Which Reminds Me: I’m Teaching at Clarion Next Year
Posted on October 1, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 19 Comments
I thought I had mentioned this here already, but apparently I hadn’t: I’m going to be an instructor next year at Clarion, the intensive six-week science fiction and fantasy writing workshop, which takes place these days down in lovely San Diego. It runs June 26 – August 6, 2011; I’ll be taking the second week. The other instructors will be Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Elizabeth Bear, David Anthony Durham, John Kessel and Kij Johnson, which is a damn fine faculty lineup, if you ask me.
If you’re interested in being a student in 2011, here is the information you need on the workshop, and here is how to apply. Please note that applications are not yet being accepted for the 2011 workshop; that won’t be until December 1st. But then that gives you plenty of time to get your application in order, does it not. Good luck, and see you in San Diego.
Greetings from the not-so-sunny UCSD campus, where Clarion will take place. It’s been tipping it down here since yesterday, after the hottest day of the year on Monday. We also had the greyest summer ever. Presumably next summer will be back to the usual SoCal near-perfect weather.
Any social plans for this trip? Will we get to see you walking around campus with a retinue of admirers, or will you be holed up the whole time in one of our lovely concrete neo-brutalist buildings?
I’d be happy to show you the sights on campus, such as they are (I recommend the snake path and the library).
I used to live in San Diego, actually, back when I was an intern at the Tribune (now the U-T), and spent more than a small amount of time hanging about the UCSD campus with my friends there, so I’m good, thanks.
I haven’t yet scheduled any sort of public events for when I’m in SD, but it’s pretty likely I’ll do something while I’m there.
If you think that John is making a joke about getting your application in order, I should point out that you need to include some of your writing — see the directions for the details. In my case, I sent in my first “finished” story and a new story. (The first eventually sold four years later and the second was trunked.)
When I first heard about Clarion, I thought “I’ll never be able to take 6 weeks off from work or afford to go.” The next year, though, I realized that time and money would actually work and I applied and got it. Hardest six weeks of enjoyable work ever — and this after I wrote and defended a Ph.D. dissertation in Applied Physics! (grin)
Dr. Phil
Friends tell me Clarion is a ‘make-or-break’ kind of thing. You go to it and either emerge as a full-blown writer or a broken shell of a human being. ;)
I suspect they may exaggerate.
So now you are “Professor Scalzi”?
How many titles does this make now?
Professor
Author
Blogger / Film Critic
President
Creative Consultant
And of course Husband and Father
So what’s next? Emperor?
What? You’re teaching at the Claritin workshop? That’s nothing to sneeze at!
WizarDru@4: “You go to it and either emerge as a full-blown writer or a broken shell of a human being.”
You make it sound like they’re mutually exclusive.
“Professor” isn’t accurate. “Instructor” or “teacher” is.
And yep, I wear a lot of hats. It’s nice to be busy.
So it’s like “The Cruel Tutelage of Pei Mei” with shorter eyebrows? Awesome.
I hope you find time to make an appearance at Mysterious Galaxy!
Keep us updated on those public appearances. My mom still lives in Chula Vista (where I was born), and we’re both looking for any excuse for me to visit her. :D (And hey, that’s cool that you used to intern at the Union-Tribune! I had forgotten you’d lived in San Diego for a while.) Gosh, La Jolla is such a terrible place to have to visit for six weeks in the summer!
Wait. Kij Johnson!?! My brother used to work with her! COOL! Maybe Mom will be able to coerce him to come visit, as well.
@1: The weather actually helped us bond. We united against a common enemy, as it were. (Ok, the weather, and the cafeteria.)
@2: John, it’s traditional that the instructor of the week does a reading and a Q&A at Mysterious Galaxy on Wednesday night. (Or Tuesday night if it’s the week of of ComicCon.)
@4: I wouldn’t call myself a full-blown writer (yet). Even so, I just made my first sale a month after Clarion with a story I wrote during the workshop.
Coincidence? Maybe. Either way, for me, Clarion really was the extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime experience that everyone says it is. It’s a grueling 6 weeks, but absolutely worth it.
$5000 is a lot.
As a member of you favorite pod of Clarionites from the 2009 WorldCon (we were your favorite, right? right?) I’d like to offer my congratulations. I think you’ll be a fabulous instructor, one the students are lucky to have. (Great faculty all around, really.)
It was the best thing I’ve ever done for my writing, and we really appreciated the pros who came to teach us.
Jon@13–
$5000 is cheap.
In addition to the stellar instruction, it’s 40 nights of accommodations, plus 120 meals.
Clarion has to rent the accommodations, pay for the food, pay the instructors to get there, provide accommodation and food for them and pay them as well.
Even if the instructors donate their time, I doubt the fees even cover the expenses. $5000, while I don’t have it, seems a bargain for what you’re getting.
There are scholarships available, too.
Ultragotha @15: “Wow, $5000 is a lot of money to me” and “Wow, $5000 is a bargain price for what you get at Clarion” are consistent statements. I’m going to assume that Jon’s comment at @13 really had the same meaning the first sentence, rather than “Wow, Clarion overcharges.” Because that would be silly.
Hmmmmm, there must be some way to convince next year’s Clarion Writers that their working uniform consists of a “Night Ranger” T-shirt and jeans.
I hope they do another clarion fundraiser auction, they were fun. I picked up a great book or two, but they were so cheap i ended up doubling my payment as i felt guilty.
I was with John (@12) at Clarion last year, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it was all it’s cracked up to be and more. I may or may not be a full-fledged writer now (or a broken shell of a human being), but any of several different aspects (the people, the instructors, the curriculum, the provisional membership in the sf/f cool-kids club) would’ve been worth the price of admission and then some.