Admission to the workshop is based on the promise of the applicant's writing at its present stage. So in addition to the completed forms, you must submit two complete short stories, each between 2,500 words and 6,000 words in length. The stories should represent your best fiction work to date.  Although skills acquired or developed at Clarion are useful in other kinds of writing, Clarion is a short-story writing workshop, so please do not send screenplays, poetry, essays, or portions of a novel. Applications are judged by a review panel composed of the current Clarion Anchor Team of instructors (for 2008, Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Ryman), as well as the UCSD Program Director.

We highly recommend that students read something by each of the year's instructors before arriving at Clarion, so if you're serious about applying, this reading (along with preparing samples of your own work) is something you can start right away. In the words of alumnus Jerome Stueart, "I should have read the instructors' work beforehand. That would have helped me ask specific questions of these authors when I had a chance. Being able to ask them questions about their own techniques would have benefited me. It's not only what an instructor spots in two stories of yours, it's about you being a proactive writer and seeing what you like in an instructor's toolbox."