Word Count: 1169 | Reading Time: 4 min
Clarion West is a notable non-profit organization that specializes in conducting six-week writing workshops in the genre of speculative fiction for aspiring professional writers, founded in Seattle, Washington, in 1971 and has been held ever since. The workshop is a space for writing short stories and learning how to workshop them under the guidance of instructors of the speculative fiction field and students alike in a collaborative effort. It runs annually from late June through the end of July and each of the six weeks is instructed by a different professional writer or editor.
Although the focus remains on speculative fiction, writers are encouraged to ruminate broadly within the genres of science fiction, horror, and fantasy, because if there’s one thing, anything weird and kooky harbors a home under the umbrella of speculative fiction.
For the 2025 iteration of Clarion West, the workshop was held virtually and spearheaded by Maurice Broaddus, Carlos Hernandez, Diana Pho and Martha Wells and it was conducted from 22nd of June to the 2nd of August. Given this fantastic lineup of instructors, I had the honor of interviewing four exceptional writers of South-Asian descent that attended Clarion West this year and learned about their experiences.
Our first writer is Rukman Ragas, a speculative fiction writer hailing from Sri Lanka, who was also a recipient of The Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship, which enables writers of color to attend Clarion writing workshops. Their primary motivation for applying to the workshop was to see if they were good enough to get in, with the perspective of Alex London’s philosophy: “The worst writing that I ever do is better than the best writing I never do.” Clarion West taught him to churn out his stories at a faster pace, as it taught them that not all their stories needed months to be something worthwhile, that just the act of writing, however imperfect the result was, was enough.
While managing their day job with classes and the workshop were a challenge, on being asked about a memorable moment from the workshop: “Often, the heart comes from spaces that don’t necessarily feel essential or cohesive to a story or even its genre, but it’s that contradiction that allows, for a very brief moment, for the fictional characters to become real.”
Speculative fiction has historically been a genre that is concentrated within white and americanized spaces and has quite recently started to extend its tendrils towards South-Asian writers in mainstream spaces, which is what I asked writers to elaborate on, as this cohort was quite diverse.
To conclude with Rukman, his advice was: “Don’t self reject. If the finances are intimidating, Clarion West does offer generous scholarships. I was the recipient of the Octavia E Butler Memorial Scholarship this year, which enabled me to complete the workshop, and several of my peers were covered fully or partially by other scholarships. Allow yourself to dream big, and take that leap.”
Next, our second writer was our very own Kehkashan Khalid, from Pakistan, who works as an editor at Tasavvur and is an alumni of the Salam Award Workshop for Speculative Fiction. Her biggest hurdle during the workshop was the burnout, compounded not only by the weeks of writing but the drive to write something worth reading while surrounded by such talented peers.
For her, the virtual workshop smashed all boundaries that usually shackled writers of color, like passport and visa requirements, and instead fostered a space where everyone had the chance to partake in the joy of writing and dissecting the genre that tied them all together.
On being asked about if she felt like speculative communities were welcoming South-Asian voices: “I’m not sure. I think SFF is still very concentrated in certain regions and it’s difficult for other cultures to be seen as mainstream. But there’s always good editors and mentors and there’s always a home for good stories.” On an ending note, she recommended for writers to read speculative fiction magazines and research Clarion West on CODEX, in order to develop iron-clad goals and ideals for what they’d like to glean from the workshop.
Our third writer, Rida Altaf, also originates from Pakistan and is currently a Fulbright Scholar, majoring in Comparative Literature. The idea of an intense workshop that fostered an equally driven community was what drove her to apply, after a few years of dabbling in speculative fiction.
Her most valuable lesson was learning how to write the hard way, through bruising her wits and sound mind and realizing: “Now, I feel more comfortable starting and finishing a story, because I have learned to get at the heart of what I want to say through a story, which is its most important aspect for me.” Managing life along with workshopping and churning out stories seven days a week was certainly a challenge for Rida, but one of her favorite moments ended up being the Fowler machine exercise as she had to list down everything she wanted to write in the future.
Her experience radiated out to me through her words: “Everyone was different and I learned so much about different cultures, from Sri Lankan politics to Mexican and African folklore. I was able to share my own culture with these people too and always found them willing to listen.”
However, when asked on if speculative fiction spaces had become as welcoming globally for South-Asian writers, she hesitated to make a general statement about inclusion and appreciated Clarion’s efforts on making the workshop a safe and inclusive space. On an ending note, she advised writers to give it their all.
Lastly, the final writer is Krushna Dande, who is from India and has been awarded AC Bose Grant for Speculative Literature. He remarked that anything could be a fine and beautiful story once one learned to finish and shape it.
His favorite moment has been described beautifully: “Because of one of our instructors, we took to talking about stories as overfull and ransackable places, places that could be burglarized endlessly.”
An astute observation on Krushna’s end was that all the South-Asian writers in his cohort demonstrated precedence in editing and academic studies, therefore a writer who was less familiar with the field could’ve had difficulty being accepted. On an ending note, his advice was to: “Submit what you consider to be your best piece of writing.”
All four writers recommended the workshop, especially for South-Asian writers and lauded it for helping them not only hone their craft into a finely edged sword but also break into the seemingly impenetrable walls of the publishing industry. In Krushna’s words: “This is a goal which is related to, but quite separate from, the goal of improving your writing.”
Finally, I’d be remiss to mention that three of the writers mentioned: Rukman Ragas, Kehkashan Khalid and Rida Altaf have published with our magazine and I definitely recommend checking them out. The workshop hand-picked these gems out of the speculative fiction gold mine!