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Welcome to the World of Cat Rambo

Welcome to the website of Cat Rambo: writer, editor, teacher, and podcaster. Here you can find links to my writing, classes, and other Cat Rambo miscellania.

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Who's Cat Rambo?

Since coming through Clarion West in 2005, Cat Rambo’s 300+ fiction publications have included stories in Asimov’sClarkesworld Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and frequently appear in year’s best of collections. They work across genre, writing literary, thriller, science fiction, slipstream, fantasy, magic realism, historical, and humor with fluid ease, making them one of the leaders in American story writing.

The Books

Upcoming Events

Jul
25
Guest of Honor at Confluence, Corapolis, PA
Confluence is Pittsburgh's longest-running literary conference with a focus on science fiction, fantasy and horror in literature, art and music. July 25-27, 2025.
Sep
06
Creating Mood and Atmosphere in Your Fiction
In this class, we'll discuss tips, tricks, and techniques for creating the mood and atmosphere you want in your fiction.
Sep
07
Find the Heart of Your Story: How to Use Theme, Motifs, and Symbols in Fiction
Everyone tells you that a story needs a theme, but how do you figure out what your story's theme is? And once you know that, how do you go about conveying and underscoring that theme without hammering a reader over the head with it? How do motifs, symbols, and other devices work to enhance the theme? We will explore theme, motifs, and symbols from a craft perspective and develop skills with them through a mixture of lecture, discussion, and writing exercises.
Oct
04
Creating Tension and Suspense in Your Fiction
In this class, we'll discuss tips, tricks, and techniques for creating the tension and suspense you want in your fiction.
Oct
05
Further Out and Further In: Character Interiority
Our characters have rich inner landscapes that help make them who they are. How does a writer go about figuring out what a character's history is like and how it affects their personality? How does a character's psyche affect what they do as well as how they do it?
Nov
01
Pacing and Story Beats
In this class, you'll learn how to figure out your story's beats and use those to set the pace you want.
Dec
06
Writing Friendships
There's plenty of advice on writing love scenes, but what happens when the relationship's purely platonic? What special considerations come into play when writing friendships, and how do you convey all the shared history on the page so the reader can experience the friendship's depth? In this class, we'll talk about how to write friends.
Dec
07
Working with Voice and Point of View
How do voice and point of view work together to create an engaging character?

Latest from the Blog

June/July Classes

In June/July I’ll be teaching two multi-session workshops and a few one-offs. Here’s what’s coming up. To register for any class, mail me at cat@kittywumpus.net

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