AUGUST 2024 ONLINE NUTS & BOLTS LUNCHTIME SERIES: Worldbuilding
Brynn Markham
Thursdays 11:30 am – 12:30 pm | August 8, 15, & 22
Whether you’re creating a fantasy world from scratch, bending history, or hoping to capture your current reality authentically, worldbuilding is an important tool in your writing arsenal. In this three-part series, we’ll share ideas and processes about where to start, how to build a structure to support your world, and how to weave in compelling characters who believably populate your reality. While parts of the August 15 session will focus on building science fiction and fantasy worlds, this series will offer tips appropriate for all fiction genres and will not exclusively focus on SFF.
JRW’s Executive Director, Katharine Herndon, returns as your instructor for this three-part series. Katharine’s personal worldbuilding has added zombies to the Wild West, a feathered serpent to the Virginia Museum, and hellhounds to a suburban backyard. While her computer’s search history probably wouldn’t worry the FBI, she’s always looking for those realistic worldbuilding details (“Do purple martins return to the same house each year?” “What’s the name of that bookstore in Minneapolis with the pet chicken?”). She’s been an instructor for several decades now and has taught business English at Lockheed Martin, a teacher workshop at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a class on “Writing Your Author Bio,” and multiple JRW Nuts & Bolts sessions on craft and business. Her short stories have appeared in RVA indie press Sink/Swim’s The Great Richmond Zombie Book and the Richmond-based anthology River City Secrets. More recently, and realistically, she has a chapter in Launch Pad: Countdown to Marketing Your Book, and a craft piece online in the Wellspring Literary Journal on beating imposter syndrome.
Each class in this series includes: a one-hour online workshop, access to the recording, the powerpoint used during the class, and additional resources.
Choose one, two, or all three (BEST BUY!) classes in the series.
This series is supported [in part] by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which receives support from the Virginia General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
