The Clarion Workshop at UCSD

As I mentioned a month or so ago, UC Riverside’s Eaton Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Utopian Literature (which has a cool new web site, by the way) will host its periodic Eaton Science Fiction Conference, this year titled ‘Chronicling Mars,’ May 16-18.  Today’s San Bernardino-based Press-Enterprise has an story and interview with the conference’s keynote speaker, Ray Bradbury.

“What I’m going to talk about is going back to the moon,” said Bradbury by phone from his Los Angeles home. “We should not have left the moon 30 years ago. We should have stayed there and built a base. And in the next few years, we need to build a base.”

He sees that as a jumping-off point.

“Then we will go to Mars and colonize Mars and it’s going to take about 100 years, and then we will go out into the universe and other planets,” he said. “Space travel is going to make us one single race.”

The conference will be a little bit of Mars-mania, with speakers including Greg Benford, David Brin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Frederick Pohl, Greg Bear, Larry Niven, and more.  I’ll be there, in my Clarion t-shirts — look for me!

From the “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” file, a Reuters story out of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, summarizing the slow diminishment of the cult status of Turkmenbashi, ‘Father of All Turkmens,’ the nation’s dead former dictator: 

A rotating gold statue of Turkmenistan’s former leader is to be removed from the centre of the capital, state media said on Saturday, as his successor chips away at the late president’s personality cult.

Saparmurat Niyazov spent his 21 years in power building Turkmenistan into one of the world’s most isolated regimes while imposing his mark on the gas-rich Central Asian state.

He styled himself Turkmenbashi, or “Father of all the Turkmen”, and spent giant sums building sumptuous memorials to his own wisdom, including a 75-metre-tall (246 feet) tower in central Ashgabat whose summit is a statue of himself.

But President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has ordered the giant syringe-like structure that towers over low-rise Ashgabat to be removed to a southern suburb, state media said.

If you ever need source material for creating some insane dictator for a story or novel, you can find boatloads of material in the life of this nutcase.  The only problem: would your readers believe it?

With thanks to the glorious Mr. Lewis Carroll, and in recognition perhaps of a renaissance in Carroll-ish strands within literary science fiction and fantasy, I point tonight to the marvelous blog post at the UK’s Guardian books site by 2008 Clarionite Damien G. Walter.  Damien, along with classmate Emily Jiang, is a respondent to this blog, something that the new blog etiquette requires me to disclose; their equally stunning classmates so far seem less forward (less interested perhaps?) as they prep for the crazed six-week phenomenon that is Clarion. 

Damien’s blog post heralds the excitement of the Mundane movement — a rather joyous dichotomy, this idea of a wondrous Mundane.  I won’t try to summarize the piece, because it makes its own case so well.  What strikes me as wondrous about the  post is the simple fact that the Mundane movement, for all its power, is but one of several tremendously important strands emerging from the literatures of science fiction and fantasy.  Whether you choose to focus on Geoff Ryman and the Mundane as Damien does, or Kelly Link and magical realism, or Jeff VanderMeer and the New Wierd, or Neil Gaiman and the intersticial storytelling that bridges between graphic novels, novels, young adult novels and film, and then back again, the world of science fiction and fantasy literatures is becoming as varied and exciting as the field of ‘Literatures in Spanish’ that replace the old Western-centric approach differentiating between Spanish literature and the novels of the so-called New World; or ‘Literatures in English’ that brings English (UK) Literature, American Literature and Caribbean literature in English together into a single topic. 

Damien’s piece announces the death of the starship and the birth of the mundane reality at the core of sf and fantasy.  (Okay, that’s a gross exaggeration, but I’m trying to make a point here.)  I would argue that the starship, in partnership with the vampire and comic heroes such as Iron Man, live on and indeed reign supreme in the other media that reflect the sf and fantasy genres: film, television, the web.  They will continue to dominate in those genres well into the future, since the emerging ‘Literatures of SF/Fantasy’ have more power in the written word than in other media.

Meantime, where our past focus in the study of literature writ large was framed largely by the dichotomy between ‘High’ and ‘Low’ literatures, the emergence of so many powerful variants within sf and fantasy may herald a new age.  Where it goes, well, only time will tell.  Or time travel.

As we approach the 2008 Workshop, I thought it might be helpful to troll for perspectives on the value of the Clarion experience, and how to think of it.  Two particularly interesting perspectives come from alumni Nicola Griffith and Richard Paul Russo.  They parallel each other, with Nicola providing the short version and Richard a longer, more detailed version of the same thought.

Nicola’s quote comes from her website, in an interview that she labels “Colorado” dated “sometime in 1998.”  As part of discussing her background, she notes, “Clarion didn’t teach me how to write–the only way to learn to write is to write–but it showed me how it might be to be a writer.”

In a May 2000 email interview with Richard Paul Russo, Nick Gevers at Infinity Plus, noting that Russo had described Clarion as a “turning point,” asked, “Was it crucial for personal reasons, or because the course imparted good technical literary counsel? Or both?”  The response:

Primarily personal, though you could say both, given a broad enough definition of “technical literary counsel.” It has always been difficult for me to articulate what I learned and discovered at Clarion, because it has more to do with the approach to writing than it does with concrete “rules” or “guidelines” of the craft itself, though those are important as well. I did gain some technical knowledge about the craft of writing, but the most critical thing I came away from Clarion with was an understanding and acceptance of what it would really take — personally — to become a good writer. An understanding of both the personal honesty and the true commitment that were necessary.

I learned that having a facility for language and beautiful writing were not enough if there was no story underneath it all. And I learned that not just any story will do — I need to dig deep inside and find a story that matters to me on some level, that I am convinced is worth telling. Because if the writer doesn’t believe the story is worth telling, the story will not be convincing to the reader. Additionally, I came to appreciate the need for being open to criticism while at the same time having enough self-assurance to stick to my guns when I feel specific criticism is misguided — a fine balance, but a crucial one to strive for. Most of all, I learned that not only do individual stories need to be approached with seriousness and honesty, but writing as a whole — as a career or vocation — needs to be approached with the same sense of honesty and purpose, discipline and dedication.

How, exactly, I learned all this at Clarion is unclear. It was more experiential than anything. After Clarion, I stopped writing completely for over a year. I was assimilating the experience, assessing my own life, my motivations and desires, thinking about writing in general terms. When I began to write again, my stories were significantly better — not just in technique, but in some overall sense. In the years before Clarion, I’d had a large number of stories rejected, and one mediocre story published. In the years since Clarion, I have sold nearly every story I have written (though some were drastically revised and re-submitted before I sold them). That’s also when I began writing novels, and I’ve published every novel I’ve written as well.

A few items of interest from the 2007 Nebula Awards:

• Nebula Award winners with Clarion links include Karen Joy Fowler, president of the Clarion Foundation and author of Wit’s End, for her short story, “Always”; and alum Ted Chiang, for his novelette, The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate.  Two out of five isn’t bad, I guess.
• Another contribution to the ’are we mainstream or are we not?’ debate surrounding sf and fantasy came when literary mainstream author Michael Chabon won the Novel award for The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.
• Ted Chiang’s win reminded me of a December 2003 interview available here, in which he had the following to say about Clarion’s effect on his writing: ”Clarion encouraged me to keep on writing. Before I was accepted to the workshop, I hadn’t received any encouragement about my writing, and I was on the verge of giving up. Clarion was the first time anyone told me they liked my work. Clarion also introduced me to the SF community. Before I attended, I hadn’t known anyone who read SF, let alone wanted to write it, so meeting my fellow students there was like discovering a family I’d never known I’d had.”
• And lastly, the runup to the Nebulas, held in Austin, TX this year, included a very nice Dallas Times piece on science fiction in Texas, home to 71 members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.  Robert E. Howard was perhaps the most famous and most quirky of the state’s sf progeny, but now only one among many.  Most of those, it notes, are clustered around Austin, the state capital — not overly surprising, if you’ve seen the rest of Texas.

Oh, I’m very excited.  Nancy Etchemendy, the treasurer for the Clarion Foundation and an all-round wonderful person, is writing a sequel to her delightful novel, The Power of Un, as part of an upcoming trip to Antarctica.  A 1982 alum of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, Nancy’s writing the novel and publishing it online at her web site, Unarctica, while she’s traveling through the region.  She’s already got the story started, beginning here, in the form of lead character Gib Finney’s blog of the planning and the voyage.  As described in Nancy’s About This Blog post, in her own voice:

… my official job is to write at least one children’s book about the expeditions. I wanted to make this book as interesting as possible for my favorite audience, kids 8-12 years old. I wanted to tell the story of the expedition in a way that might get my young readers as excited about Antarctica as I am, but I wasn’t sure what that way might be. While I was thinking all this over, I received a packet of letters from a class of fifth graders who had just finished reading my book, The Power of Un. All of them loved the book and wanted a sequel. The mental equivalent of an aurora australis went off in my head. Why not tell the story of my Antarctic expedition through The Power of Un’s adventurous protagonist, Gib Finney? And why not make it into a blog, so I could write a little piece each day as exciting things happened that I knew I would never be able to imagine ahead of time! And, hey, why not make it possible for kids to talk to me about the story (and the expedition) while I’m writing and living it?

I’m not sure how you write a novel on the fly — I never could figure out how Charles Dickens was able to keep all his characters in place in his mind, publishing as he wrote, and bring them all together in the final chapter.  It will be fun to watch Nancy doing the same thing — with the added excitement of having kids able to write Nancy (or is it Gib?) during the voyage to ask questions, something Dickens didn’t have to worry about.

I have this image in my head of crowds of people waiting on the New York docks for the latest issue of the magazine serializing Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop, crying out as the ship approached, “Is Little Nell dead?”  This time, though, they’ll be checking their laptops or cell phones every morning before heading to school, checking out Gib’s latest post.

By the way, as if that’s not enough, Nancy’s concurrently going to be writing a blog for teens and adults, Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  The goal of that one is “to provide interesting and informative reading for teens and adults, and classroom opportunities and science facts for teachers.”  Students can also pose questions for that site, via the Comments option. 

 The whole adventure (outlined in a press kit here)  is funded through the National Science Foundation, as part of the agency’s mission to promote science to kids and teens, along with some additional funding from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.   They’ll be sailing on the NSF’s icebreaker, the Nathaniel B. Parker.  I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the two UC San Diego participants on the voyage: John Helly, Director of the Laboratory for Environmental and Earth Science at our San Diego Supercomputer Center; and Maria Vernet, who studies polar phytoplankton at our Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO).  A 2007 voyage of the researchers, sans Nancy, is detailed in this SIO press release.

Today’s PopMatters has a post by Mae-lee Chai on Adilifu Nama’s Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film, on the slim presence of blacks in the genre:

How one quarter of the Earth’s population suddenly disappears in the future is not an issue generally addressed in any of these films. How then, does one write a book about black people in a genre that for the most part has deliberately excluded them? The answer: by examining the erasure as well as the limited depictions of black people in science fiction.

The review begins with an anecdote that Nama’s friends, upon learning of his planned study, would tell him it was “going to be a short book.”  According to Chai, however, the depth that the book covers — and what it leaves out, including the treatment of black women, other races, children — indicates that Nama’s volume is only a starting point on a long journey to reconsider race and science fiction.  Octavia Butler once described one of her novels as follows:

I talked to members of my family, and did some personal research that didn’t really have anything to do with the time and place I was writing about, but that gave me a feeling of the experience of being black in a time and place where it was very difficult to be black.

Nama’s work implies that most filmmakers in sf and fantasy have focused on imagining ‘the experience of their (white) world’ in a different time and place without noticing who they were leaving out.  Then again, the relatively smaller numbers of prominent black filmmakers, let alone sf and fantasy filmmakers, begs the question of what one would expect to come first, the filmmakers or the films.

This summer’s Clarion workshop presents an interesting opportunity to discuss issues of race in literature.  We’re hoping to bring Nalo Hopkinson together with some of our Literature Department faculty specializing in African diaspora literature — like Fatima El-Tayeb, Camille Forbes, Dennis Childs or Sara Johnson – together with Clarion students for a conversation.  Just another way we hope that the Clarion workshop’s new UC San Diego home can serve as a resource to the students and broaden the community dialogue.

The Economist has a fabulous “Special Report” on mobile telecoms in the April 12, 2008 issue, “Nomads at Last.”  It’s about the rise of connectivity as virtually every form of IT and communication goes mobile:

Urban nomads have started appearing only in the past few years. Like their antecedents in the desert, they are defined not by what they carry but by what they leave behind, knowing that the environment will provide it. Thus, Bedouins do not carry their own water, because they know where the oases are. Modern nomads carry almost no paper because they access their documents on their laptop computers, mobile phones or online. Increasingly, they don’t even bring laptops. Many engineers at Google, the leading internet company and a magnet for nomads, travel with only a BlackBerry, iPhone or other “smart phone”. If ever the need arises for a large keyboard and some earnest typing, they sit down in front of the nearest available computer anywhere in the world, open its web browser and access all their documents online.

Another big misunderstanding of previous decades was to confuse nomadism with migration or travel…. Humans have always migrated and travelled, without necessarily living nomadic lives. The nomadism now emerging is different from, and involves much more than, merely making journeys. A modern nomad is as likely to be a teenager in Oslo, Tokyo or suburban America as a jet-setting chief executive. He or she may never have left his or her city, stepped into an aeroplane or changed address. Indeed, how far he moves is completely irrelevant. Even if an urban nomad confines himself to a small perimeter, he nonetheless has a new and surprisingly different relationship to time, to place and to other people. “Permanent connectivity, not motion, is the critical thing,” says Manuel Castells, a sociologist at the Annenberg School for Communication, a part of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

The link above brings you to the first of seven articles in the report; you have to go through them one by one to read the entire report (note the The Economist: Web 2.o=free content).  The whole thing sounds a lot like the visions of Vernor Vinge, especially in “Fast Times at Fairmont High,” reviewed here on Ray Kurzweil’s website.  But it divides the analysis well; pay particular attention to the sixth story in, “A World of Witnesses,” on the democratic pressures that ubiquitous cameras and other digital artifacts will bring.  Great stuff.

Yet another of last year’s Clarion faculty has had a book reviewed in the slimmed-down Books section of the San Diego Union-Tribune.  This time, it’s Walter Jon Williams’ newest novel, Implied Spaces, reviewed in Jim Hopper’s ‘Eccentric Orbits’ column:

Suspend your disbelief. It’s not hard here in the multiple worlds of Walter Jon Williams’ newest novel. Begin with a traveling swordsman, accompanied by a talking cat, walking across a high arid desert. Aristide, the swordsman, nudges the travelers stranded at a caravanserai past their fear of the bandits lurking ahead. A trek and a battle ensue; Aristide’s sword Tecmessa, edged with the huge energies of a wormhole, is instrumental in beating the bandits and their human-sacrificing priests.

Nice review.  For more on the book, including links to other positive reviews, check out Walter’s blog. 

Today’s New York Times Book Review has a wonderful piece on (in)compatability of reading tastes and its effects on love that hits home with me.  I read mostly science fiction, fantasy and, increasingly, young adult sf and fantasy; my wife can’t stand any of the above (although she’s a big Karen Joy Fowler fan). Luckily, I’ve married a woman who doesn’t rank my taste in literature; she just likes sitting on the couch next to me while we’re both reading. 

In the piece, a woman breaking up with a man tells her friend he didn’t know who Pushkin was: “Anyone who cares about books has at some point confronted the Pushkin problem: when a missed — or misguided — literary reference makes it chillingly clear that a romance is going nowhere fast.”

Let’s face it — this may be a gender issue. Brainy women are probably more sensitive to literary deal breakers than are brainy men. (Rare is the guy who’d throw a pretty girl out of bed for revealing her imperfect taste in books.) After all, women read more, especially when it comes to fiction. “It’s really great if you find a guy that reads, period,” said Beverly West, an author of “Bibliotherapy: The Girl’s Guide to Books for Every Phase of Our Lives.” Jessa Crispin, a blogger at the literary site Bookslut.com, agrees. “Most of my friends and men in my life are nonreaders,” she said, but “now that you mention it, if I went over to a man’s house and there were those books about life’s lessons learned from dogs, I would probably keep my clothes on.”

Still, to some reading men, literary taste does matter. “I’ve broken up with girls saying, ‘She doesn’t read, we had nothing to talk about,’” said Christian Lorentzen, an editor at Harper’s. Lorentzen recalls giving one girlfriend Nabokov’s “Ada” — since it’s “funny and long and very heterosexual, even though I guess incest is at its core.” The relationship didn’t last, but now, he added, “I think it’s on her Friendster profile as her favorite book.”

Maybe it’s just a New York thing, but it seems pretty silly to me.  After all, it’s not like we’re both sitting there reading aloud, right? 

 Oh, and speaking of Karen Fowler, her latest, Wit’s End, comes out this week.  Her website has her on the road for two weeks solid starting last evening, with events in Sacramento and Davis before heading cross-country.