The Wordos is a

writing workshop A writing circle is a group of like-minded writers needing support for their work, either through writing peer critiques, workshops or classes, or just encouragement. There are many different types of writing circles or writing groups based on l ...

based in

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast. As of the 2020 United States Census ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. Its members meet once a week to

critique Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic study of a written or oral discourse. Although critique is commonly understood as fault finding and negative judgment, Rodolphe Gasché (2007''The honor of thinking: critique, theory, philosophy' ...

stories and discuss the art, craft, and business of

writing Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically Epigraphy, inscribed, Printing press, mechanically transferred, or Word processor, digitally represented Symbols (semiot ...

. It is a long-running speculative fiction critique group, and has a high concentration of

published Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, new ...

authors. However, having prior publishing credits is not a prerequisite to joining. The group has produced winners of the

Galaxy Press Galaxy Press is a trade name set up to publish and promote the fiction works of L. Ron Hubbard, and the anthologies of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest. The company was separated from Bridge Publications in the early 2000s, and ...

international

Writers of the Future Writers of the Future (WOTF) is a science fiction and fantasy story contest that was established by L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1980s. A sister contest, Illustrators of the Future, presents awards for science fiction art. Hubbard characterized th ...

contest six years in a row. The group promotes itself as a means to help writers produce fiction of salable quality, and to continually improve their writing abilities. The workshop's primary focus is on

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speculative fiction, but members have had fiction of other lengths and genres critiqued.

History

Founded in 1987, "The Wordos" was originally called "The Eugene Professional Writers Workshops, Inc." The name was changed in 1995, to make it "shorter and friendlier." They kept the original name for business purposes, however. The group meets weekly in a local bookstore.

Notable members

The membership over time has included,

young adult A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...

and fantasy novelist

Nina Kiriki Hoffman Nina Kiriki Hoffman (born March 20, 1955, in San Gabriel, California) is an American fantasy, science fiction and horror writer. Profile Hoffman started publishing short stories in 1975. Her first nationally published short story appeared in '' ...

surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

short story writer and novelist Ray Vukcevich, science fiction writers Kathy Oltion and

Jerry Oltion Jerry Oltion (born 1957) is a science fiction author from Eugene, Oregon, known for numerous novels and short stories, including books in the ''Star Trek'' series. He is a member of the Wordos writers' group and also writes under the pen name ...

, Bruce Holland Rogers,

Patricia Briggs Patricia Briggs (born 1965) is an American writer of fantasy since 1993, and author of the Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series. Biography Patricia Briggs was born in 1965 in Butte, Montana, United States. She now resides in Benton City, WA B ...

, fiction and non-fiction writer

Leslie What Leslie What (born Leslie Nelson, 1955) is a writer of fantasy and literary fiction and nonfiction. She grew up in Southern California and attended Santa Ana College, and earned a certificate in Vocational Nursing. She also attended California ...

Jay Lake Joseph Edward "Jay" Lake, Jr. (June 6, 1964 – June 1, 2014) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. In 2003 he was a quarterly first-place winner in the Writers of the Future contest. In 2004 he won the John W. Campbell Award for B ...

, Eric M. Witchey,

Devon Monk Devon Monk is an American writer of urban fantasy novels. She has also published over 50 short stories in fantasy, science fiction, horror, humor, and young adult magazines and anthologies. Monk currently resides in Oregon with her husband, two ...

and many others. Deborah Layne, a long-time member, is also the founder of

Wheatland Press Wheatland Press is an independent book publisher, specializing in science fiction, fantasy, and horror short story and poetry collections. It was founded in 2002 by Deborah Layne. Although the number of books it produced tailed off significant ...

, the award-winning publisher of the ''Polyphony'' anthology.

Method

The Wordos follow the

Clarion Workshop Clarion is a six-week workshop for aspiring science fiction and fantasy writers. Originally an outgrowth of Damon Knight's and Kate Wilhelm's Milford Writers' Conference, held at their home in Milford, Pennsylvania, United States, it was founded i ...

model of critiquing. A member reads a submitted story, writes comments on it, and then, on the evening of the workshop, speaks for one to three minutes offering those and other comments aloud. At the end of the evening the critiqued story is given back to the author. Members also report on news over the previous week, including accepted stories, rejections, and re-write requests from publishers.

Awards

A member of the Wordos has won or placed in the

L. Ron Hubbard Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author, primarily of science fiction and fantasy stories, who is best known for having founded the Church of Scientology. In 1950, Hubbard authored ''Dianetics ...

contest consistently since 2001. There have also been several

Nebula Award The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a nonprofit association of prof ...

-winning workshop members and members who have been nominated for or won the Endeavour Award,

World Fantasy Award The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the best fantasy fiction published during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the World Fantasy Convention, the awards are given each year at the eponymous ann ...

, and Philip K. Dick Award. One member, Marshall Moseley, was a finalist in the

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television series "

Project Greenlight ''Project Greenlight'' is an American documentary television series focusing on first-time filmmakers being given the chance to direct a feature film. It was created by Alex Keledjian, developed by Eli Holzman and produced by Ben Affleck, Matt ...

Partial list of award-winning stories

The following is a partial list of award-winning stories written by members of the Wordos:

History

Notable members

Method

Awards

Partial list of award-winning stories

References

External links