There are a few classes remaining in the spring session of Writing Speculative Fiction that I teach with Derek Newman-Stille.
Writing Speculative Fiction #3 with Ursula Pflug and Derek Newman-Stille
Tuesdays, March 22nd – May 10th – Wallis Hall 128 (Traill College), 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
This is the third installment of the Writing Speculative Fiction course. This course is designed to add to a writer’s toolbox and give them skills to enhance their stories and think of new and innovative ideas. Oriented as a series of workshops, this course allows aspiring authors or existing authors who want new ideas to find new skills that will allow them to enhance aspects of their writing process. This course is open to beginners, intermediate, and advanced authors with skills for all stages of the writing process. Attending Speculative Fiction 1 & 2 is not a prerequisite for taking this course. Click here for full selection of classes in this course.
April 26th
Inspiration from the Weird World
This workshop will look at the diversity of our own planet and explore how strange and unusual our planet is. Students will have the chance to learn about weird creatures from the depths of the ocean, strange fungi, weird insects, and the odd behaviours of birds as part of understanding how the strange natural environment can inspire explorations into The Weird. This activity will help writers to look at the world with a sense of mystery and seek inspiration from the strange. We will work on research skills and how to find out more information about issues that excite the imagination.
May 3rd
Writing Endings and Finishing Your Stories
One of the most challenging elements of writing is to finish your story. Many writers have far more incomplete stories than completed ones and this workshop is designed to help authors to turn their partial manuscripts into finished ones. We will explore which endings are appropriate for which types of stories, how to keep the reader engaged until the end of a story, how to avoid anticlimactic endings, techniques for staying motivated, and techniques for editing a manuscript. By the end of this workshop, students should be equipped to finish their stories.
May 10th
Publishing
This workshop is focused on the publishing process, exposing students to publishing markets, discussing tips for approaching a writing agent or publisher, ideas about finding the right market for a particular story, elevator pitches of stories, and networking skills within the author community
About the Instructors: Ursula Pflug is the award winning author of the novels Green Music, The Alphabet Stones, and Motion Sickness, as well as the story collections After the Fires and Harvesting the Moon. Her short stories and reviews, mainly about books and art, appear regularly in Canada, the US and the UK. Her short fiction has been taught at universities in Canada and India. Pflug has also written for film and theatre, and has received numerous Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council and Laidlaw Foundation grants in support of her novels, short fiction and plays. She has taught writing at Loyalist College, the Campbellford Resource Centre, The Word is Wild Literary Festival, Trinity Square Video, The San Miguel Writers’ Festival and elsewhere.
Derek Newman-Stille is the Aurora Award Winning creator of the Speculating Canada website and runs the reading series ChiSeries Peterborough as well as a radio programme on Canadian speculative fiction. Derek has taught courses on werewolves in literature and witchcraft in the Greek and Roman world. Derek has published academic articles on speculative fiction in venues like Mosaic and The Canadian Fantastic in Focus. He has given academic papers at conferences such as the Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy, the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association, and the Canadian Popular Culture Association.
Click here to choose your classes in Writing Speculative Fiction #3.