The annual Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop provides an intensive six-week, short-story workshopping experience for 18 students, taught by six major figures in the science fiction and fantasy literary genres.

Each summer, four instructors, teaching weeks one through four, teach the students in their individual styles under a critiquing process that has been vetted through 40 years of experience. Each student produces one story a week, which is critiqued by the entire group as well as the instructor, and each student has a one-on-one session with the instructor to discuss their personal strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Weeks 5 and 6 follow the same pattern, except that they are co-taught by two instructors, allowing the students to begin assimilating the lessons they have learned and planning for their futures as writers.

The workshop takes place on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. Students live full-time in UCSD dormitories for the entire six weeks. During the same period, we organize public readings for each of the six instructor/artists at the Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in San Diego, a well-known location for genre afficianados. We also organize one public lecture, bringing together one instructor/artist and one or more UCSD faculty researchers working in cutting-edge science. And we run our Write-a-Thon fundraiser, which directly affects roughly five or six hundred participants and donors.