Viable Paradise

This past October (2023) I attended Viable Paradise, a week-long annual speculative fiction writing workshop taught by professional authors and editors on Martha’s Vineyard. I’ve been intending to sit down and write about my experience for the last two months, and I’ve found it tremendously hard to actually do so. Partly because I haven’t prioritized it (revising a novel, preparing for a new kid, the holidays) — but I haven’t prioritized it because actually writing about my experience there intimidate(d/s) me.

Writing fiction is (among many other things) a way to explore Big Emotions. An abstraction layer. Talking about a real experience directly leaves me with no distance between myself and the Feelings, and it’s uncomfortable.

Hang on, I need to go schedule an appointment with my therapist.

Right, okay, where was I? Oh yeah. Viable Paradise 2023: a week of writing and intense human kindness.

Why VP?

It is worth starting with why. Not “why a writing workshop” — why this one?

• Critique & technique: Getting a critique of your work by some big-name instructors is probably an Ooh Shiny for some applicants, and truth be told some of the notes I got were tremendously valuable. That’s only a fraction of the time spent, though. Most of the days are filled by instructor-led lectures on topics they are passionate about; a series of master classes on writing and the business therein. Critiques offer students a small amount of highly-focused feedback, and the lectures cover a broad range of things that will be at least 50% eye-opening, 25% brilliant, and probably another 25% epiphany.
• Community: I don’t live in a huge city. Even if I did, I have a full-time job and young kids; finding other people who are committed to writing speculative fiction and serious about doing it well has been challenging. I’ve had some success in early 2023, but I knew that I wanted to grow into more places and generate more positive feedback loops.
• Can I do it: See above re: job & family. Heck, forget about the job: I can’t take 6 weeks away from my Very Smol children, period. I never considered applying for Clarion or Odyssey. A one-week workshop is, as promised, “Viable” for me and many other writers in ways that other workshops are not.

It Actually Happens, and so does Life

When I got the email that read “congratulations” I screamed. I cried a bit. My toddler asked what was wrong.

I was vibrating with excitement for months, up to and including the day I travelled to the island, practically buzzing behind my mask for something like twelve hours in airplanes and airports. Thanks to toddler daycare crud, I’d been sick—recovering—icked from my COVID and flu shots—recovering—sick again for all of September, but I’d started feeling better just a week before the workshop. (Yes, dear reader, this is heavy foreshadowing, but no less true.)

One of my roommates and I ended up on the same Cessna (do not recommend) from Boston to Martha’s Vineyard. We landed together, were shuttled to the Island Inn, dropped our bags off in our room, and took our COVID tests at the same time while discussing where to go for dinner.

Except mine was positive. (I didn’t feel sick at all — get your boosters, everyone).

Cue whirlwind, cue dramatic music, cue high-contrast lighting shift.

The staff was ready: the workshop booked an extra room at the Inn, just in case of COVID. I was (gently) shuffled out of my shared room and off to one in a much smaller building, without shared hallways. I was brought dinner (the same home-cooked meal the staff were eating that night) and assured that they’d update me soon with plans on how they’d get me “as much of the workshop as we can” — which, considering the intense and interpersonal nature of a writing workshop, seemed unlikely to be very much at all.

Alone in my quarantine room, while other students were meeting and chatting and presumably having a wonderful time, I screamed. I cried a lot.

Then something wonderful happened.

The staff came over to my porch. I sat outside (masked, 6’ away) as they came to join me, scavenging extra patio chairs. And they just… talked to me. I got to know them a bit; where each of them is from, what they do in Real Life. I listened to them banter with each other, the cadence of familiarity and friendship borne of shared experience and community. They kept me company, braving island-levels of mosquitoes, for hours.

The kindness VP showed me on Saturday night didn’t stop. On Sunday, David Twiddy waited for hours in his car outside the island hospital so that I could get Paxlovid. On Monday, my critique group gathered on my porch. I found out that another student had tested positive before leaving, and wasn’t even on-island — but Phiala had already arranged an excellent Zoom setup for the week’s lectures, and the two “COVID crew” students chatted in the comments.

The staff brought me food and constantly asked if I needed anything. My student cohorts Slacked me and checked in, they waved on the sidewalks and sat with me at outdoor lunch lectures. One of the instructors heard that I’d hoped to snag one of the (limited!) 1-on-1 slots he offered, but had been in isolation when the sign-up sheets were posted in the common room (and immediately filled up) — and so he sought me out, fit me in to his already-crammed end-of-week-schedule, and additionally took the time to read my excerpt and critique it.

The story even has a happy ending: my COVID-classmate and I both tested negative partway through the week. By Wednesday evening, we were able to join (masked!) in-person for the rest of the week’s events.

It turns out, the “Paradise” part of the name doesn’t have anything to do with Martha’s Vineyard; it really is the people you meet there (cue audience groans).

But really. VP is staffed and taught by some of the kindest and most generous folks in spec fic today, and/or in general. The workshop itself is designed to be intense, and to challenge the writers/students in attendance — and it is, and it does, and it works precisely because the workshop has built compassion and warmth into its bones.

Valuable Precepts

I learned so much during my time at VP — this blog post is already too long and too mushy to enumerate everything, but I should end with a few important things.

• Critique & technique: VP is staffed and taught by amazingly clever, kind, and generous people. Part of the amazing is the fact that they managed to collect 23 equally clever, kind, and generous students/early career writers to form the cohort. Plus me, but hey, pobody’s nerfect.
• Community: When I applied, I didn’t expect to actually make it into the workshop. And if I’d known how incredible the staff and the rest of the cohort is I definitely wouldn’t have thought that I’d make it in or that I deserved to be there. Luckily, I didn’t discover that I was bamboozling everyone until it was too late. By the time I realized the truth, they were already starting to convince me that I did in fact belong there. Because when incredible people believe in you, it’s very awkward to argue with them.
• Can I do it: I came to the island expecting to be challenged, but not like that. But it’s amazing what you can accomplish when smart, kind people tell you, repeatedly and with great force, that you can do the thing (and they’ll help you out along the way).

I’m still not convinced that I’m as kind or generous as the staff and faculty at VP, or half as clever as the rest of my cohort, but they’ve bullied me into admitting that I’m one of them now. They made us take an oath.

To the staff, teachers, and the rest of VP 2023: thank you.

To everyone else: apply to Viable Paradise. If you don't get in, apply again next year. You can do it. I believe in you.