Faiths of Fantasy and the Future - How can writers incorporate contemporary or invented belief systems into fantasy or future worlds, without replicating cliches about clergy, faith, and spiritual practice? • My top thought is that when you’re making up religious systems in a fictional universe you actually get to (indeed, have to) make up two levels: what the people in this world believe, and what is actually true in this universe.
Apparently I haven’t yet posted on writing religions in fiction, even though it’s something I’m deeply interested in and have done a lot of in my own work. (I guess I need to get on that!) The resource I can share today, though, is the “religion” slide from a workshop on world-building that I presented for Broad Universe in 2020. Also, beware these two pet peeve stereotypes that I personally am eye-rollingly bored of seeing:
1. the only possible ways to conceive of “God” are as a big old man with a beard up in the sky, or as a dark, evil (probably tentacled) Old One in the depths
2. religion is always opposed to science, and vice versa
Creating Relatable Non-Humans - How do writers find the sweet spot when creating non-human sentient species: similar enough to be relatable, but not alike enough to be humans in bug suits? • My top thought is to start with biology and consider what effect that could have on individual personalities and collective cultures.
Symbiote City - This post is about my making of a block print depicting Venusian medusae, but it does discuss the challenge of balancing too alien versus not alien enough when depicting imaginary worlds.
Also, the slide on sentient non-human people.
Invented Languages - Snippets of invented languages add depth and interest to speculative fiction, but when is it too much of a good thing? Get tips about language creation with results that even an expert would believe. • My top thought in the case of fantasy set in a secondary world or any place in which 21st century English is not in use, is to remember that your entire story is in a sense “in translation” from another language. And then consider where translators tend to retain words from the source language. Those will be places you can use your made-up language.
Indigenous Roots - This is about real English borrowed from real Indigenous languages, but the post is organized by categories of words that get borrowed when there’s contact between new places and peoples.
Words of the Month - If you’re interested in linguistics more generally, and especially in etymology, you can browse through all my monthly posts on tidbits of language.
Readings - I’ll be reading a short snippet with the Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading on Saturday, and a longer excerpt in an author reading on Monday morning. For both I’ll be featuring Bittersweetness & Light to launch it upon its release. Anyone interested in finding out more about this book and the short stories, poems, and art therein could, of course, purchase a copy of their very own. There are also lots of posts featuring information about the book and its contents...
BOOK RELEASE! - Includes a few illustrations, along with their background and relationship to the stories in the book.
“Love Potion” and “A Life for a Life” - You can hear me read these two complete stories aloud on the December 11, 2024 episode of “Story Hour.”
“Knitting” - read it as originally published in New Myths, Winter 2024
“The Conduits” - read it (and a link to hear me read it aloud) as originally published in Friends Journal, November 2022
“Some Assembly Required” - read it as originally published in Fantasy Magazine, May 2023
Art Show - As always, I’ve got a whole bay in the art show which I will cram full to the gills with relief block prints. Here are posts that tell about my process for a few of them.
El Tenedor, Reading Glasses, Little Cyclops, and Kunchorn Waree
Night Flight and Hatching Dreams
[Pictures: 3 slides from my presentation “World Creation for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers,” 2020;
Riddle in the Sand, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2023 (Image from NydamPrints.com);
Poster for Bittersweetness & Light, 2025.]
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