Odyssey is funded in part by donations made by graduates and other supporters, and in part by the fees students pay. To help you budget your money, here is a review of the costs associated with attending Odyssey. The application fee is $35. Tuition is $1920. All students are required to purchase a custom textbook with readings, which costs $100. If you would like to receive college credit, there is an additional processing fee of $550. Unless students prefer to make other arrangements, they stay in Saint Anselm College apartments. These apartments are in two small buildings next to each other, Falvey House and Collins House (#50 and #51 on the campus map). Each apartment has 2 or 3 bedrooms and can house a total of 2 to 4 people (with each bedroom holding 1 or 2 students). The cost to share a bedroom in an apartment for six weeks is $790. The cost to have your own bedroom in an apartment is $1580. The apartments are equipped with kitchens, so you may buy and prepare your own food, which is a money-saving option, or you may eat at the college's Coffee Shop. Food on campus is reasonably priced. Students should budget between $400-$600 for food for the six weeks.
The tuition and housing costs quoted above are the discounted rates for US students paying by check or money order, and for international students paying by international money order in US dollars.
Students have the additional option of paying both tuition and housing through PayPal which allows you to charge the costs on a credit card. Those using PayPal need to pay the full rates, which are about 4% higher.
For those interested in financial aid, four scholarships and one work/study position are available.
Odyssey graduate Sara King is sponsoring the Parasite Publications Character Awards to provide financial assistance to three character-based writers wishing to attend this summer's Odyssey Writing Workshop. The Parasite Publications Character Awards, three scholarships in the amounts of $1,920 (full tuition), $500, and $300, will be awarded to the three members of the incoming class who are deemed extraordinarily strong character writers, creating powerful, emotional characters that grab the reader and don't let go. Judges will base their decision on the quality of the short story or novel excerpts sent with the applications; no separate application is required. The decision of the judges will be final. Scholarship monies will be applied directly to tuition for the 2013 workshop.
Applicants from the New York Metropolitan Area who are accepted into Odyssey are eligible to apply for a scholarship from the Donald A. and Elsie B. Wollheim Memorial Scholarship Fund. This fund was created in 1989 by the New York Science Fiction Society--the Lunarians, one of New York's oldest and largest science fiction and fantasy clubs, to help developing writers attend major science fiction/fantasy writing programs affiliated with higher institutions of learning. The amount of the scholarship is variable depending on need and the availability of funds. Scholarship monies will be applied directly to tuition for the 2013 workshop. If you are accepted into Odyssey and would like to pursue this possibility, contact me immediately upon your acceptance.
One work/study position is also available. The work/study student spends about six hours per week performing duties for Odyssey, such as photocopying, sending stories to guests, distributing mail to students, and preparing guest receptions. Odyssey reimburses $750 of the work/study student's tuition.
The work/study student will be expected to fulfill the regular requirements of Odyssey in addition to these duties. This will make for a very demanding six weeks, but for a student who needs the financial assistance, the work/study position offers a good opportunity. Contact me for more details and a special work/study application. Work/study applications are due April 30.
We're very fortunate to be able to hold Odyssey on the campus of Saint Anselm College. Saint Anselm was recently rated the seventeenth most beautiful campus by Princeton Review. Odyssey students love the food, the peaceful grounds, and the friendly, efficient staff. Saint Anselm is one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the country, dedicated to excellence in education, and its campus provides a beautiful setting and high-quality facilities for the workshop.
I love working with developing writers, helping them to realize their potential and make their work the best it can be. My experiences over Odyssey's seventeen previous years have been incredible. Talented writers of all ages, some already published, have come from all across the US, Canada, the UK, Sweden, Israel, Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and embarked on this epic journey of discovery with me. I've watched students make major breakthroughs during the six weeks, and I've followed their progress after the workshop as they've submitted their work, piled up the rejection slips, made sales, and built wonderful writing careers for themselves.
Odyssey provides a
supportive yet challenging,
energizing environment for authors. Attending the workshop is a great way to focus on your writing, giving it the time and attention it needs. If you'd like to spend six weeks hanging out and partying with people who love fantasy, science fiction, and horror, please don't apply to Odyssey. It's not for you. If you'd like to dedicate all your energy for six weeks on improving your writing, and collapse with exhaustion on the last day, I hope you'll apply. Odyssey is for you.
Please check out the
Frequently Asked Questions page about the Workshop.
If you have any additional questions, feel free to contact me.
If you want help improving your writing but applying to a six-week program isn't a practical option, or you feel you aren't yet ready to apply, or you'd like a taste of the Odyssey experience to see if it's right for you, we offer two other possibilities.
The Odyssey Critique Service allows you to receive professional-level feedback on your writing. You may submit several stories or chapters, or an entire novel.
Odyssey's Online Classes provide a great way to focus on your writing and improve your skills. Each class is focused on a particular element of fiction writing and is designed for writers at a particular skill level, from beginners to professional writers.
Our site also provides a variety of free resources to help you build your writing skills. You can find a review of these resources on our home page.
In 2010, Odyssey became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust. Please consider supporting Odyssey's mission to help writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror improve their work by making a donation. All donations are tax deductible.
To receive the latest updates on all Odyssey programs, sign up for our free e-newsletter.
In the meantime, I hope you'll find this site a useful resource for your writing.
Best wishes!
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Odyssey is for developing writers whose work is approaching publication quality and for published writers who want to improve their work. Those who attend must be ready to put aside all their other concerns and make a single-minded effort to improve their writing. This is a serious, demanding program. I'm constantly told by graduates that they learned more at Odyssey than they learned in years of workshopping and creative writing classes. You should not apply unless you are ready to hear about the weaknesses in your writing and ready to work to overcome them. Class meets for 4 hours minimum in the morning, 5 days a week, and students use afternoons, evenings, and weekends to write, critique each other's work, and complete other class assignments. Students spend at least 8 hours on "homework" each weekday and 12 hours per day on the weekend. You should come prepared to write new material, either short stories or novel chapters. After the first two weeks, you will not be able to submit anything that was written before the workshop began, unless you have radically revised it since arriving at Odyssey. The only way to improve is to write new material that incorporates what you have learned.
Odyssey is the only program of its kind run by an editor. I was a senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell, where I won the World Fantasy Award for my editing, and I serve as primary instructor at the workshop. Half of our class time is spent on lectures, writing exercises, and discussions. In my lectures, I provide an advanced, comprehensive curriculum, covering the elements of fiction writing in depth. To improve your writing, you need to understand the various tools and techniques writers can use to create a strong story. Many workshops, unfortunately, offer only brief, superficial lectures. We study some of the most beautiful and powerful writing in the field to gain understanding of what these tools can do when wielded with skill. I also explain the common failings of developing writers and how to avoid those pitfalls. You need to be open to learning and trying new techniques to strengthen your writing.
Since I've worked with many writers over the course of my career, I understand that each writer works differently, so I also work individually with students. Over the six weeks, I chart each student's progress in a series of private meetings, where we discuss personal strengths and weaknesses. We target those weaknesses one by one and work to conquer them. The workshop is limited to sixteen students so that each student can receive significant individual guidance.