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.
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