Support Clarion West Today!
For over 40 years, Clarion West has empowered the creation of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror’s wild and amazing worlds.
Your support of our mission allows us to continue offering developmental programming and instruction to the next generation of speculative fiction’s literary icons in a time where it can be hard to dream. Clarion West pays writers as speakers and instructors in a time when employment is unstable, and their work is devalued. Through our author events, we connect writers and readers in community around speculative fiction as the luminary genre it can be in dark times.
Join the Friends Program
Become a monthly donor today and join the Friends of Clarion West program!
- Set up monthly auto-donations and become a reliable source of monthly funding for our programs and workshops throughout the year. This is a powerful way to support our current and future endeavors, no matter the amount. To make an automatic donation each month to Clarion West, simply select the “Donate Monthly” option in the donation form.
- Our Friends receive discounted access to Clarion West classes and events through our Fieldnotes donor newsletter!
Clarion West is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. EIN# 91-1352168.
Please make any paper checks payable to Clarion West! Checks (and matching funds forms) can be mailed to:
Clarion West
P.O. Box 31264
Seattle, WA 98103-1264
Are you a King’s County employee?
Clarion West is a participating nonprofit in the King County Employee Giving Program. You can donate through the KCEGP including payroll donations using our code 9916
Your Donation Supports:
Workshops
Clarion West’s flagship Six-Week Workshop, hosting 15-18 emerging writers from anywhere in the world, offers a space for emerging and underrepresented writers to hone the craft of short story writing under the guidance of staff and luminaries of the speculative fiction field. Since the first workshop was held in Seattle in 1971, 794 writers have attended the workshop! Between 60-90% of attendees receive full or partial scholarships, funded entirely by donors.
In 2025, we also added the nine-month virtual Novel Writing Workshop, designed to guide participants from conception to completion of their first novel. Led by an author and veteran Six-Week Workshop instructor and the Clarion West team, this program is built for working adults with weekly classes or writing sessions on craft, genre, and process, and monthly one-on-one meetings with the instructor.
Classes
Clarion West online and in-person classes, short workshops, and weekend intensives serve hundreds of writers every year, covering broad topics like the business of publishing (“From Bookseller to Debut Author,” 2025) to more specific craft-based subjects (“Create Bizarre New Beasts and Extraordinary Extraterrestrials with James L. Sutter”, 2025)!
Tuition support for students in all of our classes and workshops is provided by donors like you. Our year-round classes offer sliding scale discounts for any participant and our Access Seats are designed to create a more inclusive, welcoming, and safe space for writers of the Global Majority or those identifying as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC). Access Seats provide full- and partial- tuition scholarships for PGM/BIPOC writers to reduce barriers to access any Clarion West program. To date, over 150 participants have used this program to access classes and workshops.
Author Events
Our Deep Dives conversation series and events like Steamy in Seattle and summer reading series bring your favorite writers of speculative fiction to connect with local audiences through panels, conversations, readings, book signings, and intimate donor dinners and parties. These events contextualize the fantastic within our shared reality and hold space for genre storytelling in a contemporary literary world.
(pictured: Jasmine Silvery, Kimberly Lemming, and Stephanie Burgis on stage at Steamy in Seattle 2026)
Community Partnerships
Clarion West supports our local literary community by working with independent bookstores, makerspaces, and other nonprofits across all of our programming! We are also proud partners with Common AREA Maintenance, a Seattle-based artist collective, on the recovery of the El Rey Building in Belltown! Not only will the reinvigoration of the building increase available opportunities and connections for artists and writers downtown, but Clarion West is helming the development of the Urban Artists Residency program to occupy the second floor, providing not only a forever home for the in-person Six-Week Workshop, but temporary, low-cost housing for all visiting artists who call Seattle a source of inspiration.
(pictured: artist rendering of the restored El Rey building in Belltown. Tap here to learn more.)
What our students say:
“Clarion West makes a very big difference.”
“Clarion West takes great efforts to keep its tuition as low as possible and provide scholarships to students in need of financial support. Currently, tuition covers less than half of the organization’s operating budget. If you can, please consider donating to support Clarion West. Your help might make that difference for one of next year’s students. And every little bit helps. Sometimes small things can have very large effects, sometimes very small things make a very big difference. And in the life of a writer, Clarion West makes a very big difference.”
“The Clarion West Workshop is a writing program that produces results.
“It lets writers who would have remained wordless gather courage and find their own voice. It allows them to write stories only they can write. Consequently, they make the world a better and richer place.
“The workshop changes lives while keeping its tuition low. That means it relies on financial and social support from the literary community and its alumni.”
“For me, Clarion West was the strange, marvelous catalyst that prompted me to realize that I could be a real writer.
“Thanks to Clarion West, I’ve published more than 50 short stories, been nominated for the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award, and won the Nebula Award for Best Novella. I’m not alone. Recently, a 2012 Clarion West graduate wrote to me, comparing the workshop to Camelot: something beautiful, ephemeral, and unique.
“Please consider consider writing a check and dropping it in the mail, or making a donation online. Help share Camelot with a new generation of writers.”
More Ways to Contribute
Contact Us to learn more about financially supporting Clarion West through DAFs, sponsorship, planned giving, gifts of stock, and more!
Clarion West is a nonprofit 501(c)3 literary organization known for its acclaimed six-week residential workshop, online and in-person classes, courses, and intensives for speculative fiction writers, as well as community, reader, and author engagement events throughout the year. All donations to Clarion West are tax-deductible to the extend permitted by law. EIN# 91-1352168