Hi, I'm David Barr-Curtley, author of the book Save Me Please and other stories, and

welcome to episode 599 of Geeks Guide to the Galaxy. Today on the show will be discussing the book

storyteller, writing lessons in more from 27 years of the Clarion Writers Workshop by Kate Wilhelm,

and I'm joined today by my good friend Tom Gorenzer, making his 36th

appearance on the show. He's the author of the business book Think Like Google. The short story

collection intergalactic refrigerator repairmen seldom carry cash and the popular science book, How

It's Made, which he wrote for the Discovery Channel. His middle grade novel, The Magic

Ski Mountain, is out now. And now here's her interview with Tom Gorencer. All right, so we're

here with Tom Gorencer. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Dave. Always good to be here. Okay, so

why don't you start off and just tell us about what Clarion is for people who might not know?

Sure. The Clarion, science fiction, is it science fiction and fantasy workshop or just science fiction?

I think fantasy and science fiction writers workshop, I think, sounds good, something like that.

Okay, well, it's a workshop for aspiring science fiction and fantasy

writers who want to hone their craft. And the way Kate Wilhelm describes it in her book is,

look, anybody can, people say you can't learn writing, but people do learn writing. They

learn it by trial and error. But this is kind of a shortcut. It's a way to

jump forward maybe several years in the process and get yourself on the path a little quicker

than you would normally. And it happens out in two places. One is in at Michigan State University

and the other is out in California and I apologize.

I don't know the campus there, but...

Okay, so there's actually, so when we went, so Tom and I went to Clarion in 1999, and at that time,

one of them was in at Michigan State University and the other was in Seattle.

...