Blurred Line

For those of you who have been reading the blog for a while, you might remember some of my Clarion angst from last year, when I was hoping desperately to get into last year's Clarion East. Well, since I love rambling on about the workshop so much (and since I'll probably be rambling on about it occasionally until I'm rejected or accepted this year) I thought I'd give a bit of background.

Anyhow, Clarion started way back in 1968 and, since 1972, was housed at MSU in East Lansing, Michigan. It's an intensive six-week workshop geared specifically to science fiction and fantasy writers, where you live in university dorms with 15-20 other aspiring writers, and have a different instructor each week for the first four, and then an anchor team of instructors for the final two. Each day you have classes in the morning, story critiques in the afternoon and writing/general merrymaking in the evening. Last year (when I applied) was the last year that Clarion was to be held there. They've since moved to sunny California and this year will be holding the workshop in San Diego. Meanwhile, in 1984, Clarion West kicked off in Seattle. The two workshops were never formally associated, but used the same format. And, even though Clarion West was regarded as Clarion East's (which they'll probably be calling Clarion Beach now, or something like that) ugly little sister, there hasn't really been any difference in quality between the two for quite some time (if there ever was).

As opposed to last year, I'll be applying to Clarion West this time around, a decision I've made based on two things - tuition and board is a few hundred bucks cheaper, and the instructors seem to suit me better. Sure, Clarion has Cory Doctorow this year, which would be awesome, but aside from that, but the rest of the instructors are fantasy writers. SF-centric as I am, I figured Clarion West would be the better choice. They've got two of the instructors who were at Clarion last year - Nancy Kress (she of the totally sweet Beggars In Spain) and Samuel Delany (he of the...well, living science fiction legend, really). Also teaching are Larissa Lai, a fellow Canadian, whose work skews more to the literary side of things. She's written a couple of novels (her first was shortlisted for the Books In Canada First Novel Award) that could be classified as somewhat mythological, I suppose. There's Graham Joyce, who I'd not heard of, probably on account of the fantasy pedigree, but he's got himself a shiny World Fantasy Award, which isn't too shabby. Then there's Kelley Eskridge, whose novel Solitaire was just fantastic (and, in terms of content, was extremely close to my own interests in SF). Lastly, there's Patrick Nielsen Hayden. And, let's face it, if there's anybody in the world you'd want to critique your work, how could it not be the editor at the biggest, bestest science fiction publisher in the world, Tor?

Clarion West runs from June 17th to July 27th this year. I'm not entirely sure where I'd find the money if I was accepted, but I suppose it can't hurt to take a shot. As for what I'd submit, since "Between Eternities" and "Smoke and Mirrors" failed to make the cut at Clarion last year, I doubt I'll send those in again. Interestingly, Clarion West allows for both novel excerpts and stuff outside SF&F in their applications, so that means I could theoretically send in an excerpt from Mass Romantic if I so desired. Still, at this point, I'll probably stick with "Learning Magic From Mint" and "Spam", whenever it is I finish that story. Anyway, my goal is to get my application in by the end of the month, but I'll be keeping everyone up to date (probably more so than you'd like to be).


Profile Editor. Writer. 9-5er. Lord of the Dance. Blurredline.com Apodis Publishing Fusion Fragment cterrill(at)blurredline.com Buy Goodbye, Darwin Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format Buy Blurred Line Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format The Short Stuff "Learning Magic From Mint" - published May 2007 in Atomjack "Between Eternities" - published October 2005 at Speculative.ca "Smoke and Mirrors" - published June 2005 in Byzarium Submissions Log Total Subs: 25 Acceptances: 3 Rejections: 17 Withdrawals: 3 Subs Out: 2 Quality Blogs Scalzi's Whatever Dave's Blogography Bookslut The Struggling Writer SF Signal the0phrastus Paperback Writer Scribe's Writing Desk Nathan Bransford Lyons Literary LLC The World in the Satin Bag Book In The Oven The Word Perhaps We Learned Something... Words, etc. Archives March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 Et Cetera Cavan @ Last.fm Cavan @ LibraryThing Feeds Atom Feed RSS Feed	Thursday, January 04, 2007 - Cavan and Clarion, 2007 Edition For those of you who have been reading the blog for a while, you might remember some of my Clarion angst from last year, when I was hoping desperately to get into last year's Clarion East. Well, since I love rambling on about the workshop so much (and since I'll probably be rambling on about it occasionally until I'm rejected or accepted this year) I thought I'd give a bit of background. Anyhow, Clarion started way back in 1968 and, since 1972, was housed at MSU in East Lansing, Michigan. It's an intensive six-week workshop geared specifically to science fiction and fantasy writers, where you live in university dorms with 15-20 other aspiring writers, and have a different instructor each week for the first four, and then an anchor team of instructors for the final two. Each day you have classes in the morning, story critiques in the afternoon and writing/general merrymaking in the evening. Last year (when I applied) was the last year that Clarion was to be held there. They've since moved to sunny California and this year will be holding the workshop in San Diego. Meanwhile, in 1984, Clarion West kicked off in Seattle. The two workshops were never formally associated, but used the same format. And, even though Clarion West was regarded as Clarion East's (which they'll probably be calling Clarion Beach now, or something like that) ugly little sister, there hasn't really been any difference in quality between the two for quite some time (if there ever was). As opposed to last year, I'll be applying to Clarion West this time around, a decision I've made based on two things - tuition and board is a few hundred bucks cheaper, and the instructors seem to suit me better. Sure, Clarion has Cory Doctorow this year, which would be awesome, but aside from that, but the rest of the instructors are fantasy writers. SF-centric as I am, I figured Clarion West would be the better choice. They've got two of the instructors who were at Clarion last year - Nancy Kress (she of the totally sweet Beggars In Spain) and Samuel Delany (he of the...well, living science fiction legend, really). Also teaching are Larissa Lai, a fellow Canadian, whose work skews more to the literary side of things. She's written a couple of novels (her first was shortlisted for the Books In Canada First Novel Award) that could be classified as somewhat mythological, I suppose. There's Graham Joyce, who I'd not heard of, probably on account of the fantasy pedigree, but he's got himself a shiny World Fantasy Award, which isn't too shabby. Then there's Kelley Eskridge, whose novel Solitaire was just fantastic (and, in terms of content, was extremely close to my own interests in SF). Lastly, there's Patrick Nielsen Hayden. And, let's face it, if there's anybody in the world you'd want to critique your work, how could it not be the editor at the biggest, bestest science fiction publisher in the world, Tor? Clarion West runs from June 17th to July 27th this year. I'm not entirely sure where I'd find the money if I was accepted, but I suppose it can't hurt to take a shot. As for what I'd submit, since "Between Eternities" and "Smoke and Mirrors" failed to make the cut at Clarion last year, I doubt I'll send those in again. Interestingly, Clarion West allows for both novel excerpts and stuff outside SF&F in their applications, so that means I could theoretically send in an excerpt from Mass Romantic if I so desired. Still, at this point, I'll probably stick with "Learning Magic From Mint" and "Spam", whenever it is I finish that story. Anyway, my goal is to get my application in by the end of the month, but I'll be keeping everyone up to date (probably more so than you'd like to be). Cavan blogged at 12:40 PM \| 3 comments	Progress Zilch! 0/0 Listening A.J. Croce - "Maybe I'm Amazed" My Music Reading Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney My Library Watching Black Book: B Sweet and Lowdown: C Breakfast on Pluto: B Wishlist Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo Rachael Yamagata - Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart