About Clarion South
The Workshop: Clarion is an intensive six week workshop for writers preparing for a professional career in speculative fiction. Clarion has been described as "boot camp" for speculative fiction writers.
Format: Clarion works like this: Each week for six weeks a different professional writer conducts the workshop. The resident writer also lives on campus and is continuously available. Mornings are devoted to critiquing manuscripts in a group workshop setting; afternoons, evenings, and weekends are devoted to individual writing, conferences with the writer-in-residence, and social activities. Participants produce new work and continuously receive feedback on the structure, style and substance of their writing.
Participants: People of all ages (well, all ages over 18 years), backgrounds, nationalities, occupations, musical tastes and football codes are encouraged to apply to Clarion South. We welcome you. However, keep one thing in mind. This is not a workshop for beginners. It is has been designed to fill a niche for those emerging speculative fiction writers who lack opportunities to meet with their peers and polish their craft. Bearing that in mind, some of the most influential speculative fiction writers of the last 30 years have been graduates of Clarion, including Kim Stanley Robinson, Bruce Sterling, Kelly Link and Cory Doctorow. If you're serious about joining them, you could do worse than go to Clarion.
History: Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop is one of the most highly regarded science fiction writing workshops in the world. It was established in 1968 by Robin Scott Wilson at Clarion State College in Pennsylvania. The workshop was modelled on the successful tradition of mutual criticism used at the Milford Science Fiction Writers' Conference for professional SF writers. After a number of years, Clarion found a new home at Michigan State University and a second workshop, Clarion West was founded in Seattle. (The Michigan workshop then became nicknamed "Clarion East". It has recently moved to San Diego, USA)
In 2002, a new organisation was established in Queensland, Australia to bring the Clarion experience to the Southern Hemisphere. The first two Clarion South workshops were held in 2004 and 2005, before it became biennieal, with the third being hosted in 2007 and every two years thereafter.
All the Clarions have a strong history of attracting top names in the genre to tutor at the workshop. These have included:
| Greg Bear Ben Bova Octavia Butler Pat Cadigan Orson Scott Card John Crowley Ellen Datlow Samuel R. Delany Cory Doctorow Terry Dowling Gardner Dozois Karen Joy Fowler |
Gordon Van Gelder Joe Haldeman Elizabeth Hand Damon Knight Nancy Kress Margo Lanagan Ursula K. Le Guin Kelly Link George R. R. Martin China Mieville Tim Powers |
Geoff Ryman Lucius Shepard Robert Silverberg Lucy Sussex Michael Swanwick Scott Westerfeld Kate Wilhelm Kim Wilkins Sean Williams Connie Willis Gene Wolfe Roger Zelazny |