Worldbuilding through Culture with J.M. Frey Sunday, April 7 2024 · 2 – 4pm EDT

Every memorable speculative fiction story has a world we wish we could live in – from Westeros to Middle Earth, from the USS Enterprise to Panem.

The geography of your secondary world is key, but the culture and the way it influences your characters is even more important. This session will focus on the nitty gritty of the influence of culture, values, and hegemony on your societies, people, places, and plot. We encourage authors to bring their ideas for their own worlds and cultures to the table, as well as note-taking materials. A printable workbook will be provided.

J.M. is an author, actor, and lapsed academic.

With an MA in Communications and Culture, she’s appeared in podcasts, documentaries, and on radio and television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. She also has an addiction to scarves, Doctor Who, and tea, which may or may not all be related. Her life’s ambition is to have stepped foot on every continent (only 3 left!)

J.M.’s also a professionally trained actor who takes absolute delight in weird stories, over the top performances, and quirky characters. She’s played everything from Marmee to the Red Queen, Jane Eyre to Annie, and dozens of strange creatures and earnest heroines as a voice actor.

Her debut novel Triptych was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards, won the San Francisco Book Festival award for SF/F, was nominated for a 2011 CBC Bookie, was named one of The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011, and garnered both a starred review and a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly. Since then she’s published the four-book Accidental Turn fantasy series, the Skylark’s Saga duology, and a handful of standalone novels and short story collections. Her queer time-travel novel A Woman of the Sea was named a winner of the 2019 WATTY AWARD for Historical Fiction, and will be published in Fall 2024 with W by Wattpad Books as Time and Tide. Her next novel, a queer contemporary romantasy titled Nine-Tenths is currently serializing on Wattpad.

Webiste: https://jmfrey.net/

Tickets $17.31, Free to ORWA members (only $60 for a year’s membership!) Book On Eventbrite