This is an attempt to throw some Clarionish ideas about, and to have some dialogue amongst the community of interested folks around how Clarion, the Clarion community (alumni, faculty and friends), and the world at large might have stronger relationships. A sense of our goals for this blog can be found in our first post.
Clarion, with Clarion West in Seattle and Clarion South in Australia, is the first of the three workshops that pursue the Clarion method: six weeks of intensive writing and workshopping of science fiction and fantasy stories. Over the years, the Clarion method has proven by far the most successful approach to teaching writing skills, and the three workshops combined have produced many of the greatest writers working in these fields today. In moving to UC San Diego beginning with the 2007 Workshop, Clarion has joined with one of the nation’s leading Literature Departments, with a strong focus on Creative Writing and popular literature. It also finds itself on one of the nation’s premier science and social science research institutions, where Clarion students and faculty can tap into nationally-recognized scholars in fields from computing, biological sciences and new technologies, through anthropology, ethnic and identity studies, and neuroscience.
The blog is “owned” by the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop office at UCSD, and managed by its Program Coordinator, Tania Mayer. Jim Shea, a UCSD Development officer who participated in bringing Clarion to campus, also writes posts here. Comments are welcome; this is, after all, an effort at dialogue.