Not Your Grandmother's Speculative Fiction: Writing Convincing Societal Change in Science Fiction & Fantasy Video Download

How many times have you picked up a novel ostensibly set a thousand years in the future on another planet, only to feel as if the characters were transported from 1950s Peoria, complete with slang and outdated social roles? How often have you opened a book ostensibly set a thousand years in the past in another part of the world, only to feel as if you wandered into a Renaissance Faire in southern California in the 1970s?

Cultures, expectations, class structures, and prejudices all change. One of the reasons we consider authors like Ursula K. Le Guin and Jack Vance intrinsic to the foundations of modern science fiction is that they understood that worldviews differ across cultures. Come join Hugo Award winning writer Elizabeth Bear for a one-hour web seminar that will give you some basic techniques for recognizing your own cultural assumptions and defaults, and creating worlds and societies that do not merely replicate them.

INSTRUCTOR BIO:

Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. When coupled with a childhood tendency to read the dictionary for fun, this led her inevitably to penury, intransigence, and the writing of speculative fiction. She is the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus, and Campbell Award winning author of 27 novels (The most recent is Karen Memory, a Weird West adventure from Tor) and over a hundred short stories. She studied anthropology and English as an undergraduate. Her dog lives in Massachusetts; her partner, writer Scott Lynch, lives in Wisconsin. She spends a lot of time on planes.