Video: Literary Techniques for Speculative Fiction Online Class

So let me start out by saying I screwed up, and in a way that I should have known better than to do. The problem is that the Wayward Wormhole intensive writing workshop that I’m hosting is in one way absolutely not up to standard, and that is its lack of accessibility. This is particularly unacceptable given that I have called out inaccessible venues in the past.

I’ve also called out economically inaccessible stuff, and yet this workshop, unlike the other school efforts, does not have guaranteed scholarships in place to help make the workshop cost easier on anyone, although we’ve structured fees to try to fund at least two scholarships this year.

I made this poor choice in part because ““ while this is not an excuse ““ 2022 was the year of the biggest changes of my life (the end of a 20+ year partnership and a cross-country move) and I just let the wheeeeee castle vibe carry me along past any thoughts other than how do I make spending my birthday in a Spanish castle a reality? And when the voices in my head stopped saying that and one in the back nervously raised its hand and said hey what about accessibility, I told myself we’d addressed that by making sure there was a virtual version.

Except now that I’ve thought about it, that’s not enough, because the virtual version lacks some features that the on-location includes. So I apologize to the community for setting a bad example. I apologize to my teachers for having involved them in this ethical lapse. And I apologize, abjectly, to my students for having let them down in this regard.

Given that I have already made a substantial down payment that is nonrefundable and which I can’t afford to lose, what are the material steps I can do to show I understand I fucked up and mean to make it right?

1. The first is already done. The location we have for next year is fully accessible physically, and that is a requirement for all future locations.
2. The second is that we will be providing a yearly full scholarship in memory of Vonda N. McIntyre.
3. The third is that a quarter of my profits from this year’s workshop will be donated to a charity that advances accessibility issues, like the American Association of People with Disabilities. (I want to research the best choice here.)
4. The fourth is that I have learned from it and, as the friend I was talking to about it put it, gained a point in humility, so I can do better going forward and not let whee castle override the let’s look this over before agreeing notion.

So. There you have it.

Best,
Cat

I’m hoping eventually to have the bulk of the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers classes up as on-demand versions, but it’s slow going. I’m so delighted that Kate Heartfield has turned her awesome Writing Interactive Fiction live class into an on-demand version and she’s very generously suggested making it free this first week in order to offer another resource for folks practicing social isolation to entertain and educate themselves.

I book teachers for classes that I personally want to take, and this was definitely one of them. After the first time Kate taught this class, I felt inspired to start noodling around with an interactive novel, although I’m still very much in the planning stages.

Here’s a link for the new class.

If you’ve ever found yourself choosing between possible endings or plot twists, why not try a storytelling format that lets you explore them all? Games and interactive fiction invite the reader to join in the storytelling process, and invite the writer to consider multiple facets of agency, characterization, pacing and plot. Learn some fundamental principles and techniques for interactive formats, or just gain a new perspective on ways to develop your non-interactive prose.

Kate Heartfield is the author of two interactive novels for Choice of Games: The Road to Canterbury, which was published in 2018 and shortlisted for the first Nebula award in the game writing category; and The Magician’s Workshop, published at the end of 2019. She is also the author of the historical fantasy novel Armed in Her Fashion, which won the Aurora Award for Best Novel and was shortlisted for the Locus First Novel, Crawford and Sunburst awards. Her two Alice Payne time travel novellas were shortlisted for the Nebula and Aurora awards. A former newspaper journalist, Kate lives in Ottawa, Canada.

If you’d prefer to take a live version in which you have a chance to talk with Kate, she is teaching it on Saturday, April 11, 2020, 1:00-3:00 AM Pacific time.

Live versions of the classes are performed in realtime, are limited to 15 students, and include a chance to interact with the instructor as well as a recording of the class. You can find the current list of upcoming live classes through June here. There are free scholarship slots available in every class.