Each session includes reading assignments, a written lecture, creative exercises to further your learning, and a writing assignment to turn in for personalized feedback from your instructor.
Session One: Genres and Subgenres
Session Two: Worlds and Worldbuilding
Session Three: Humans and Others
Session Four: Stories and Plots
Session Five: Starts and Stops
Session Six: Resources and Workshops
What will you learn?
Who should attend?
Required Reading
Meet the instructor
John DeChancie
John DeChancie is the author of two dozen books, both fiction and nonfiction. His novels in the science fiction and fantasy genres have been attracting a wide readership for more than fifteen years, and over a million copies of his books have seen print, many in foreign languages. His humorous fantasy series, beginning with Castle Perilous, became a best seller for Berkley/Ace. Booklist described John’s novel MagicNet (William Morrow) as “a welcome sigh of comic relief…shamelessly droll, literate, and thoroughly entertaining. Magicnet is the fantasy genre’s whimsical answer to Neuromancer.” John’s other science fiction novels include From Prussia With Love (Prima Publishing), Masterminds of Falkenstein (Prima Publishing) and Innerverse (Avon), as well as his anthology of original fantasy short stories co-edited with Martin Greenberg—Castle Fantastic (DAW Books)
In addition to science fiction and fantasy, John also writes horror and nonfiction; his articles “A Fresh Look at This Island Earth” and “A Tribute to Rocketship X-M” can be found in Cult Movies). His short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and in numerous original anthologies, including Spell Fantastic (edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff, DAW Books) and, most recently I, Alien edited by Mike Resnick (DAW Books), which contains John’s short story “The Loaves and the Fishes.”
His book Other States of Being: Sixteen Short Abductions, is a collection of stories, reprinted from various magazines and original paperback anthologies, that all explore the theme of the alien (offered as a print-on-demand title by Pulpless.com, Inc.). His latest book is a small press short story collection A Little Gray Book of Alien Stories published by Borderlands Press, Maryland.
John’s novel Witchblade: Talons was republished by iBooks (Simon and Shuster), and the entire Castle Perilous series and the Starrigger trilogy were recently published in translation in Russia.
