About

Clarion’s blog is aimed at new and emerging writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.  We feature interviews with writers, discussions of craft, and guest blogs by representatives of the SF&F marketplace and established SF&F authors.

The Clarion Foundation is the fund-raising organization for the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. Clarion was founded in 1968 to train talented speculative fiction writers for careers in the field. Graduates of the Clarion workshop include acclaimed authors such as Octavia Butler, Cory Doctorow, Robert Crais, Kelly Link, and Kim Stanley Robinson.

The blog was inactive from 2014 – 2017, and is currently under reconstruction. It is currently being managed by the writers of the Clarion newsletter (Isabel Yap, Nick Stenner, and Deborah Bailey). We are always looking for volunteers to help us with our efforts – if you’re interested, please get in touch!

Volunteer Emeritus

Our deep, heartfelt thanks goes out to all who have contributed their time and knowledge to the Clarion Blog over the years.

Adam Israel is a graduate of the 2010 Clarion Workshop. Since graduating, he has sold several short stories and is currently working on his first novel.

Lynda Williams is a writer, editor, and teacher with 30 years’ experience.  She is the founder of the online writers’ journal Reflections on Water and the author of a ten-book series set in the Okal Rel universe, published by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy of Calgary.

Mishell Baker (Clarion ’09) is a member of SFWA and a graduate of the 2009 Clarion Workshop.  Since graduating, she has sold stories to Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Electric Velocipede, Daily Science Fiction, and Redstone Science Fiction.

Rachael Acks is a SFWA member and a MS student in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her main research interests are sedimentology and stratigraphy, and she’s currently part of the Bighorn Basin Coring Project, which seeks to examine continental paleoclimate change during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and the Second Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Nathan Bergey is a physicist with a background in stellar astronomy.  He constantly thinks about the future of space travel and now helps build highly advanced amateur rockets—pushing the envelope of low cost rocket technology. He also writes about science (among other things) at his blog Mechanical Integrator.

Ryan Denzer-King is a Ph.D. student in the linguistics department at Rutgers, where his main research interests include Native American languages, phonology, neologisms, and numeral systems.  In his limited free time he writes poetry and fiction, as well as maintaining his linguistics blog.

Chris Doty is a PhD student in linguistics at the University of Oregon, currently working on his dissertation on obscure languages of the Pacific Northwest. He also blogs at Alien Tongues, a site that explores linguistics in speculative fiction.  Also, he kind of has a crush on cephalopods.

Peta Freestone is a Clarion graduate, archaeologist, historian, and sociologist, and has spent time out in the field in the USA, UK, Canada, South Africa, Belize, Australia and on Easter Island. She is currently a PhD student in science policy at The University of Melbourne, for which she was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship in 2009/2010.

T.M. Luhrmann is an award-winning American anthropologist best known for her studies of modern-day witches, charismatic Christians, and psychiatrists.  She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and president of the Society for Psychological Anthropology for 2008.  She currently works as a professor at Stanford University.

Eric Schaller is a Professor of Biological Sciences at Dartmouth College, where he oversees a research lab and teaches courses in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. His fiction has been published in such magazines as Sci Fiction, Postscripts, Polyphony, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and reprinted in several Best of the Year anthologies.

Rick Spilman is a writer, sailor, naval architect, and a student of maritime history, among other things.  He has served as volunteer crew on HMS Rose and HMS Bounty and has sailed on modern vessels on the New England coast, the west coast of Florida, the Caribbean, the Great Lakes and the southwest cost of Ireland..  He is also the host of the Old Salt Blog.

Contact us

For suggestions or comments on the blog, or if you are interested in submitting something to us, please email blog@the[x]foundation.org, with [x] replaced by the name of your favorite SF&F writers’ workshop.

Please note that all of our writers are volunteers who enjoy having their work exposed to exquisitely intelligent members of the SF&F community (present company included).