Claudia Casper

Claudia Casper is the author of four novels. Her most recent, The Mercy Journals, a post climate-crisis, post-apocalyptic story of murder, memory and hope, won the 2017 Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished science fiction.

She has been a faculty member at the Iceland Writer’s Retreat, Whistler’s writer-in-residence, and a speaker at TedX Vancouver. This fall she will moderate and read at an interdisciplinary conference: Nature Through Her Eyes, in Perpignan, France.

Her best-selling debut novel, The Reconstruction, is being adapted for film in a France/Canada co-production. 

Claudia's advice for Writer's Studio applicants

What are you looking for in your workshop group?

I’m looking for a dynamic group with lively minds, open hearts and plenty of laughter. Shyness given its due. We will hold up writing questions, turn the prism full circle and answer with a multiplicity. No orthodoxies—just what works. We will intuit each author’s intentions and there is no writing problem that can’t be solved.

What do you look for when reading an applicant’s submission?

I will be looking for creativity in any aspect of your submissions—voice, character, structure, story, language, setting—the unique spark that drives you to write and will drive your readers to read. One of my touchstone quotes is from French filmmaker, author and artist Jean Cocteau (I am grossly paraphrasing): whatever people criticize in your work, do it even more; that’s where your genius lies. Together we’ll decide when that rule might not apply. 😉I welcome submissions from different levels of expertise.