WHEN: July 15, 2022 @ 9:30 am – July 17, 2022 @ 3:00 pm (all times are PST)
COST: $295
WHERE: Fairfield Inn and Suites, Bremerton, WA
NOTE: Proof of Covid Vaccination Required for the Three-Day Critique Workshop, July 15-17, 2022. Please bring your proof of vaccination to check-in as it is required for participation in our workshop for all registrants, volunteers, speakers and staff. Cascade Writers will also follow all mask ordinances, requirements, and guidance from the State of Washington, Kitsap County, the City of Bremerton and the Fairfield Inn and Suites.
CONTACT: Mindi Welton-Mitchell – [email protected]
Our Three-Day Critique Workshop is an opportunity for you to submit the first 4000 words of your novel, short story, or whatever project you are working on, for critique in a group of up to 8 peers led by an industry professional. This is a great way to polish up those first pages and first chapter. Submissions are due six weeks before the event via our Discord channel. Registrants will receive login information a few weeks before submissions are due. There will also be opportunity to pitch to an agent, as well as one-hour workshops and panel presentations on craft, querying, the publishing industry, and more. Optional casual gatherings provide opportunities to get to know other writers as well as authors, editors, and agents.
Click here for a PDF version of our schedule and important information.
Current speakers for the 2022 workshop include
- playwright and editor Diana Pho with Realm Media
- author Spencer Ellsworth
- editor and author Christie Yant
- literary agent Laurie McLean with Fuse Literary
- editor Arley Sorg
- author Laura Anne Gilman
- author Maquel A. Jacob
- author and editor Jennifer Brozek
Registration
The registration deadline for our critique groups has passed.
Alternatively, panels only registration is open for $135. Panels only attendees can attend all classes and panels except the critique sessions. There will be special writing activities for those in panels only during the critique session times.
Click here to register for panels only. Payment is due at time of registration.
Our scholarship application deadline has passed.
2022 Speakers
Diana M. Pho is a queer Vietnamese-American independent scholar, playwright, and Hugo Award-nominated fiction editor. She has over a decade of experience in publishing, including Tor Books, Tor.com Publishing, and the Science Fiction Book Club. Diana currently works as Story Producer at Realm developing unique and cutting-edge science fiction and fantasy podcasts.
Books she has edited have won the Thriller Award (A.J. Hartley’s Steeplejack, for Best Young Adult), the Ditmar Award (Thoraiya Dyer’s Crossroads of Canopy, for Best Novel), the American Library Association’s Alex Award (P. Djeli Clark’s The Black God’s Drums), the Nebula Award (P. Djeli Clark’s Ring Shout, for Best Novella), and a Kirkus Best Book of the Year Selection (Marie Miranda Cruz’s Everlasting Nora, for Middle Grade). Several of her books earned Junior Library Guild Selections, multiple starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, School Library Journal, Shelf Awareness, and Kirkus, and are finalists for the Nebula Award, Lambda Literary Award, Shirley Jackson Award, and Andre Norton Award for Young Adult. Diana herself is a finalist for the Ignyte Award and the Locus Award for her editorial work, and a four-time Hugo Award finalist for Best Editor, Long-Form, one of the most prestigious honors in the field of speculative fiction.
You can find her on Twitter @writersyndrome and learn more about her on her website. Go to top
Spencer Ellsworth has been writing since he learned how. He is the author of the Starfire space opera trilogy from Tor and The Great Faerie Strike from Broken Eye Books, and has had fiction published in Lightspeed Magazine, F&SF, Beneath Ceaseless Skies and many other places. He lives in Bellingham, Washington with his wife, fantasy artist Chrissy Ellsworth, and three children, and he would really like a war mammoth if you know a guy. Go to top
Christie Yant writes and edits science fiction and fantasy in the American mid-west. She worked as an assistant editor for Lightspeed Magazine from its launch in 2010 through 2015, and, in 2014 she edited the Women Destroy Science Fiction! special issue of Lightspeed, which won the British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. She is the co-editor of four anthologies, and a consulting editor for Tor.com’s line of novellas. Her own fiction has appeared in anthologies and magazines including Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011 (Horton), Armored, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, io9, and Wired.com. Go to top
Laurie McLean spent 20 years as the CEO of a multi-million-dollar marketing agency and 8 years as an agent/senior agent at Larsen Pomada Literary Agents before co-founding Fuse Literary in 2013 with her business partner Gordon Warnock. At Fuse Lit Laurie specializes in middle grade, young adult and adult genre fiction including romance, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, suspense, thrillers, and westerns. Laurie is also the Director of the San Francisco Writers Conference, in its 18th year, and co-founded two ePublishing companies that she eventually sold: Joyride Books for romance, and Ambush Books for tween and teen books. Find out more at FuseLiterary.com or on Instagram @fuseliterary, and on Twitter @FuseLiterary and @AgentSavant. Go to top
Arley Sorg is co-Editor-in-Chief at Fantasy Magazine and a 2022 recipient of SFWA’s Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award. He is also a 2021 World Fantasy Award Finalist, a 2022 Locus Award Finalist, and a finalist for two 2022 Ignyte Awards: for his work as a critic as well as for his creative nonfiction. Arley is senior editor at Locus Magazine, associate editor at both Lightspeed & Nightmare, and a columnist for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He takes on multiple roles, including slush reader, movie reviewer, and book reviewer, and conducts interviews for multiple venues, including Clarkesworld Magazine and his own site: arleysorg.com. He has taught classes and run workshops for Clarion West, Augur Magazine, and more, is scheduled to be a guest at both Cascade Writers and the Odyssey Writing Workshop, and has been a guest speaker at a range of events. Arley grew up in England, Hawaii, and Colorado, and studied Asian Religions at Pitzer College. He lives in the SF Bay Area and writes in local coffee shops when he can. Find him on Twitter @arleysorg. Arley is a 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate. Go to top
Laura Anne Gilman spent 15 years as an editor for major New York publishers, the last seven heading up the SF/F imprint Roc for Penguin USA. She currently works as a freelance editor/copywriter.
As a writer, her work ranges from the Nebula award-nominated Vineart War epic fantasy trilogy to the SFnal/horror collection DRAGON VIRUS, and the popular “Cosa Nostradamus” urban fantasy series, while her short fiction has appeared more than 40 anthologies and magazines. Her new novel, SILVER ON THE ROAD, will be out from Simon & Schuster/Saga Press in Autumn 2015.
Ms. Gilman also writes the “Gin and Tonic” mysteries under the name L.A. Kornetsky.
You can learn more at www.lauraannegilman.net. Go to top
Maquel A. Jacob is a self published author originally hailing from Chicago, IL who currently lives in the Pacific Northwest. She writes gender shifter, social Sci-Fi with a bit of romance and a touch of gore. Her three series; Core of Confliction, Curve of Humanity, and The Blood Saga span multiple aspects such as Space Opera, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, and classism. Maquel also has short stories in multiple issues of Boundary Shock Quarterly and one each in NIWA’s Artifacts and A Darker Woods Folklore anthology.
When not honing her craft, Maquel enjoys cooking and indulges in photography along with Anime, music, and wine to keep herself entertained. She loves honest feedback regarding her works and gets ecstatic about meeting fans at book signings and conventions. All of Maquel A. Jacob’s books are available in eBook and print through a variety of online vendors such as Amazon, Draft2Digital, and others. You can find out more about her work at www.majacobauthor.com, as well as follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Go to top
Jennifer Brozek is a wordslinger and optimist, an author, media tie-in writer, an editor, and a collector of antique occult literature. She believes the best thing about being a full-time freelance publishing industry professional is the fact that she gets to choose which 60 hours of the week she works. In-between cuddling her cats, writing, and editing, Jennifer is an active member of SFWA, HWA, and IAMTW. She keeps a tight writing and editing schedule and credits her husband with being the best sounding board ever. Visit Jennifer’s worlds at jenniferbrozek.com or on Twitter: @JenniferBrozek.
