Graduates' Experiences
Various Odyssey students have recorded their experiences at the workshop and their writing efforts since graduation. If you want to know what it’s like to attend Odyssey and what effect the workshop has had on those who have attended, you can read their accounts below.
Julian K. Jarboe
Class of 2018
Explains how to know when the time is right to attend the Odyssey Writing Workshop.
Rebecca Kuang
Class of 2016
Explailns how Odyssey overturned some of her major assumptions about writing, filled her head with mind-blowing revelations, and gave her the tools to improve her writing.
Richard Errington
Class of 2016
Describes the experience of “writing out of our comfort zones, hitting deadlines, and bringing a new critical eye on each other’s pieces” and urges other writers to “Come to Odyssey and discover the writer that you’ve always known you could be.”
Arley Sorg
Class of 2014
Describes how skepticism over whether he’d actually learn anything at the workshop quickly turned to surprise: “I was shocked by how much I had learned. I was disturbed by how much I hadn’t actually known. I was upended!”
Katherine Hall van der Vliet
Class of 2013
Describes the “revolutionary” experience of attending Odyssey 2013, how it taught her more than she learned in her university studies, energized her writing, and helped her reconnect with the craft.
Martin Larsson
Class of 2011
Describes the full impact of The Discovery that he made at Odyssey in “They Kept on to Their Journey’s End; or, Random Thoughts from an OdFellow, Class of 2011.”
Zoe Zygmunt
Class of 2010
Describes her epic quest to improve her writing, including the call to action, meeting the mentor, tests and trials, gathering allies, and returning with the elixir in “How I Spent My Summer Vacation; or, How Odyssey Changed My Life.”
Meagan Spooner
Class of 2009
Describes how she overcame her fear to make the most of her Odyssey experience and went on to sell six books in the two years following the workshop.
Erin Hoffman
Class of 2005
Describes the power of learning “What You Don’t Know” and how the lessons learned at Odyssey continue to help her years later.
Gerald Warfield
Class of 2010
Relates some of the details of living, surviving, and thriving at Odyssey in “What It Was Like.”
Peter Simonson
Class of 2009
Explains how he learned answer to questions he didn’t know he needed to ask in “Moments of Odyssey.”
Sherry Peters
Class of 2005
Describes how Odyssey helped her overcome her biggest challenge: procrastination.
Jason S. Ridler
Class of 2005
Describes his efforts to put everything he learned at Odyssey into one story, in “To Experiment is to Grow.”
Rebecca Shelley
Class of 2001
Explains how lectures, guests, and critiques all combined to help in her goal of “Getting the Vision onto the Paper.”
Lane Robins
Class of 1999
Relates her experiences in college creative writing workshops and compares what she learned in them to what she learned at Odyssey.
Barbara Campbell
Class of 2000
Describes her struggle to get her first novel into publishable shape and how Odyssey helped, in “Odyssey: A Never-Ending Experience.”
Elaine Isaak
Class of 1997
Describes how she learned to write short stories at Odyssey, and how the feedback she received eventually led to the publication of her first novel, in “Sculpting with Words: My Odyssey Experience.”
David J. Schwartz
Class of 1996
Describes the workshopping process at Odyssey, to give prospective students a sense of what to expect. If you are applying to Odyssey, you should read this article, whether you have participated in other workshops or not.
James Hall
Class of 2001
Gives an account of the workshop in a weekly series of articles written for Blue Ear Books.
Laurie Lanzdorf
Class of 2000
Describes the structure and workload of the workshop in “Odyssey 2000: Experience of a Workshop.”
Carl Frederick
Class of 2000
Describes what he learned from Odyssey, and how his workshop experience helped him become a first-place winner in The Writers of the Future contest.
Carrie Vaughn
Class of 1998
Reveals the most important thing she learned at the workshop, and how that insight has led to a string of fiction sales.
Morgan Hua
Class of 1998
Attended Odyssey and previously attended the Clarion Writing Workshop, compares the two workshops in an article, “Clarion versus Odyssey,” written for Speculations magazine.
Stephen Chambers
Class of 1998
Describes his experience of the workshop (at the age of 17) and how it helped lead to his two-book deal with Tor (at 18).
Julia Duncan
Class of 1998
Wrote an in-depth article about attending Odyssey in 1998, being critiqued by writer-in-residence Harlan Ellison, and what she learned from it, in “Harlan’s Week at Odyssey.”
Lynda E. Rucker
Class of 1997
Attended Odyssey’s first session and tells of her progress at the workshop and since then, in both short and long fiction.