clarion west

I’ve talked here many times about the Clarion West Writers Workshop, and today I’m delighted to announce that I will serve as Board Chair of Clarion West in 2010.

This is a happy thing for me. I believe Clarion West is the best workshop for emerging professional speculative fiction writers in the world, and I’m enormously honored to have this chance to serve, protect, sustain and love it. It won’t be hard: it’s a great organization that has been beautifully managed for years, with a wide community of volunteers, alumni, donors and supporters who feel the same deep connection to the workshop that I do. And I’m especially pleased to be working with award-winning writer (and wonderfully cool person) Kij Johnson as Vice Chair: Kij will take the Chair position in 2011.

I don’t think there’s any other organization I’d agree to do this work for right now: I’m busy, you know. But Clarion West makes a difference in the lives of writers, and that’s important to me. I hope you’ll be excited for me, and consider making Clarion West a part of your giving plan for 2010. You’ll be helping writers; and who knows what kind of wonderful stories they will make thanks to your support?

From the December 2009 Clarion West newsletter:

I’m honored and excited to be the incoming Chair of Clarion West.

I’ve been involved with Clarion West for many years. Wearing my writer hat, I’ve been a donor, submissions reader, party host, and workshop instructor. I’ve put on my business hat a time or two to provide organizational consulting to the board. Now I’m delighted to bring all the parts of me — storyteller, collaborative leader, teacher, a person who believes in the power of writing — to serve as Chair for 2010.

I’ve committed to Clarion West because I know it works. I was a student at Clarion in Michigan in 1988, and in six grueling, terrifying, exhilarating weeks, the workshop changed my life. I learned that I could write, and how to write better. I met my partner, novelist Nicola Griffith. I wrote what would become my first published story. Clarion was my gateway to the writing life and to the vibrant, diverse community of science fiction writers, readers, artists, teachers, editors and publishers; after more than 20 years, I’m still thrilled to be here.

Writing matters. Stories and books entertain, comfort, inspire and sustain us. Sometimes they change our minds. Sometimes they change our lives. Supporting the growth of emerging professional writers is one of the best ways I know to make sure that that keeps happening. I’ve never found a workshop that does it better than Clarion West.

As a writer, I’m focused on keeping Clarion West a successful and transformative experience for writers. As a leader, I’m committed to maintaining the solid, stable organization that has been built by the hard work of so many people, including the immeasurable contributions of Kate Schaefer, Outgoing Development Director (whom we will all miss enormously), and Deborah and Eileen (who I’m grateful will remain with the board ).

I’m proud to join a team of brilliant workshop administrators; board members with excellent financial management, communication, and strategic skills; volunteers who make hard work look easy and make so many things possible for Clarion West; and a national and international community of graduates, instructors, donors, and supporters who sustain us. Thank you all for everything you do, and for allowing me to be a part of it. I’m looking forward to 2010.

— Kelley Eskridge

The Mirrored Heavens

Congratulations to Dave Williams on the publication of his first novel, The Mirrored Heavens.

I had the pleasure of working with Dave at Clarion West last year. All the writers who attended Clarion are special to me — they were intense, interesting, passionate and committed — and I can’t wait to see what they all do next. But today is Dave’s day. Dave, I’m thrilled for you: publication days are special, and one’s first novel even more special still.

The Mirrored Heavens is already getting great buzz — and you can find out more yourself in this way-cool book trailer (and I think these trailers are a big part of the future of book publishing, highly viral and highly effective. Visuals work…).

Dave’s also got a website. So go check it out, and buy his book!

Dave, I can’t wait to read it! Congratulations!

Addio 2007

2007 started hard, in sadness and worry, and in some ways it stayed hard. Some disappointments, some hopes dead and others deferred. But those aren’t the biggest kind of hard: I didn’t lose my home, my partner, my mind or my life. So perhaps it’s better to think of it as a learning year. (Oh goody, another learning experience. As a wise lad named Calvin once said, I feel smarter already.)

Well… I’m not sure I’m smarter, but a little wiser about some things. Maybe a little more of a grownup.

A lot of 2007 has been trudge-trudge-trudge a little further down the road of adulthood — Lookee here, missus! Responsibility! Fewer easy answers! Sucking it up! Come get some of this wacky adult fun before we run out…. But in spite of that, okay, fine, maybe because of it, I feel better, more clear, younger than I used to. I’m a little less likely to just take people’s bullshit, and I’m also a little more likely to let the small stuff slide, which can turn into a pretty interesting moment of choice when someone’s bullshit is about the small stuff.

I feel a little more free.

And so that makes this hard year a good year.

Every New Year’s Eve, Nicola and I buy the best bottle of champagne we can afford (which varies pretty spectacularly sometimes, but this year is lovely — Alfred Gratien Mill&#233sime 1997). We prepare a meal (prepare is a relative term that includes everything from cooking five courses to running out for Indian takeaway, and by the way Indian food is great with champagne). We eat and drink and talk about the year that’s ending and the year ahead. We don’t make resolutions, we make dreams and visions and goals.

One of mine, this time last year, was to feel more like a writer. Not just to have written, but to be more rigorous and more honest. To dig deeper, be more brave. To work harder. And to write things even if I know I can’t, even if I know I’m not good enough or honest enough or brave enough. To suck it up and do it again.

And so I did. In 2007 I wrote a screenplay and a novella that make me fizz — both of them more quickly, more rigorously, than I have written in ages, in spite of the sadness and worry and various fucking grownup responsibilities. It’s the year I started a (second, original) screenplay with an opening scene that makes me wiggle, it’s so cool. The year I came up with a master plan for conquering Hollywood. The year a real live editor asked me to write a young adult novel, and I began to find young people in my head with some things to do and say, some big feelings to feel, some life to live. It’s the year I taught Clarion West and was privileged to work with an amazing group of writers: I think I helped a few of them, and I know they helped me. 2007 is the year I gave myself back to writing, and now I feel like a writer again. Who knew it could be so easy (huge laughter here….).

This year I started going dancing again. I reconnected with old friends. Nicola published her amazing memoir and began writing an even more amazing novel (more about it on her myspace blog). And she began some other stuff that I feel unexpectedly deeply hopeful about, but it’s her stuff so that’s all I’m saying about it, except that it’s both hard and good to feel hope.

This hard year has been a good year. I’m grateful to it, and I’m glad to see it go. Addio, 2007. In 2008, I look forward to hopes realized, dreams lived, hard work, good times, and doing more than I think I can. Bring it on.

My very best to you for whatever you want from the new year. May it come to you in joy.

Interview: The Seventh Week

I taught Clarion West this past summer. A beautiful, inspiring, bone-tiring, heat-wave-in-Seattle experience in which I had the pleasure and privilege of working with some great writers…

I taught Clarion West this past summer. A beautiful, inspiring, bone-tiring, heat-wave-in-Seattle experience in which I had the pleasure and privilege of working with some great writers.

The Seventh Week, the Clarion West newsletter, published a brief interview in their Spring 2007 issue. The interview was edited for length (I’m sure this surprises no one who has ever talked to me), but they graciously gave me permission to post the entire interview here.

The interview includes talk about why I write, and my advice to Clarion students (and by extension anyone who wants to learn to write).