[Clarion West 2k1, week 5. Phase one, in which Doris gets her oats.]

Sunday.

Wow. Actually managed *eight* hours of sleep. That's three days in a row of a relatively decent night's sleep. Woo-hoo!

Puttered around. Read and critiqued my four stories for the day. Read a Kelly Link story called "The Specialist's Hat" that Sean recommended to me. (You can find it on the web, I believe... I'll look it up, soon.) I was looking for "spooky stories" for inspiration. This one definitely counts.

The kick-off meeting with Ellen Datlow (current editor of Sci Fiction, the fiction portion of The Sci-Fi channel's scifi.com, and well known co-editor of the annual Year's Best Fantasy and Horror collections) was pretty much a "getting to know you" affair. We all introduced ourselves and, per Ellen's request, mentioned some of the things we were each hoping to get out of this week at Clarion West. Ellen told us that she plans to work the classes around our questions and any issues that come up in our writing during the course of the week. She gave us some excellent information about the industry, by way of answering some of the questions that were fired at her.

As has become our tradition, we had a big group dinner on Sunday after our kick-off meeting. This week, Carla led the charge with a ziti and pesto dish and tobouli (spelling?) for all, while Kiini organized the salmon cakes brigade for those of us who dig eating fish. The meal was fantastic; I particularly enjoyed the salmon cakes and the ziti. For desert, we had a fruit crisp prepared with farm fresh ingredients... I think this was spearheaded by Karen. (I'm sure someone will let me know if I'm in error. Anyone? Anyone?)

As it so happens, Karen and Linda are from Canada, while another of our group, Ari, is an American living in Vancouver, BC. Several of us had recommended the South Park movie for it's completely unbiased account of Canada's influence on American pop culture, and they finally prevailed upon us to show this fine example of American film on the big screen TV that graces our lounge. Fortunately, I just happened to have a copy of the video with me here in the dorms.

The movie was a big hit, not only with our neighbors to the North but also, it seemed to me, with our Clarionites from elsewhere in the Commonwealth, as well. I also gained a new appreciation for just how deliciously offensive this movie really is. It even made our Australian representative gasp in shock.

I went to bed with the song "Blame Canada" running through my head and I slept most soundly.