner. — Read the rest

I've joined the Board of Directors of the Clarion Foundation, a new nonprofit that will manage the Clarion Writers' Workshop, a "boot-camp for sf writers" at Michigan State University that I graduated from in 1992 and taught this past summer. The workshop runs every summer for six weeks, and accepts some 17 students each year. — Read the rest

I've just finished reading Kate Wilhelm's "Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop," a book that is a combination of memoir and instructional treatise, written by one of the field's great writers, mentors and teachers. — Read the rest

Jonathan Lethem, an sf writer who has crossed over to mainstream literary cred has just attained a rare honor — receiving the Macarthur "genius" fellowship, which comes with a half-million dollar cash prize. Previous winners of note include Richard Stallman and Octavia Butler. — Read the rest

Paul Allen, the billionaire ex-MSFTie, is launching a science fiction museum in Seattle, complete with real sf writers on the Board of Directors — who apparently don't have much say in the project:

Plans call for a hall of fame for science-fiction heroes, another hall shaped like the interior of a spaceship and a third that would commemorate terrifying aliens and other evil creatures.

As I mentioned earlier this morning, it's been ten years (!) since I attended the Clarion science fiction writers' workshop (though it hardly seems it!). Patrick Nielsen Hayden, my editor at Tor, has just left for the MSU campus at East Lansing, MI, to be the guest editor there. — Read the rest