Hello Clarion Community,

How is everyone's July going? If you're in a part of the world with a heat wave, please take care!

It's time for our update of the Clarion 2022 workshop and our annual Write-a-Thon which are now both in Week 4! Thus far we've raised $3,277 for future Clarion scholarships. A big shout out to Clarion alum and generally amazing author, Cory Doctorow, whose campaign has raised over $500 of those dollars so far!

This is awesome progress - but we also know that's only 1/5 of the way to our goal, and we're already 2/3 of the way through summer. Writers and donors, it's time to step it up! If you're not participating this year, please do consider helping by supporting some of our awesome writers, or just donating to the Clarion Foundation directly. The funds we raise will support future Clarion scholarships. As you know, the majority of our students need some financial assistance to attend the workshop, and we do our best to make sure that everyone who applies for help receives some. We want to keep doing this for future Clarion classes, so your support is much appreciated!

Again, a massive thank you to all of our participants and donors thus far. This week we have another writing pep talk. We've also got a few Ghost Class updates straight from from our illustrious new director, Jac Jemc.

Join the Clarion Write-a-Thon!

As we finish up week four here at the Clarion Write-A-Thon, we thought it would be appropriate to share a smidgen of writerly wisdom from our very own Week 4 Clarion instructor (and 2012 Clarion Alum), Sam J. Miller.

At his Mysterious Galaxy event this week, Sam not only read from his recent collection, Boys, Beasts, & Men, but also engaged in an enlightening Q&A. Clarion 2022 students, alum, and local San Diego fans and writers had the chance to pick Sam's brain about his writing process, and about the writerly life in general, particularly in regard to that most elusive of strengths--perseverance.

In the conversation, Sam shared that his first novel publication, the Nebula Award-winning The Art of Starving, was actually the 7th (!) novel he completed. When asked about what pushed him through those first six rejections, his response was heartening: The best way to get over rejection is to dive into the next book, the next project. You keep going.

We keep going because, honestly, we love what we do!

Something we should all keep in mind as the Write-a-Thon season unfolds. For most Clarion classes, Week 4 is a notorious slog. The proverbial "hump" after weeks of challenging and enriching scholarship, late nights, early mornings (and, of course, writing!) begin to take their toll both mentally and physically. A feeling I think we can all relate to, particularly when we're in the throes of a long writing project or in the midst of a writing goal. So, best of luck to the Ghost Class as they cap off the next two weeks with a bang, and the same goes to all those contributing in the 2022 Write-a-Thon. Let's power through and hit those writerly goals, whatever they may be!

As mentioned in our last update, in engaging in the Thon, we have chosen to show up for each other, and that is the real goal, to show up and to continue showing up, for yourself, for the Ghost Class, for the instructors, for the Write-a-thon writers, for Clarion.

Questions? Issues with the Thon site?
Check out our updated FAQs, or let us know so we can help! Our email is writeathon@theclarionfoundation.org.

We hope to have you join us!

Week 4 Clarion instructor, Sam J. Miller, discusses his latest release at Mysterious Galaxy, July 13th 2022.

Faculty Director’s Corner, from Jac Jemc

The pace is picking up here in the Workshop! Week 4 is coming to a close, and it seems somewhat shocking that the end of the workshop time is coming into distant focus.

Despite having delayed our in-person session for two years in the hopes of avoiding the difficulties posed by COVID, the workshop has still faced quite a few challenges this year. The workshop was run in a hybrid in-person/remote form for the first three weeks to accommodate group members who unfortunately tested positive, but I’m happy to share that we are finally meeting fully in-person again, though still masked, of course.

In Week 3, Greg van Eekhout stepped in to lead the workshop and brought with him tremendous energy and insight. In his introduction to the group, he set a weekly focus on the idea of “intention,” asking everyone to share, along with their workshop stories, a bit of context for what they were thinking about and hoping to achieve with their work. On Tuesday, he talked to the group about craft and career in regard to both adult and middle-grade fiction. We were also lucky enough to get a Zoom lecture one evening from Anjali Sachdeva on her approach to revision, including some nuts and bolts suggestions for ways to break down the construction of stories to ensure they find their most effective forms.

Former 2012 Clarionite Sam J. Miller returned to lead Week 4 and I’d venture to say that, while Sam is clearly thrilled to be back, the group is even more excited to be learning from him this week. Sam has been incredibly generous in sharing additional talks with the group in the evenings. In his craft lecture on Character and Voice, he shared advice he’d learned from Samuel Delaney on the idea of “the Third Thing” that can pop characters from two dimensions into three. Last night, Mysterious Galaxy hosted a large crowd to celebrate the release of Sam’s new story collection, Boys, Beasts & Men. Sam read from his story, originally written at Clarion, “Things with Beards,” and inspired the group to plan a screening of John Carpenter’s The Thing.

We’re facing an unconventional Week 5 and 6, with a slightly different balance of instructors than is typical (or was initially expected), but we’ve managed to find some exciting solutions to the challenges COVID has presented. More about that in my final update!

Finally, I want to include a shout-out to current Clarionite Andrew Dana Hudson for the recent publication of his book, Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures by Fordham University Press. I mistakenly left the title out in my previous dispatch’s list of the accolades this group has achieved in the time since being admitted, but I look forward to only watching the list of successes grow in the months and years to come!

Donate to Clarion Today!

That's it for this newsletter! We'll be back in a few weeks with another update. If you have any feedback, please get in touch at bulletin@theclarionfoundation.org.