Clarion Resources
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.
Please let me know if you have (or know of) a link 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.
Direct links to journal entries and articles (or tagged collections of entries)
New Marie Vibbert
New Angus McIntyre
- Clarion 2023
- Lovely article and make sure you scroll through all the images. Kim Stanley Robinson’s joy for a water fight is a joy that keeps giving!
- End of Clarion
- A more immediate reflection. Scroll down for the brilliant advice from instructors.
Leonard Pung Remembered – Clarion ’09
Story Teller at Small Beer Press
Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop written by Clarion co-founder Kate Wilhelm.
R.L Huang, discussing many residential workshops and changes to workshops at Tor.com
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
Adventures in SciFi Publishing – Clarion 2008
- A series of interviews with instructors and graduates.
- Nalo Hopkinson talks about creating a good culture during your workshop around 20 mins into this interview
Alumni Interviews on Tor.com, by Matt London
Taimur Ahmad, Clarion West 2016
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
Noe Bartmess, Clarion West 2016
Lee Batersby hosts guest blogs and other juicy Clarion things – Clarion South 2009
- Clarion tagged thingies on Lee Battersby’s Blog
Folly Blaine – Clarion West 2014
Gregory Norman Bossert – Clarion 2010
Alessio Bresciani – 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
Martin Cahill – Clarion 2014
- “So What Is All This Clarion Jazz?”
- “Clarion Week 1: Grandmapunk, Roof Brews, and Porky Pig”
- “Clarion Week 2: Steampunk, Sunsets & Sleep Deprivation”
- “Clarion Week 3: Writing With Your Stars” Out
Curtis C. Chen – Clarion West 2014
John Chu – Clarion 2010
Vida Cruz – Clarion 2014
- All things Clarion related
- “Book Review: ‘Storyteller’ by Kate Wilhelm”
- “This is how much I’ve begun to obsess about Clarion”
- “In which I battle with my heritage of smallness, pre-Clarion”
- “A funny thing happened while I was at Clarion: On Filipinoness in writing”
- “Clarion 2014, week 1: All things shiny and new, raring to go”
Aidan Doyle – Clarion South
Linda J Dunn – Clarion 2000
- Linda blogged frequently and frankly. She wrote 20 stories while at Clarion. The 19 Clarionites in her year wrote 126 stories between them!
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
P. M. Freestone, Clarion West 2016
Peta Freestone – Clarion 2011
- Excellent advice for anyone preparing for Clarion or an intensive residential writers workshop
Neile Graham – Clarion West 1996
Gavin J Grant – Clarion 2000
James Wallace Harris – Clarion West 2002
Random Jane – Clarion West 2005
- Short and sweet with some unusual metrics (I wonder how the yoga mat is)
Artemis Jones – Clarion West 2002
Alex Kane – Clarion West 2013
Babel Krieg – Clarion West 2008
Jordan Lapp – Clarion West 2009
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
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
Douglas Lucas – Clarion West 2008
Carmen Maria Machado – Clarion 2012
Haralambi Markov – Clarion 2014
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
Sam J Miller – Clarion 2012
- Sam has collected an epic number of quotes. Writing advice, industry advice, shenanigan advice. These quotes came from the following brilliant writers:
Ted Chiang, John Scalzi, Delia Sherman, Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Vernor Vinge,Walter Jon Williams, Jeffrey Ford, Greg Van Eekhout, Doselle Young, Karen Jay Fowler, Shelley Streeby, Cindy Pon,Carmen Machado, Chris Kammerud, Lisa Bolekaja, Ruby Obeyeskere, E.G. Cosh, Eliza Blair, Sadie Mattox, Joseph Kim, Sarah Mack, Deborah Bailey, Daniel McMinn, Jonathan Fortin, Lara Donnelly, Danica Cummins, Luke Pebler, Pierre Liebenberg, Eric Esser, and Sam J. Miller.
Steve Mitchell, Clarion South 2009
Cathy Morrison – Clarion 2003
- Clarion Journal. Nicely structured so you can see which instructor her brain-meats are about to be inspired by.
Val Nolan – Clarion ’09
Gunnar Norskog, Clarion West 2016
E. Jay O’Connell & Michael Belfiore – Clarion West 1994
Kari O’Connor – Clarion 2007
Emma Osborne, Clarion West 2016
John Remy and Andy Romine – Clarion West 2010
- Andy and John collaboratively write about their experience
John Remy – Clarion West 2010
Pamela Rentz – Clarion West 2008
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
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
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
Wendy A. Shaffer – Clarion West 2002
William Shunn – Clarion 1985
Angela Slatter – Clarion South
Clarion South on Tor.com – an overview
Clarion South on WordPress
including interviews with tutors on the process.
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
Jasmine Stairs – Clarion 2011
- All of her Clarion experiences tagged together. Full of pretty pictures and entertaining quotes.
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
Michael Underwood – Clarion West ’07
Jeff VanderMeer, Clarion South 2009
Tamara Vardomskaya, Clarion 2014
Marlee Jane Ward – Clarion West 2014
Kira Walsh – Clarion West 2013
- Reflects on how she got value out of the experience, and provides useful advice for assessing when it might not the right experience for you.
Tracie Welser – Clarion West 2010
- Things tagged Clarion on her blog (including her Clarion Tattoo)
Kayla Whaley – Clarion 2014
Alex Wilson – Clarion 2006
Marian Womack – Clarion 2014
Isabel Yap – Clarion 2013
Caroline M. Yoachim – Clarion West 2006
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 Clarions
The Clarion Foundation, & 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 are the posts referencing Clarion from the blog of my chum — David Barr Kirtley.
http://www.davidbarrkirtley.com/blog/?s=clarion
These don’t mine the Clarion experience too deeply, but I think it gives a good sense of some success stories and the camaraderie students have once the workshop is over.
not sure what happened there? just send you a bunch of links.
Doh! I don’t know what happened either :-(
If you look at my first entry you’ll see other blogs from my year — Ling, Allan, Philip, Karina & Thomas’s.
There’s a list of 1985-2004 blogs, journals, and paleoblogs at http://www.sff.net/people/hmm/c-logs.html
2006 blogs are extensively cataloged at http://www.alexwilson.com/projects/journal/clarion_2006_of.php and http://www.alexwilson.com/projects/journal/clarion_west_journals.php
I’ll try it again and break it up into a couple of posts (it was quite long).
first up is a rundown of what the 2007 Clarion South Class got published:
http://hydrolith.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/clarion-south-two-years-on/
and a bunch of entries on the Voyager blog re Clarion Souths, with several past and present students and tutors giving their words of wisdom:
http://voyageronline.wordpress.com/2008/11/25/clarion-south-what-comes-first-the-successful-writer-or-the-workshop-part-one/
http://voyageronline.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/clarion-south-what-comes-first-the-successful-writer-or-the-workshop-part-two/
http://voyageronline.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/everything-i-need-to-know-i-learned-at-clarion-south-by-laura-e-goodin/
and a whole bunch of others here (you may need to scroll down a little to get the individual links but I don’t want to break your blog again!)
http://voyageronline.wordpress.com/?s=clarion+south
hope this helps!
Jason.
Thanks so much guys.
I knew there had to be other folks who had collected posts, but hadn’t found them.
Full of awesome.
I should add I’m focusing on direct links to posts about Clarion rather than general blog links to folks who have been to Clarion.
hmmm, I just realised it could be the spam filter that killed your previous posts, can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier. I shall investigate.
Thanks, Liz. It was kind of you to put this list together for us.
Yes, thanks — and also for those other story links. Appreciated!
My absolute pleasure :-)
Hi Liz,
Here are my blogs about Clarion 2007 at San Diego. We were discouraged from blogging while there, but these entries were written soon afterward.
The final entry is a list (not complete now, but current at the time) of Clarion entry stories, or stories written at Clarion, that had already made it into print or pixel.
http://keyan-bowes.livejournal.com/1593.html
http://keyan-bowes.livejournal.com/1826.html
http://keyan-bowes.livejournal.com/2434.html
http://keyan-bowes.livejournal.com/3903.html
http://keyan-bowes.livejournal.com/4491.html
http://keyan-bowes.livejournal.com/11025.html
Liz, I just sent you links to five LJ entries, summarizing my Clarion 2007 experience – but they seem to have vanished. Not sure what happened.
Thanks for letting me know Keyan. Because of the high number of links in you message my spam detector shuffled it away, but I have been able to retrieve it.
I’ve just started to read your blog posts, they are great. Thank you for sharing them with us.
I don’t know how this is going to look. Here’s the first try.
Here’s a link to <a href="http://www.pamrentz.com/cw/cw08.html“>Clarion West 08
And are my blogposts:
<a href="http://www.pamrentz.com/2008/06/cognitive-load-clarion-west-week-1-i.html“>Week 1.
<a href="http://www.pamrentz.com/2008/07/preemptive-nostalgia-clarion-west-week.html“>Week 2.
<a href="http://www.pamrentz.com/2008/07/halfway-clarion-west-week-3-this-was.html“>Week 3.
<a href="http://www.pamrentz.com/2008/07/clarion-west-week-4-wow.html“>Week 4 part 1 and
<a href="http://www.pamrentz.com/2008/07/clarion-west-little-more-on-week-4-my.html“>Week 4 part 2.
<a href="http://www.pamrentz.com/2008/07/clarion-west-week-5-i-turned-in-my-last.html“>Week 5.
<a href="http://www.pamrentz.com/2008/08/pritpaul-and-shane-share-moment-clarion.html“>Week 6.
Excellent links.
And thanks for adding me.
I see my comment did eventually go through and looks completely ugly. As I recall, when I left it, I got an error message and I bookmarked to return and try to fix later. And then later never came.
Here’s a link to class of CW 08:
http://pamrentz.com/cw/cw08.html
Hope to see you soon.
My pleasure Pamela. http://pamrentz.com/cw/cw08.html is currently linked to as Overview to start it off. Though if you prefer I can put it in “Clarion related and more alumni”.
The filing system is a little bit squishy, I’m finding it tricky to decide on what sorting system to use – if I should use a different sorting system. I kind of like all the Clarions smooshed together, though I could sort it as Clarion, Clarion South and Clarion West. Or alphabetically, or…
Here’s a link to an article I wrote about attending Clarion in 1994:
http://www.jophan.org/mimosa/m17/burstein.htm
(Also available without the art at http://mabfan.com/clarion.shtml)
Thanks Michael, adding it now at long last!
This is an amazing list. You rock!
Liz, when you have a moment add John Schoffstall’s fascinating blog from Clarion West 2004 that you stumbled across while looking for info on what Jeffrey Ford is like as a workshop instructor http://st-at-clarion.livejournal.com/
love
Liz
Liz, and remember to add that great series by Philip Brewer on how to be your own writer’s workshop if you can’t go to Clarion http://www.philipbrewer.net/2011/03/20/what-if-you-cant-go-to-clarion/
Love
Liz
And Liz, add this one to the June update Cathy Morrison http://www.cmorrison.com/clarion/journal.html
love
Liz
Also add Adventures in SciFi Publishing has a series of interviews with instructors and graduates http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/tag/clarion/
Nalo talks about creating a good culture at around 20 mins into this interview http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/2008/08/aisfp-58-nalo-hopkinson-and-geoff-ryman/
And Liz! You forgot to add Val! http://illusorypromise.wordpress.com/tag/clarion-writers-workshop/ – why you should go
And next update add Michael Underwood Clarion West 07 – collection of posts organized by tag http://michaelrunderwood.com/tag/clarion-west/
Hi Liz, I’ve written two posts about Clarion (mostly pre-workshop prep advice) on my WordPress (http://isalikeswords.wordpress.com/tag/clarion/) and may be writing a few more before the summer’s over. :)
Thank you! I’ll do an update in a day or two and put this to the top of the list. Thank you for using a tag so things can stay up to date easily. Tags and categories FTW!
Liz! Add Helena Bell in your next update, Clarion West 2013 http://www.nuetcreations.com/blog/?cat=144
And gather up all of Julie McGalliard’s posts http://www.gothhouse.org/blog/what-did-i-learn-at-clarion-west-2-the-difference-between-plot-and-story/
Dear Liz, add this to the next update http://www.mamohanraj.com/Writing/clari.html
E. Jay O’Connell & Michael Belfiore Clarion West 1994
Dear Liz, please add my Clarion 2014 report to the next update: http://vardomskaya.com/non-fiction/invitation-to-the-clarion-game/
Tamara Vardomskaya, Clarion UCSD 2014.
Thank you, I will!
It’s a lovely essay, thanks for letting us know about it.
Hi Liz. To add to your fabulous collection, here’s some advice for Clarionites coping with re-entry into the real world as to how to make the best of their experience. https://rosemaryclairesmith.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/bittersweet-farewell-to-clarion-whats-next/
Thank you Rosemary! I’ll make sure I add it to the next update!