UK analogue to clarion writers workshop?

January 14, 2020 6:47 AM

Looking for leads on UK based writing workshops, courses, degrees to help me get the chops and develop good practice in SFF genre fiction writing, with the goal of being able to produce quality work. Competitive is fine, and indeed desired. I am super not into crossing borders right now so UK or 100% remote necessary. Feminist and anti racist also necessary.
posted by The Last Sockpuppet to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

Odyssey offers some online courses, but I'm not sure I'd characterize it--or, really, any other major sff workshop, unfortunately--as proactively feminist or, in particular, anti-racist. That's an area in which all the workshops that I'm aware of are still lagging behind, although some of them are at least trying.

(The Odyssey application asks for your educational information, which to me smacks of classism at a minimum.)

In the UK, there's the Milford conference, which is competitive in at least the sense that at least one pro sale is required, and maybe in general. I don't know very much about it.

Neither of these are similar to Clarion in terms of intensity or duration, fwiw.

There are some mostly online, sff-friendly MFA programs in the US, but all the ones I'm aware of still require residency periods a couple of times a year.

The BSFA oversees something that I would characterize as crit circles, but if you haven't checked with them, they might have other suggestions.
posted by wintersweet at 7:48 AM on January 14, 2020

I asked around and apparently University of Glasgow offers a master's degree in fantasy literature (it looks like writing can be a component of the program, though I don't speak UK Higher Ed enough to be sure).
posted by wintersweet at 9:27 AM on January 14, 2020

Looks like Arvon does a SFF week’s course. You don’t mention if you’re after longer-term courses, but I did a similar week in playwriting at Moniack Mhor (used to be part of Arvon but went independent a few years ago; the courses are basically the same format). It was honestly one of the best weeks of my life, I took away enough lessons to work at for months, if not years, and came out with a whole new peer group of fellow writers at the same stage, several of whom are still my close friends and writing supporters several years on.

I also laughed and laughed, ate and drank very well, and ended up sleep-deprived because I was so excited every night by how brilliant it was that I couldn’t nod off!
posted by penguin pie at 9:32 AM on January 14, 2020