Clarion West

February 24 -26 you can attend Potlatch 21 at the Best Western Executive Inn in Seattle. Your membership in this small, literary convention will help support Clarion West, and you can also participate in our annual scholarship fund auction Saturday evening, February 25. Since its start in 1992, Potlatch has raised over $50,000 for us. Coming to Potlatch is a wonderful way to meet informally with Clarion West alumni, instructors, volunteers, and other CW community members. To learn more, visit the Potlatch site.

You can find quick updates on Clarion West on Twitter by following our hashtag. That's #clarionwest; enter it in the search field when you're signed in to Twitter and you'll see what we mean.

The writing portion of the 2011 Clarion West Write-a-thon ended Friday, July 29. You can still make donations in support of our participants' efforts.

This year's Write-a-thon has been wildly successful and lots of fun. We set goals for the event that have been met and greatly surpassed: 142 writers--we were hoping for 100; 377 sponsors--over 100 sponsors over our goal of 270. Donations have arrived from 15 different countries. Participants talk about their achievements on their LiveJournal and FaceBook sites: stories written, chapters revised, poems submitted, experiments tried...this has been a very productive time. We're proud to have been part of all the stretching and learning the 2011 Write-a-thon led to, and very, very grateful to our wonderful writers, sponsors, volunteers, and staff who've made it possible. Thank you--and if you've been meaning to chip in, now's the time, and here's the link.

We're very excited to be offering a new series of one-day writing workshops this fall. They'll be taught by Molly Gloss, Mark Teppo, and Nancy Kress. Learn more here.

On June 24, Locus Award Weekend attendees will join Clarion West supporters for the first of our six summer parties honoring 2011 instructors. In addition to Paul Park, fresh from teaching the workshop's first week, Connie Willis, Terry Bisson, Gardner Dozois, and other acclaimed CW past instructors, alumni, volunteers, and students will grace the festivities.

To learn more about the Locus Awards Weekend (which also includes tickets to this year's SF Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies for Gardner Dozois, Harlan Ellison, Moebius, and Vincent Di Fate) you can go here. To become part of Clarion West's community of donors and supporters, and receive details on all six parties plus other special CW events, visit our donate page.