Extrait :
I was on a panel a couple of weeks ago at Boskone called Workshops: Compare and Contrast, described thus: “Our panelists have forged themselves in the fires of genre writers’workshops from Martha’s Vineyard to New Mexico. They’ll take us behind closed doors to compare tales of processes and rituals, sniping and support, the chemistry of who’s in the room, and the magic of hearing a story improve right before your ears.” Back in the day this panel might well have been called Breaking Into Print or some such, somewhat later it would have been Should I Go To Clarion? The audience for those panels would have very similar to ours: aspiring and lightly published writers. Our panelists represented a variety of the workshops which now serve as the gateways to publication and perhaps a career. Mind you, they are not the only gateways, but many of your favorite writers have passed through them. I am not ashamed to say that I am a fan of workshops. I went to Clarion and have taught there and Clarion West and Odyssey and Viable Paradise and am on the faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA program at the University of Southern Maine.