I haven’t written about the workshop much (at least on here—in private correspondence I’ve written extensively) but since I attended last year, in the summer of 2009, I’ve grown as a reader, writer, critic, observer, tactician, &c. My friends there—and I, gloriously, count my instructors among my friends—recommended books to me that have made the last few months a delight; my memory of past conversations, and the letters we write continue to lay fresh avenues of thought; I have an extended family built on shared, self-imposed affliction and composed of the finest people I have had the privilege to live with, cheek-by-jowl. Nothing I’ve done compares.

The instructors this year are excellent. Delia Sherman, George R.R. Martin, Dale Bailey, Samuel R. Delany, Jeff VanderMeer, Ann VanderMeer. And, if I may repeat myself: Samuel R. Delany. Samuel R. Delany is teaching this year. Samuel R. Delany. Yes.

So I say again, with fervency and earnest eyes and overly familiar hand-pressing: If you write short stories, apply to the Clarion workshop. Today is your last day. Midnight according Pacific time, so you slobs on the east coast have until three.