After four laptops were stolen from Clarion West students’ rooms on July 4, a call for help from the sf community promptly raised enough donations to replace the computers.

Cory Doctorow, who will be instructing at the workshop this coming week, posted in BoingBoing:

I am donating all of my teaching fee to the fund. I hope that some of you will be moved to chip in whatever you can afford, to help fund the instruction of the next generation of great science fiction writers.

An appeal to the internet was extremely successful and CW’s website now reports:

News of the students’ loss spread within hours, and friends, alumni, and writers from around the world offered loans of laptops and donations to help students replace their computers. “If we collect funds that are much in excess of the cost of replacing the stolen computers, we will return them proportionally to the donors,” said workshop administrator Leslie Howle. “The use of PayPal makes this relatively easy to do.” She added, “We are all overwhelmed, and the students are immensely grateful. They were devastated by this theft, and it’s been amazing to see the community rally to support them.”

This is the first time in Clarion West’s more than 25 years of workshops that a burglary has happened. The theft occurred while students were in class, and was discovered immediately afterwards. Workshop administrators called the Seattle Police Department and have taken steps to increase residence security.

[Thanks to Janice Gelb for the story.]