More On Clarion East Moving To San Diego

You know, every time I say I'm going into radio silence for a bit something comes up and I have to zip back.  The inbox is bursting with several pointers to a note by Jim Shea, director of constituent relations for UC San Diego. He's directly responding to this post, which is nice to see as I was growing a tad weary of the Response By Proxy that had been rolling in over the past few weeks:

Yes, we are putting in place a Creative Writing MFA program. Yes, we see Clarion as a wonderful adjunct to that, because creative writers feed off fellow creative writers the same way our neuroscientists feed off the other neuroscientists floating around campus and around the Torrey Pines Mesa. It's the nature of knowledge and learning, it feeds off itself. But we want the Clarion Workshop for what it is and what it always has been: because it's the best sf/f writing workshop in the nation. There's nothing nefarious behind it, unless chasing excellence is nefarious.

The second issue the post raises is money -- something I know about, since I'm managing the fundraising process for the Clarion Workshop. The post notes what a terrible time this is for higher education funding in California, and, pointing to our commitments on scholarship funding and on program funding, wonders whether -- once our five-year commitment is up -- we'll pull a "Godfather" and ask for something in return for everything we've put into the program from our own resources.

If you care about the Clarion situation, clicky above to read the whole thing. If you don't,  worry not. We'll probably be returning to All Transformers Movie All The Time shortly. (I'm still in need of that countdown clock, by the way.)

Thank you all for the heads-up. I'm going to have more to say about this, just not immediately due to issues of Busy. I *might* include with that a response to the collection of  "how dare you/how can you be so mean/what have you done giving you the right to say anything/how can you question (insert collection of names of high profile Foundation board members here, along with list of their works and/or awards) " notes that were part of the reaction to my first set of thoughts on the move. TO BE COMPLETELY CLEAR, none of that type of note came from anyone on the Foundation board. Those notes are presumably from people who have not noticed or do not care that we do not have a genre press that serves needs beyond hype. So  I'm thinking about explaining How Dare I to them, and why I don't view sharing concerns in public as an act of tribal betrayal. But as the Clarion move and our puff-prone press are separate issues, I'm thinking I shouldn't conflate the two... Still toying with the idea, though. Either way, more later.

Oh! To those who provided a pointer with well-meaning snark, appreciated, but please find something else to be upset about. I think his link to the alternative history explainer is funny.

Meanwhile, back to stealth mode for a few days. No, really. I mean it this time.