The famed Clarion Writers Workshop is moving to San Diego.
The Clarion Foundation announced that the venerable Clarion Writers Workshop will move from its longtime home at Michigan State University to the University of California, San Diego, beginning with the 2007 workshop. The move was made because of budget cuts at the state level that have compelled MSU to reduce its support for the workshop, which trains budding science fiction and fantasy writers.
With the move to UCSD, the foundation will be able to target the funds it raises for scholarships. Kim Stanley Robinson, the SF author who has been Clarion's liaison with UCSD, said: "Their offer is for five years, giving the Clarion Foundation full creative control of the program while guaranteeing to pay for all its operating costs. We think that this will give the workshop the long-term stability it needs."
The workshop was founded in 1968 by Robin Scott Wilson at Clarion State College in Clarion, Pa., and is one of the most highly regarded writing workshops in the country. The Clarion Foundation will begin processing applications for its 40th anniversary workshop in January.
The writers-in-residence for the 2007 workshop will be Gregory Frost, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Jeff VanderMeer, Cory Doctorow, Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman.
The Clarion Foundation has a handy FAQ about the move that answers all your questions about the move from Michigan to San Diego and why the workshop says it's not really correct to call it Clarion East. Aside from all the "MSU pulled our funding" explanation, we're thinking that it was really the weather that prompted the move.
