Intro to the Inactive Protagonist – A Weekend Workshop with Vida Cruz-Borja
When: May 31st – June 1st, 2025 @ 1 PM – 3:30 PM UTC (click here to convert to your timezone)
Can’t make the live webinar? Register to get the recording after!
Where: Online over Zoom
Price: 50 – 125 USD (Scholarships available!)
Fiction has a tendency to prefer the “active” protagonist – the hero, the Chosen One, who goes out there and takes his destiny in his hands. This default isn’t one that marginalised protagonists can always participate in, and often agency for marginalised protagonists will look different. “Inactive,” even.
Based on her excellent essay in Fantasy Magazine, “We Are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive Protagonist,” Vida Cruz-Borja has created this workshop to begin examining the inactive protagonist, the dynamic between the inactive protagonist and their setting, and how conflict is employed in writing SFF. This class will include breaks for guided journalling and a Q&A session, and at the end of it students will:
- Widen the definition of character agency in fiction other than “active” and “inactive” protagonist
- Discover other ways “inactive protagonists” can express their agency
- Explore perspectives and approaches other than conflict and competition in fiction
- Get plenty of suggested and recommended media to continue exploring the inactive protagonist after the class
How To Author Like a Strategist – A Weekend Workshop with Suyi Davies Okungbowa
When: June 21 – 22, 2025 @ 5PM – 7:30PM UTC (click here to convert to your timezone)
Can’t make the live webinar? Register to get the recording after!
Where: Online over Zoom
Price: 50 – 125 USD (Scholarships available!)
Are you a writer with a book in your head but virtually no time to write it? Maybe you have a day job, school to attend, family members to care for, various life responsibilities grabbing at you, and so that book project has languished away on the backburner, and you’re worried you’ll never get to complete it.
Author and creative writing professor Suyi Davies Okungbowa has been there. That’s why he’s here to tell you that you can still finish this project (because a book is a project) in spite of these pressures. It may take you longer than many, but you will get there. Come on this weekend with us, and he’ll show you how.
In this two-day class, Suyi combines principles from strategic project culture (honed during his time in a former corporate role) and the tips, tricks and techniques he has built up in his author career to deliver a pathway to starting and finishing your book.
Please note that this class will be recorded.
Cultural Storytelling: Tapping into Speculative Fiction’s Revolutionary Potential
When: July 19 – 20, 2025 @ 5PM – 9PM UTC (click here to convert to your timezone)
Can’t make the live webinar? Register to get the recording after!
Where: Online over Zoom
Price: 50 – 125 USD (Scholarships available!)
Cultural storytelling—the storytelling traditions and structures that arise from one’s cultural background—is a strength of BIPOC writers, yet many feel constrained by traditional “Western” (read: white) storytelling features. While many find validation in rewriting “normative” structures with characters of color, BIPOC+ storytellers have the opportunity to break into the storytelling conventions of our non-dominant backgrounds.
In this weekend workshop, join instructor Naseem Jamnia as we examine how our “non-normative” experiences affect our understanding of “good craft” to shape stories that not only include characters who look like us, but themes, plot and emotional beats, characterization, and overall structures that better reflect the cultural traditions we come from.
You will be provided a reading packet beforehand to prepare for the class, including various craft essays, short story examples, and brainstorming prompts. After, you will walk away with exercises and guided questions, along with examples of non-dominant storytelling featues and recommended readings to encourage your exploration.
Please note that this class will be recorded.
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