creative writing workshop 2022

Support Clarion West’s Year-End Fundraising Campaign!

The crowdfunding campaign begins November 11 and runs through December 4. Together, we’re empowering new voices — and helping emerging writers connect to an ever-expanding community!

Six-Week Workshop

June 22 – August 2, 2025 Applications open December 1 The 2025 instructors include Maurice Broaddus, Malka Older, Diana Pho, and Martha Wells. The Clarion West Six-Week workshop will be virtual in 2025, learn more about the instructors & how to apply.

Novel Writing Workshop

March – November 2025 Apply now! Applications are open until December 15. Led by author and Six-Week Workshop instructor Samit Basu. Clarion West’s nine-month virtual workshop is designed to guide you from conception to completion of your novel.

On-Demand Classes

New classes are added regularly Available year-round Whether you want a deep dive into worldbuilding or help choosing between submitting your work to literary or speculative markets, our online classes can help you achieve your learning goals on your schedule.

Workshops for people who are serious about writing

Clarion West is a nonprofit literary organization that runs an acclaimed six-week residential workshop every summer, online classes and workshops, one-day and weekend workshops, a reading series every summer, and other events throughout the year.

At Clarion West, you’ll be among award-winning and best-selling writers in science fiction, fantasy, games, horror, and more. Our workshops and classes are taught by world-class instructors from across the field of speculative fiction. Wherever you may be in your career, whether novice or sage, we offer a diverse listing of classes that is packed with valuable information to take your writing to the next level.

There are as many definitions for speculative fiction as there are authors working under its broad umbrella.

Every summer, the Clarion West Six-Week Workshop offers time away from everyday distractions and encouragement to experiment and take artistic risks. The critique sessions are the heart of the workshop: students learn not only by receiving critiques, but by reading others’ work and constructing their own critiques. Instructors work directly with attendees to present group critiques of newly written stories, participate in discussions about writing techniques or professional concerns, and hold individual or small-group conferences. Learn more about the Six-Week Workshop.

In addition, we offer instruction throughout the year with workshops and classes that vary in intensity, topic, and number of sessions. We invite prominent authors from across a broad range of speculative fiction to teach our classes and workshops. A few of our most recent instructors include N. K. Jemisin, Samit Basu, Cat Rambo, Ted Chiang, P. Djèlí Clark, Karen Lord, Daniel Abraham, Elizabeth Hand, Cadwell Turnbull, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Amal El-Mohtar, Nicola Griffith, Karen Joy Fowler, Kij Johnson, and Nisi Shawl. Learn more about our online classes and workshops.

You can support Clarion West’s mission to forge new voices in speculative fiction in many different ways. Learn how you can get involved with the Clarion West community!

Seventh Week Fall 2024

Workshop Report by Jae Steinbacher (CW ’14), Workshop Manager; In Session! Fall Classes, Spring Classes, & More by Rashida Smith (CW ’05), Program Director; Steamy…

ALL IN FOR SPECULATIVE FICTION

Support Excellent Storytelling in the Clarion West Crowdfunding Campaign Would you like to join an RPG session with award-winning science fiction writer, Annalee Newitz? Join…

Call for Clarion West 2025 Featured Art

Clarion West is searching for an artist to create artwork for our 2025 featured artwork. Clarion West seeks to commission one custom illustration with unlimited…

The 2024 Butler and Worldbuilder Scholars

Tanisha Tekriwal is this year’s Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship recipient This scholarship has been donated annually since 2007 by the Carl Brandon Society to…

Silence Does Not Lend Itself To Change

News of the allegations against Neil Gaiman began breaking as this year’s six-week workshop hurtled into its third week. As we emerge from the workshop…

Week Six in Review

The workshop had a bit of a shake-up this week. Due to the CrowdStrike airline disruptions, our Week Six Instructor, Carmen Maria Machado, was unable…

Connect with Clarion West! Find us on Facebook and Instagram , watch our videos on YouTube , or join our mailing list for all the freshest news about our workshops, events, and alumni.

19 Writing Conferences For Emerging and Established Writers

Reading Lists

Build connections, generate new work, and learn from the leading writers of today.

Writing conferences serve many purposes. They’re places to meet other writers and build community. They’re places to help polish up existing writing or generate new work. They’re places to reset and get inspired. They’re places to meet agent, editors, and other members of the publishing literati. They’re even places to party. Still, they can feel difficult to get into, mind-boggling to research, and like an insular club that only established writers seem to know about. Grown out of this short Twitter thread , here is a list of 19 writing conferences to consider applying to.

Two caveats:

1) Things are in flux because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which means many of these conferences could switch to an online format or choose to temporarily pause applications to because of a backlog of accepted attendees from 2020/21. Keep an eye on the application deadlines and updates.

2) Because many of these conferences, especially the older ones, come from a long tradition of upholding the supremacy of white, and often male writers, many writers from marginalized backgrounds, including myself, have faced discrimination and microaggressions at them over the years. However, like most institutions confronted with the ways they have failed people on the margins, these conferences are working to make changes.

The Historic

These conferences have been nurturing writers for many years, and typically attract a significant number of applicants.

Sewanee Writers Conference

Held on the campus of the University of the South, 90 minutes from Nashville, the Sewanee Writers Conference is a twelve-day conference that provides workshops across fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and playwriting. The conference fee for “contributors” is $1,800, which covers food and lodging for twelve days. Financial aid is available for “Scholars” ($700 tuition, applicants should have a number of genre-specific publications) and “Fellows” (full scholarship, applicants should have a book published by an academic or commercial publisher). Past notable agents and editors who have attended and taken meetings with writers at Sewanee include Michelle Brower, Renee Zuckerbrot, Margaret Riley King, Sally Kim.

Bread Loaf Writers Conference

Held on the campus of Middlebury College in Vermont, Bread Loaf is an eleven-day conference with workshops for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The conference fee for “contributors” is $3,810 and includes tuition, room, and board. Substantial scholarships are available at three different levels—the contributor (earlier stage writers), scholar (has publications in journals, prizes, or other wards), and fellow (must have published their first or second book within the last four years) level. Bread Loaf in 2019 eliminated a controversial program called the “Wait Scholar” program where recipients of financial aid were expected to provide service at the conference as waiters to other attendees. Writer Alexander Chee is a known friend of Bread Loaf, as are the literary agents PJ Mark and Miriam Altshuler, among others.

Tin House Workshops

Held twice a year, the Tin House workshops include both summer and winter sessions, for short fiction, novel, nonfiction, and poetry. The larger summer conference is normally held over a week on the Reed College campus, while the smaller winter conference is held over four days at the Sylvia Beach Hotel on the Oregon coast. Anecdotally, the Tin House conferences are known for prioritizing diversity—both among attendees and among faculty and guests. Attendees meet one agent and one editor during the conference and are usually required to write a query letter and/or synopsis ahead of these meetings, which can be a helpful way to codify one’s writing project. The cost for the summer conference is about $1,600 which includes tuition, accommodation, and all meals; the cost for the winter conference is approximately $1,300 for tuition, accommodation, and some meals. Full scholarships are available, though an additional essay of up to 1,500 words is required in order to apply.

Kenyon Review Writers Workshop

Held on the campus of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, about 90 minutes from Columbus, the Kenyon conference distinguishes itself by being focused entirely on generating new work. For seven days, writers are expected to produce new work (fiction, nonfiction, poetry) daily to be shared in workshop. The environment is warm and welcoming, which makes the prospect of sharing new, raw work much less daunting. Scholarships are only available up to 50%, total fees are $2,295 for tuition, lodging, and food.

Juniper Institute

Held for a week at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Juniper offers fiction, poetry, and nonfiction workshops designed for sharing works-in-progress for feedback and for generating new work. Tuition is $2,000 and includes some meals. Accommodation on the campus is a separate cost. Five full scholarships are available and include tuition and accommodation.

The Genre-Inflected

Writers of speculative fiction, sci-fi, and fantasy should consider applying to workshops built to support genre fiction.

Clarion Writers’ Workshop

Held on the University of San Diego California’s campus, Clarion is a six-week intensive focused on fundamentals particular to the writing of science fiction and fantasy short stories. Tuition is typically $5,150 for the six weeks, including accommodation and meals. Partial scholarships are available and range between $150 and $4,000. Typically, 18 writers are accepted.

Odyssey Writing Workshop

Held on the campus of Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, Odyssey is a six-week intensive curriculum designed for both workshopping existing work and generating new work in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Tuition is $2,450 and includes a textbook and dinner; housing on campus apartments is an additional cost, as is additional meals. A handful of scholarships are available.

The Community-Driven

Founded in response to the challenges of white supremacy and cisheteropatriarchy in literature and publishing, these prestigious writers’ conferences help marginalized writers build community.

Lambda Literary Writers Retreat

For LGBTQ writers across genres (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young adult fiction, playwriting, screenwriting, and speculative fiction), the week-long conference is typically held at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, though the 2022 session will be held virtually. Tuition for the 2022 session is $950 and both full and partial scholarships are available.

For Asian American poets and fiction writers, the highly selective retreat is held at Fordham University’s campus in the Bronx, NYC. The conference fee, which is $375, covers tuition, room, and board for five days. Additional scholarships are sometimes provided to applicants after acceptance.

For Black poets, the week-long Cave Canem retreat is held at the University of Pittsburgh’s Greenburg, Pennsylvania campus.

For Black fiction writers, the week-long retreat is held at Southern Methodist University in Taos, New Mexico. Tuition is covered by Kimbilio, but room and board fees vary depending on the accommodation chosen.

For Latinx poets, the retreat accepts 25-30 poets a year and is currently held at University of Arizona Poetry Center in Tucson, Arizona (venue changes based on ongoing partnerships). Workshops are designed to be generative.

Founded in 1995 by Sandra Cisneros, the weeklong Macondo workshops, held in San Antonio, Texas, are open to Latinx writers across poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Participants pick between reading/response workshops and generative workshops held for three hours daily. Partial scholarships are available.

The Locales

At higher price points with limited financial aid, these conferences are more expensive than the others, but make up for it by providing beautiful surroundings or new cities to accompany your week of writing.

Disquiet International

Held in Lisbon, Portugal over two weeks, the conference brings writers from North America into conversation with Portuguese writers and features workshops in fiction, memoir, nonfiction, poetry, and writing the Luso experience. Tuition is $1,950 and does not include accommodation, food, or airfare. Disquiet holds an annual writing contest which provides conference scholarships to the winners of the contest.

Held at the luxury Le Sireneuse Hotel in Positano, Italy, the conference is six days, typically in April. Fees are $5,000 and cover accommodation and food. Workshops are mixed genre across fiction and memoir, and are taught by authors Jennifer Finney Boylan, Hannah Tinti, Dani Shapiro, and Jim Shepard.

Community of Writers

Held at Olympic Valley at the foot of the ski slopes at Lake Tahoe, California over six days, the conference is open to fiction, nonfiction, and poetry writers. Several scholarships are available across the genres.

Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference

Located in California’s Mendocino Coast, the conference is three days long and features workshops across fiction (novel and short fiction), nonfiction, poetry, and more, as well as agent pitching events. Financial aid is available to emerging writers in various categories.

Aspen Summer Words

Held in Aspen, Colorado, workshops are available for fiction, memoir, narrative nonfiction, middle grade, and book editing. Partial scholarships are offered on need and merit basis. The conference also provides a cohort of “Emerging Writer Fellows” with full scholarships to attend the conference. Fellows are nominated by writers, agents, editors, and other members of the Aspen Words community.

Napa Valley Writers Conference

Held at Napa Valley College over six days in the heart of California’s wine country, this conference holds fiction, poetry, and translation workshops. Tuition is approximately $1,000 and does not include accommodations, food, or travel. A small number of full and partial scholarships are available.

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