Clarion Daze II

Of people, we had a range, no one yet that famous in their careers. There were a few needy princesses, the quiet shy ones, the nerdy ones, the confident ones, grass roots cowgirls and nature lovers and I think at that time, only one of each sex who were parents. There was also the name dropper, the obnoxious person who never read peoples' stories and barely wrote anything the whole time. Clarion critiques are set up thusly.

If your story is being critiqued, someone will start to the left or right of you and it will go around the circle with everyone making comments. You don't say anything until the end. On the brutally bad days, many people would say the exact same thing and we started to say, if you're saying the same thing just say "ditto." It could get annoying. So the name dropper who stopped reading stories always positioned himself about half way around from the person getting critiqued. He'd listen to what everyone said and then expound like he was god and knew all the answers. We even had a meeting, of course too nice to say it directly to his face, but saying everyone should be reading all the stories. Name dropper even condescended to come and tell me that he thought I had potential. Lovely of him, considering he wasn't an instructor.

I was quite prolific during the six-week stint and wrote at least a story a week. Few wrote more than me; maybe just one person. Some couldn't write at all, getting writer's block or freezing up in fear of the critiquing. If you went in with any sort of ego you were bound to have it completely deflated. I went with little, knowing I had a lot to learn. I had always said that if we were all standing on a ladder I was probably near the bottom of the ladder. I climbed more rungs than the rest and maybe hadn't even passed the rest of them but I made large improvements to my writing.

I should mention that computers were still fairly rare and expensive. Of the class only about seven people had computers. Hillary Rettig was so fast on her typewriter that she had to use a manual. Yes, typewriters. I was so envious of those who had computers and could write and re-write without having to put a new sheet of paper in every time. It meant for very long nights of writing and rewriting should you make too many errors on a page. I came out of Clarion and bough my first computer secondhand from Kij then.

Of our writers, Octavia Butler died a few years ago. Connie Willis has won more Hugos and Nebulas than almost any other writer. She even had back then and I doubt she remembers any of us except maybe a few bright stars. Tappan King, I don't know what happened to him: if he's still an editor he's not a name that shows up in most coventions, or Locus or other internal newsletters. Ursula was always a star. I wrote to her for a while as she was interested in what we were doing but I stopped bothering her after a few years. Samuel Delaney has since had huge flaky writer issues, not even showing up for some venues so we're lucky he was there for our workshop. He has written a few things since then but not much. Ed Bryant writes for Locus and we became friends.

Of the people in the workshop; Janet has published one or two things but she doesn't submit that much. I don't know if Clelie ever published stories but she's a consummate poet. Our Clarion year spawned a lot of editors. Gordon Van Gelder was first part of St. Martins Press and now edits Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine. Michael Stearns still edits for Harcourt Brace and went from California to NY. I lost track of him. Kathleen Alcala was editing for some university I believe in Seattle but I'm not sure. Kij Johnson edited for Tor, then Dark Horse Comics, Microsoft and other places. I did copyediting and now also edit for Aberrant Dreams, and once for Twilight Tales.

Of our group in publishing, well Kij is the most prolific and awarded writer and has written two published novels so far. Kathleen Alcala published a collection of short stories in the magic realism style. Kij and I were surprised when we googled Dean Shomshack and found he was a multiple GURPS and other gaming supplements author. We remembered him as the revenant man from one of his stories. I think one or two other people sold a story or two. Richard Terra died recently, at a fairly young age. So I guess in that sense I haven't done too bad, still publishing a poem or story here or there. Unlike other Clarion years who spawned a lot of big name authors, we went more under the wire in editing. I don't know what happened to half of the people in our class. Kathryn Drennan probably published a lot but she was a Hollywood screenwriter married to J. Michael Straczynski. No idea if they're still married or where she went.

Was Clarion worth it? I'm still not sure. Some days it seems it was. Other days, it seems I learned more since then. Who can tell? I edit, I write and Clarion did help me forumlate a novel, which I never sold. Some day soon, I hope, I'll get back to writing one of my novels. No one is ever going to discover me without my own hard work. So it goes. Clarion. Unforgettable times if nothing else.

Clarion Daze I

Clarion is a six-week intensive writing workshop for writers of SF or fantasy. It started some time in the 80s and there was (may still be) Clarion East and Clarion West, which happens in Seattle.

I was accepted into Clarion (you had to submit several pieces of writing) more years ago than I care to think about. I went down to Clarion with one of two other Canadians (and Vancouverites) that year, Janet Waters and Clelie Rich. We were the three Canucks out of twenty-one people.

People ranged in age from the youngest who I think was just out of high school to a couple of people in their forties. We were about two-thirds women to one-third men. Most people stayed in the dorms on Capitol Hill. Our six weeks consisted of going into the classes every day and critiquing stories, back to the dorms to write and read stories for the next day, sleep if you could fit it in and on Fridays there was a party for the guest instructor of the week. I ended up surviving on about four hours sleep a night for six weeks.

Clarion was set up with five authors, one per week and one editor. Our year we had Ed Bryant (short story writer, mostly, and one-time protege of Harlan Ellison), the extremely intelligent and diverse Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Connie Willis, editor Tappan King and Samuel Delaney. This is close to the order in which they taught but I'm not completely sure anymore.

The first week, Ed set the tone by saying, "We're taking bets to see who sleeps with each other." It seems marriages went up like firecrackers at Clarion workshops where the stress/closeness caused people to cozy up with those they may not normally have thought twice about. I'm not sure if Ed intended it but perhaps it put a damper on what might have happened. All I know is that there were only two people who did sleep together and they were pretty discreet. Most of the others to this day wouldn't even be able to guess.

Suffice to say we had to take our frustrations out in other ways and there were some monumental water fights that had the halls of the dorms soaked and a few people put into the showers. I still have a Princess Leia like picture of me sporting a realistic water gun. We've even took it to the campus but had to be careful that we didn't look like we had real guns on the street (this was pre-9/11 by years).

By our second week, we were somehow into slugs. Ursula Le Guin had made some comment about them, Octavia Butler had a phobia of them and there were slug races (this was the summer) in Seattle. Yes, the Pacific Northwest boasts the gigantic banana slug, which can get to at least one and a half feet in length (the biggest ones I ever saw--gross!)Long slimy monstrosities that range in colour from brown with spots, anemic white, pale yellow with new-shoot green, blackish and bright yellow with brown spots, just like a banana. I ended up drawing Cyril the cyber slug, complete with mohawk, earrings, mirrorshades and a bolted, metal body. He became the image on our Clarion T-shirts, along with all the best/worst bits from our stories.

Of people, we had a range, no one yet that famous in their careers. There were a few needy princesses, the quiet shy ones, the nerdy ones, the confident ones, grass roots cowgirls and nature lovers and I think at that time, only one of each sex who were parents.There was also the name dropper, the obnoxious person who never read peoples' stories and barely wrote anything the whole time. Clarion critiques are set up thus.

(Tomorrow--Part II)

Mentoring Brilliant Minds

Today was the culmination of my mentorship through the Vancouver School Board. I'd found that the VSB had this program when I was looking at teaching a night class in bellydance.

I remember writing when I was about twelve. Some bad poems and maybe a few good ones,which I still have. I was far enough ahead by high school (grades 10-12 in Alberta) that I was allowed to take a Communications class instead of Shakespeare (Yay!). It consisted of writing mostly, creative writing. Poems, stories, novels. Like my mentee who was twelve when we started,I began to write a novel, all by hand. This was before computers, just barely, but they were expensive and big then.

I still have that early, partially written novel. It would probably equal about fifty pages. Growing up on Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allen Poe, Frank Herbert and Robert Heinlien, there was a healthy dose of the Most Dangerous Game in my book. Though I don't think I got that far into the story.

My mentee, Diana, was inspired partially by Harry Potter. It's this generation's answer to Lord of the Rings, not that they don't love that story too. When we started, her writing was already at university level with a few problems that many first writers do. She had about 100 pages of a fantasy novel. We worked through some exercises and eventually she decided to concentrate on a new book that was about two girls emailing each other in different countries, as part of their school project.

Through this project I learned how savvy thirteen-year-olds are. You get removed by more than a few years and you forget. Great insights, adult minds and the great adventures of moving into adulthood. I was impressed and Diana made me think of scope again, in people and in writing. And I mentored because if my class had gone farther in high school and I'd had more support, at home, and from teachers, I probably would have fostered ahead much faster. If I can help some kids and steer them a little closer to their dreams, why not? Everyone should have dreams and reach for them.

At the mentorship ceremony today they said there were 95 kids throughout the Vancouver schools and 77 mentors (some mentors took more than one kid). I watched these little blooming stars as young as six do amazing things. A seven-year-old girl sing like a Broadway star. A boy of equally young age, play like Mozart. Writers, sculptors, chemists, computer programmers, and many other interests. The kids were amazing. Of course they're the most gifted in their subjects but I think they all truly were thrilled that they had mentors. And the mentors ranged from just out of high school to grandmothers.

Diana gave me a very sweet card with flowers and chocolates, and each kid got up with their mentor to say what they liked about the program and their mentors. It was very touching. It was a time investment but it's a nice feeling to nurture, especially if you don't have a child. Even if you do, someone who can guide who shares their passion.

I'll have to see how time works out next year and whether I'll mentor again. I told Diana I'm still here to help her with her book (she'd like to have it at a publisher's by the time she's fourteen). But it was most gratifying seeing the end projects and the bright stars who have yet to hit supernova.

Chocolate Pricier than Gas! Buyer Beware

I was going to write about Clarion tonight but I was caught by a little pricing/promotional thing today. London Drugs, here in BC and Alberta (no idea if it's farther east) tends to have fairly good pricing on items and has, besides a pharmacy, an A/V section, and a small food section of dry goods.

Chocolate bars is a big seller as they have one row devoted to them. I like my dark chocolate but tonight I was looking for soup. London Drugs likes to put their big red and yellow signs on certain spots that say "Another Super Low Price" or something very similar. So these signs are as thick as measles down the chocolate bar row and you think, oh good, a sale.

Not so. The dark chocolate Lindt bars that were running between $2.69 and $2.89 are now $3.49. Those regular low grade milk chocolate bars that you buy on a short whim, and which only run a dollar or more in a 7-11 or a Mac's are now the super low price of .99. It seems all of the chocolate bars have gone up twenty to thirty cents. That's a lot. Hmm, why is that?

Oh, there it is, the super new low price for a super small chocolate bar is .79 cents. Super small because they're called thins. Thins? Yes, not because you're being chintzed out of a chocolate bar for a higher price but because they are handily small and only will cost you 100 calories. What a laugh. Did they have to ship these in on the backs of an extinct species before trucking them for miles on gas guzzling Hummers?

It really made sense when I was at the checkout and they had a package of four Cadbury Thins for only $3.99. Now let's do the math here. The average chocolate bar is about 45 grams and let's say it does cost a whole buck. So four of these thins come to 110 grams as it said on the package. A quick calculation shows that it's not quite the same as two and a half chocolate bars. If you were to melt this back into 2.5 chocolate bars you'd be paying about a buck-sixty for each one.

Wow, Cadbury, that's a good scam. I mean, sure, make smaller chocolate bars so that those of us who want to watch our diet can eat less. Oh, but package four together to make them more resistible and then double the price. Cadbury may not have been the only one that has done this, but it was the noticeable one. And I thought I saw some of these "Thin" chocolate bars at 19 grams, not the 27 that would be one quarter of 110 grams.

That's quite a stroke of marketing genius and gram scam. Me, I'll just buy a big bar and repackage it myself and save me calories and money. Besides, dark chocolate has less sugar and fat and milk in it, which makes it lower on the calories to begin with.

Canada's Great Secret

Okay, to tell the truth, a secret perhaps, but not a very great one. It's about me. Yes, all about me.

Now I'm not a famous nor an infamous writer. I have what would be called moderate to small fame. I've published many poems in obscure publications all over North America. As well, I've published about a dozen or so stories and come close to winning an award or two (shortlisted, honorable mentions), and published a smattering of articles but no big fireworks...yet.

As a Canadian speculative fiction writer, I'm small beans but not as small as others. And bigger than a few. Now here's the secret. Almost every other BC spec writer belongs to a small self-promotional writer's group called the Lonely Cry. I've been barred since the beginning of time and it seems a few other writers have joined my ranks.

Why barred? Well, first, Lonely Cry was created I believe by the now deceased (and probably still) very funny Mike Coney. I'd guess it's members started around 6-8 people ane really they would do a funny skit at the local science fiction conventions, and put out a broasheet highlighting new published works of the members. That was about it. Except that many of them netted interviews or newspaper coverage (albeit small) from this wee group.

So, now we go back a bit further in my history. I once decided to get serious about writing SF/fantasy and was accepted into Clarion West, a six-week intensive writing workshop in Seattle. After that, I was invited to join Helix (a local writers group, and at that point unnamed). So I brought to one of my first meetings a story I had written at or before Clarion. It had treelike beings who wove their history from the bark of their bodies.

A woman in the writers group decided I had stolen her idea because she had a planet with people who wove tapestries. Maybe there was more but in all neither of us had a truly original idea. Weaving happens in lots of stories. And our stories were so divergent that there was no resemblance at all. After telling me pointedly that I should watch where I got my ideas, even after I said I wrote it before I knew her, I was not anethema in her eyes and she left the group.

So when Lonely Cry formed she retaliated...I suppose. Only thing was, I did nothing wrong. I've never sold that story and doubt I ever will. It's not that original. She used to be invited to the readings that Helix did (Helix and friends) but after this continued treatment of me as the new Satan I grew tired of it and said she couldn't do the readings if I couldn't join Lonely Cry. And yes, one member naysaying could hold a dictatorship over the whole. Seems I could in Helix too though maybe a few were on my side.

That alone doesn't make me unknown but I'm a little uncomfortable with out and out promotional mongering. And I live in western Canada. In the great urban centers of Ontario and Quebec it is much easier to get funding, and to get recognized. Greater population basis, greater coverage. Grants are more available. I stopped being a member of the Leaque of Canadian Poets because they had funded readings in Toronto and nowhwere else. Hardly "Canadian" poets, that. Maybe it's changed. That was a long time ago.

Oh and when I've gone as one of many guests (pretty much any pro SF writer is a guest) to V-Con I was left off the list and the bios, not once but twice (or was it three times). There are other little things but somehow I manage to slide between the cracks.

There's no real "poor me" happening though because I haven't made a big splash. But I know what will happen when I do. They'll say, oh look an overnight sensation. When in truth most overnight sensations have been working at it for years. Still, I'm amazed how I can be so invisible and visible at the same time. Part of the reason I rejoined SFCanada, to see if I could increase my visibility (would you believe I first wrote invisibility?). What if you borrow that cloak and then find you can't take it off?

My Harlan Ellison Story

For those who don't know Harlan Ellison is a short (he sometimes has had the Napoleonic syndrome) vocal man who was the darling of the SF community when science fiction started to really take off in the 70s (maybe also the 60s for Harlan). He came onto the scene with a different style of story and was soon crowned king of the genre. Over the years other people have shared that title, such as Neil Gaiman but Harlan remains an iconic, nearly a god in the field. What he says, people listen to. He's rich, he's written various movies and he's not afraid to say what he thinks.

Back when I was in Clarion West (a writers 6-week intensive writing workshop) one of our instructors was Ed Bryant. He's not that well known unless you know the ins and outs of the genre. Once a protege of Harlan's Ed sold a lot of short stories and one, maybe two novels. These days he's a reviewer for Locus but Ed always has his finger in a few pies. We became friends from Clarion and though I see Ed rarely we get together when we can. Ed's a terrible communicator and often suffers from complications of his diabetes. I see him once a year or two.

Anyway, he told this story at Clarion and though he didn't say it was the esteemed Mr. Ellison who did this there was certainly an innuendo that who else but he would have done this. Supposedly Harlan was invited to a garden party in California (where he lives) and he did not particularly like the people organizing it. So he scooped up some lovely west coast slugs from his garden, tossed them on a plate and stuck them in the fridge until they were moribund. He took them out and covered them in whipping cream. At the party he put them on the table with all the other foods and left before they started to crawl.

It was also said that Harlan had once autographed a woman's breast. So now we move forward to a World Fantasy Convention. This is the professional convention for writers, editors and publishers. Everyone who attends is pretty much in the biz from some aspect. There is no fan track and no people in costumes. One night they hold the author signing and pretty much it's a huge room with almost everyone who's published anything sitting at tables to people can get their books signed. It could easily be 50-100 authors. Even my name was put at a table but since I'm an almost no-name Canadian (sold poetry and a few stories mostly to Canadian publications)it was pointless to sit at the table because few people would know me. So I wandered around.

I also don't believe in getting autographs and don't really see the point. I consider the author and not the signature important. So I started going up to the authors and asked them to sign my arms. As I said, the autograph would last a while and then be washed off and therefore no lasting signature. Everyone pretty much got into the swing of it, with female and male authors signing my arms. Harlan was there but I hadn't got to him yet. At one point Jack Cady was signing my arm and Harlan came up to the water cooler, mouthing loudly to someone, What's she doing? Why is she doing that?

So eventually I got around to Harlan and asked him if he would sign. Succinctly, he said, no. If you have a piece of paper or a book, I'll sign that. I then told him how I felt about autographs to which he replied you're cute. But he didn't sign.

I believe that if I had gone to him first as the prince of SF then he would have signed. After all it was there in his history. The next morning I was having breakfast with Ed when Harlan approached to check something with Ed. Then he turned to me and said, Why did you do that last night? That was very strange.

A compliment? Jealousy? Amnesia of one's own past? I have no idea but I found it amusing coming from Harlan after the antics I'd heard he's done.

Sunny Weekend Events

I love the warm weather. My body hurts way less and it's just great. My neighbor, who is renovating his home back to what it would have looked like in 1910 when it was built is now working on the outside. He said he's discovered where the bumblebees are living; in the holes drilled at the base and five feet up on his house, originally used for ventilation. As we stood there talking we observed the little bumblers going in and out and also into a break in the wood that overhangs my door (the bottom of the upstairs living room--I'm on ground level). He doesn't want his painters being stung but they're bees and there's a great shortage of them this year so he has a dilemma. Still, it's really nice to know we're housing bees and that they've made their hives in our houses. Symbiosis. Unfortunately, the wasps sometimes do the same and they're not quite as friendly.

I went to the Farmers Market at Trout Lake (thanks to Andrew for reminding me). It's early still in the season so it was mostly leafy greens, chard, lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, cucumbers, rhubarb, red peppers, honey, goat cheese (oooh baby, gouda and peppered, yummy yum yum), and some baked goods. I bought oyster mushrooms, the weird looking morels which I don't think I've ever had, radishes, tomatoes, goat cheese (could you tell). And it was hot out. It's loverly.

There's so much happening this weekend. There is some sort of performance festival happening in east Van, in the living rooms of peoples houses: performances, burlesque, spoken word, music. Rhea's on her way over and we're about to check it out. Tomorrow is the heritage house tour (my neighbor plans to be on it next year) so I'm hoping to go wander through heritage houses of different vintages.

And my friend Sam is having a garden party, the wear white or frocks, eat delicacies and strawberries in cream, kinda thing. I'll go to that later. He has a tiny tiny hovel and therefore quite a good sized yard. My only problem is that I need to do some work this weekend too, alas.