Lazy days of summer? Bah! I’m writing, and I’m taking the coolest writing workshop.
Every Tuesday night, a few other speculative fiction writers and I meet at Tubby and Coo’s bookstore to talk about Building Better Worlds. Check out the description of the workshop below…doesn’t it sound amazing? Not to mention getting to know other writers with similar concerns (all working on very different projects). Looking forward to learning from these folks.
We’re a few weeks into the course, and I’m really enjoying it. If this sounds good to you, sign up for The Geekly News to find out when Candace might hold it again (and other cool stuff going on at Tubby and Coo’s). Check out the list of books we’re reading for the course at the bottom of this post, too, for more inspiration!)
BIG shout-out to my sis-in-law Sarah for passing along the info for this great workshop! Mwah!
Building Better Worlds Workshop Description
This is a 10-week intensive writing workshop focused on the intersection of social justice and writing science fiction and fantasy. Participants will learn how to build and analyze their own fictional worlds and characters without causing harm to real-life groups of people.When building worlds, writers must think about power structures and dynamics, races, cultures, hierarchies, access and control to resources, how myths or religions they use are still worshiped and practiced, and societal roles, among other things. In this workshop, writers will learn how to implement strategies to ensure that what they build doesn’t reinforce negative societal impacts.We will delve into the real-life consequences of representation in fiction, the writer’s ethical responsibility, and the importance of intersectionality as it relates to science fiction and fantasy writing. Through a combination of lecture, discussion, videos, reading, writing exercises, and critiques, writers will put what they learn into immediate practice.
Class Topics
- The Ethics of Storytelling
- Understanding Intersectionality
- Cultural Appropriation
- World & Character Building Without Harm
- The Elements of Story
- Translating Movie, TV, & Gaming Storytelling Techniques into Fiction Writing
- Revising with a New Mindset
- And more
Required Texts
- Steering the Craft: A 21st Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Writing the Other: A Practical Approach by Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward
- Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer
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