One of the many joys of Clarion was to get recommendations for good reads from wise teachers and co-clarionerds. This is an incomplete list, I forgot to jot down the list on the fridge and I’m sure there are ones mentioned in passing that I neglected. My dear co-clarionitics, if you read this and see absences and would like to recommend… or indeed other wise minds who read this and want to add to my enormous reading list please make some suggestions. It’s delightful to have such a rich and diverse list.

Creative resources

• Outdoor Emergency Care – very detailed, step by step instructions for dealing with really diverse situations, very handy should you want a protagonist injured in some way.
• Laboratory Life and Science in Action, Latour
• Psychology of Science, Maslow
• Macrocosmos, Lyn Margoulis
• any popular book by a scientist
• Science News (Magazine) - subscribed (http://www.sciencenews.org/)
• a history text called “Daily life in…” will give you a great snapshot of a culture and time period at the grass roots level

Writing technique/tools

• About Writing, and essay “52800 words” Delaney (read)
• On becoming a Novelist, John Garner (includes how it comes out of your core and highly recommended by Elizabeth Hand) (read)
• Crafty Screen Writing – Alex Epstein
• The Chapter Negation of the Negation in Story – I must confess while I own a copy I always struggle to read past Robert Mckee’s self indulgent feminism slapping. It is handy to have a specific bit to of reading homework in this oft cited tome
• Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need, Blake Snyder
• Writing down the bones
• Elmore Leonard’s Rules
• The Full Oxford Dictionary

Literary Criticism for Writers

• Narrative Discourse, G. Genette – Novel Structure (but read a Proust novel first to get full value)
• Anatomy of Criticism, N. Fry – Includes the five modalities of criticism
• The Novel, F. Marettii
• Shakespeare’s Imagery, C. Spurgeon
• The Language of the Night (and other essay collections), Le Guin (read many of them, though not recently)
• Stuff by Delaney (some read)

Short fiction/Anthologies

• “Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse”, Andy Duncan
• Geektastic
• Kim Stanley Robinson “The Lunatics”, “Black Air”, “A short sharp shock”
  
• Italo Calvino, especially his Italian folk tales (read 6 memos, Cosmicomics and Invisible Cities)
• “Good Country People”, O’Connor
• Things that never happen – M. John Harrison
• Borges
• Cortazar
• Guy Devenport
• Wolfe
• Delaney (esp Driftglass, Trouble on Titan)
• Hemingway
• WC Williams
• Tom Disch
• Tiptree (especially “The girl who was plugged in”, “Love is the plan, the plan is death”, “The women men don’t see” and “Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death)
• “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers,” Lawrence Watt-Evans

Novels

• Light, M John Harrison
• Engine Summer, John Crowly
• Space Skimmer, David Gerrold
• Celestus, Paul Park
• A Voyage to Arcturus, David Lindsey
• Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
• Titan, John Varley
• Jonathan Living Seagull, Richard Bach (read)
• Wildcard Anthology, George R Martin
• Ulysses, Joyce
• Starmaker, Stapleton
• 100 years of solitude, Gabrielle Garcia Marquez (I have read this half a dozen times, so I have bought and read Love in a time of cholera for a fresh Marquez)
• Notes from the underground, Dostoyevsky
• Hills like white elephants, Hemmingway
• Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
• Three Guinees, Virginia Woolf (read – though now working on her diaries, not quite sure how this got on the list, there’s better Virginia Woolf)
• All that summer she was mad, Hermoine Lee (a good biography of Virginia Woolf)
• Books by Mollie Gloss
• Trouble on Triton, Delaney
• The girl on the swing, Richard Adams
• The Willows, Algernon Blackwood
• Lulu in Marakesh
• Canticle of Leibowitz
• The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
• Gun with occasional music, Jonathan Lethem
• The Magicians – Lev Grossman
• Diaspora – Greg Egan (read)
• Wedding Album - David Marusak
• The Stars My Destination, Bester
• Demolished Man, Bester
• Light, John Harrison
• Being Dead, Jim Crace (title might be wrong)
• Living Will, Alexander Jablokov
• Read Proust for complex figures of speech
• Roddy Doyl, Paula Spinster
• Gilead, Marion Robison
• The Wonderboys, Chabon
• Dying Inside, Robert Silverberg
• Nigger to Narcissus, Joseph Conrad
• The White Tiger
• A Suitable Boy
• books by Patrick O’Brian
• Joan Aiken
• Kelly Link

Poets

• William Carlos Williams (the plums, the plums!)

Recommended reading notes I cannot decipher

• Dina Mestburg

An organically growing collection of blog posts, journals and interviews by people who have attended Clarion. To be included the posts must be specifically about the Clarion experience.

There are some additional links at the bottom for general Clarion stuff (including The Clarion Foundation’s new blog).

Please let me know if you have (or know of) a journal that should be added. If you add a comment with links and it does not appear within a day please e-mail me, it may have set off the spam filter.

You may wish to begin at the beginning, get cozy with Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop written by Clarion co-founder Kate Wilhelm. I love learning through examples, stories and anecdotes. I must sit down with it again, very practical, very lovely… and, this time round, a little nostalgic.

Direct links to journal entries (or tagged collections of entries)

5 Things I Learned at Clarion/Clarion West

• Andy Romine writes a full journal entry for each thing he learned.
• Part 1 - Grá Linnaea, Jim Kelly, Ken Schneyer, Megan Kurashige, Paul M Berger
• Part 2 – Adam Israel, Damien Walter, Dana Huber,Ferrett Steinmetz, Kat Howard, Liz Argall, Stefani Nellen, Tim Pratt
• Part 3 – Collin Piprell, Edd Vick, John Walters,Nicole Taylor, Philip Brewer, Sue Burke
• Part 4 – Emily Jiang, Matt London, Monica Byrne

Tiffani Angus – Clarion 2009

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• And a general Clarion tag, for pre-Clarion and post-Clarion briefings

Frank Ard – Clarion West 2010

• Interview from University of South Alabama – warning, it is a facebook link

Liz Argall –  Clarion 2009

• Congratulations and advice to the Class of 2010
• Post Clarion and moving to the USA reflections – We do it because it is hard

Mishell Baker – Clarion 2009

• Fantasy Magazine article on pregnantly preparing for Clarion

Lee Batersby hosts guest blogs and other juicy Clarion things – Clarion South 2009

• Clarion tagged thingies on Lee Battersby’s Blog

Gregory Norman Bossert – Clarion 2010

• Blog post … and a link to pretty pictures

Alessio Bresciani – Clarion South

• http://www.storiesofthefuture.com/category/clarion-south/

Keyan Bowes – Clarion 2007

• Keyan Bowes has created a lovely index page chronicling her Clarion experiences

Philip Brewer – Clarion 2001

• Launchpad for journals, essays (including one on the costs) and linkage love for the class of ’01
• What if you can’t go to Clarion? How to be your own writer’s workshop

Michael A. Burstein – Clarion 1994

• The Clarion Call

John Chu – Clarion 2010

• His Clarion Blog Post

Aidan Doyle – Clarion South

• What I Learned From Clarion South
• Aidan’s article in the Internet Review of Science Fiction

The Ferret – Clarion

• Collected Journal entries about Clarion (updated to a new and improved launchpad 1 April 09, thanks Mr Ferret)

Eugene Fischer – Clarion 2008

• Advice for those who didn’t get in, congratulations to the Class of 2009, reflections and links to Kathleen Howard‘s Clarion survival advice

Neile Graham – Clarion West 1996

• Neile shows us her journey by sharing e-mails she sent to a friend

Gavin J Grant – Clarion 2000

• On readings by the instructors

Kat Howard – Clarion

• http://strangeink.blogspot.com/search/label/Clarion

Random Jane – Clarion West 2005

• Short and sweet with some unusual metrics (I wonder how the yoga mat is)

Artemis Jones – Clarion West 2002

• Artemis’ journey starts here

James Wallace Harris – Clarion West 2002

• Satori Stories

Babel Krieg – Clarion West 2008

• A series of blog posts

Jordan Lapp – Clarion West 2009

• His tagged posts are here

Geoffrey A. Landis - Clarion 1985

• Survival tips (still relevant today), a few thoughts looking back, and where are they now statistics

David Levine – Clarion West 2000

• Journal entries plus lots of linkage love to other Clarion things

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz – Clarion West 2009

• In Fantasy Magazine she writes of her anticipation
• She wrote many blog posts in her Livejournal, this is when she arrives at Clarion and you can trace her steps from there

Maura McHugh – Clarion West 2006

• Maura’s posts tagged Clarion – go back a few pages if you want to read stuff written in the moment (though often reflections afterwards have interesting digestions).

Suzy McKee Charnas – A tutor’s perspective

• Clarion, Teaching the best fiction writers’ workshop for fantasy and science fiction

Steve Mitchell, Clarion South 2009

• With pretty pictures and everything

Kari O’Connor – Clarion 2007

• Many and varied blog posts about Clarion

John Remy – Clarion West 2010

• Week 0
• Framing the Clarion West Narrative
• My Clarion West Experience: No Conflict, No Story

Pamela Rentz – Clarion West 2008

• Overview
• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4 part 1 and? Week 4 part 2
• Week 5
• Week 6

Shauna Roberts – Clarion 2009

• Shauna reflects on the process on her personal blog
• Shauna writes about it in Novel Spaces

Andy Romine – Clarion West 2010

• Things learned and other stuff in his Clarion West tag.

Ben Rosenbaum – Clarion West

• http://www.benjaminrosenbaum.com/journal/2001_06_20.html
• http://www.benjaminrosenbaum.com/journal/2001_07_12.html
• http://www.benjaminrosenbaum.com/journal/2001_08_17.html

Allan Rousselle – Clarion West 2001

• Allan’s journey starts here

Rudy Rucker – Clarion West 2009

• Some sage words from an instructor How to write

Ken Schneyer – Clarion 2009

• Ken’s congratulations and advice to the Class of 2010
• Index of posts relating to Clarion (some of his posts even have pretty pictures!)

John Schoffstall – Clarion West 2004

• http://st-at-clarion.livejournal.com/

Wendy A. Shaffer – Clarion West 2002

• Read the whole shebang here

William Shunn – Clarion 1985

• Clarion My Wayward Son

Angela Slatter – Clarion South

• Overview of the full 6 weeks

Clarion South on Tor.com – an overview

• A lovely overview and interview with the administrators of Clarion South

Clarion South on WordPress, including interviews with tutors on the process.

• http://en.wordpress.com/tag/clarion-south-writers-workshop/

Clarion South Collective of 2007

• What comes first the successful writer or the workshop part one
• What comes first the successful writer or the workshop part two
• Getting creative part 1
• Getting creative aka the physics of unicorn horns part 2
• Quantity versus quality part one
• Quality over quantity part two
• Everything I need to know I learned at clarion south by laura e goodin
• Working-with-the-big-bad-bold-tutors

and the achievements of the 2007 class over the last two years

Clarion South Two years on

Dallas Taylor – Clarion 2010

• Looking back at Clarion 2010 – and why you should apply for 2011
• Process, application and who knows what else under his Clarion tag

Tom Undeberg – Clarion 2010

• Tom keeps it short and sweet.

Jeff VanderMeer, Clarion South 2009

• A teacher’s perspective

Tracie Welser (Clarion West 2010)

• Things tagged Clarion on her blog (including her Clarion Tattoo)

Alex Wilson – Clarion 2006

• On preparing himself for Clarion

Caroline M. Yoachim – Clarion West 2006

• Tagged collection of Clarion entries

Clarion related and more alumni

Tina Connolly maintains a lot of knowledge love and linkage love for Clarion West, her year and other years

General blogs and linkage love for Clarion class of 2006

Blog links for Clarion West class of 2006

David Barr Kirtley – After Clarion

The Clarion Actual

The Clarion Foundation, The Clarion Blog & Clarion (San Diego, USA)

Clarion West (Seattle, USA)

Clarion South (????, Australia) – on hiatus indefinitely until they find an affordable venue. If you know somewhere that might be suitable for hosting a 6 week residential workshop please contact the organizers.

And down below, that’s my Clarion – 2009, San Diego

Here’s the lowdown on how I use my various social networks:
Myspace – I call it radio myspace, I don’t like the interface, I don’t like the ads, but it is the best place to collect musicians! I am hopeless at remembering the names of musicians I love, so this serves as a useful way of capturing them. By looking at who musicians I love friend I also expand my acoustic horizons and find new and interesting bands.

Facebook: A great all-rounder. My website (this post right now) is syndicated on it, my twitter account posts to it. I like the clean look, it feels nice checking in folks, gives me a good sense of connection and has an open airy feel.

Linkedin – Really helps me put my business head on, makes me think in a business-like manner and is a different sharing environment. There are interesting posts from the groups I’m in and I get to see how other people frame themselves. I don’t hang out regularly (perhaps I should), but I get stuff out of it every time I do.

LiveJournal – this website is syndicated on LJ and I have another LJ account that has been going for over nine years. It’s not a secret account, but I don’t publicise it as it is my most intimate space on the internet.

Making Comics – writing, drawing and scheming!

When: 2.30 – 5.30 Tuesday 24 February

For: People aged 12-25

Where: U-Turn
Corner Chandler Street and Swanson Court
Belconnen ACT 2616

This workshop is free, thanks to the great folks at U-Turn who are all about:

Supporting young people aged 12 to 25 years, through recreational, educational, and health promotional activities, programs and community-based projects.

U-Turn organise a whole range of activites for young people in the Belconnen region – http://www.bcsact.com.au/

Serious, silly, gritty, funny, bizarre or poignant. One panel to 300 page sagas and beyond. Stick figures, photo realism or crazy collage. The world of comics is an amazing place.

An informal comics creation session for experienced hands and those who’ve never tried it before. Liz Argall will tailor the drop in session to what you want to learn and where you’d like to take the craft – draw, doodle, write and where to after that? Lets make some awesome comics.

When: 2.30 – 5.30 Tuesday 17 February

For: People aged 12-25

Where: U-Turn
Corner Chandler Street and Swanson Court
Belconnen ACT 2616

This workshop is free, thanks to the great folks at U-Turn who are all about:

Supporting young people aged 12 to 25 years, through recreational, educational, and health promotional activities, programs and community-based projects.

U-Turn organise a whole range of activites for young people in the Belconnen region – http://www.bcsact.com.au/

It’s been rewarding to challenge confident students to new levels and have shy students develop confidence and skills.

I’ve learned a lot as well and my teacherly folder of handouts has more than tripled in size over the past few weeks (first teaching every day at the Young Music Society and then at the Australian National Museum).

If you would like me to bring a workshop on comics, storytelling, writing, the art of collaboration or being a funky creative humanbeing/funky creative workplace please drop me a line. I love tailoring workshops to specific groups and happy to travel (please note, I am currently based in Canberra, Australia).

I’m really excited about the panels this year, lots of interesting, juicy subject matter, with some strong social/cultural analysis elements that makes my inner anthropologist squee with joy. I’m not sure how much I’ll get to experience much however, I’m co-mcing the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the open mic night, I’m runnning a three hour workshop on the Business of Comics, chairing two panels and on another.

I’m so glad I’m mcing with Richard Harland, as the responsibility of opening and closing feels quite large and Richard seems quite lovely.

Wish me luck!