Begins Monday, January 22nd, 2024

Now Enrolling!

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Led by Cristina Slattery, a writer whose work has been published widely, including in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Cristina holds graduate degrees from Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English and Fordham University's Graduate School of Education and has extensively researched fantasy fiction in its varying forms.

Read an Interview with Cristina on Creating Vivid Setting in Fantasy Fiction.

Do you have an idea of the world you would like to create? What is it like? Why does this setting appeal to you?

This course will help students develop fantasy worlds they are contemplating creating - or have begun to create - in their fiction. Students will focus in on fantasy as a genre - and subgenres - and learn from fantasy writers (and other writers) about how to create compelling settings that draw readers into their stories.

The class will cover aspects of how setting is, in a way, a character in a novel, and how to begin the process of world-building in order to push their existing work forward and/or to start a new project.

This course will help writers of all levels develop their fictional fantasy worlds.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Week 1: Place in Fiction in General

Week 2: What is Fantasy Fiction

Week 3: History of the Place, People, and Time Period

Week 4: Worldviews of the Characters

Week 5: Folklore, Mythology, & Magic

Week 6: Setting as Allegory for Issues We Face Today and/or In the Past

• Students will learn more about the fantasy genre and subgenres.
• Students will learn from successful/popular fantasy books and at least one movie.
• Students will learn techniques to help their settings come alive.
  

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

Wet Ink, our dedicated online classroom, was designed specifically for writing classes. It is a private, easy to use, and highly interactive online platform. Learn more about it from this class demo.

The class is entirely asynchronous which means that there are no set meeting times and students work to their own schedules. Participants will be from different time zones, which allows for a wonderful diversity of voices. In addition to ongoing discussions, all craft materials, lectures, reading assignments, and writing prompts will be available in the Wet Ink classroom. Students will also post work and provide and receive feedback within the online environment.

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

• Instructor: Cristina Slattery
  

• Class size limited to 12 writers

• The workshop starts Monday, January 22nd, 2024

Instructor Cristina Slattery has written for publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes Travel Guide, Harvardwood Highlights, Roads & Kingdoms, The Winter Film Awards, FoodandWine.com, Words Without Borders, AFAR.com, Travel+Leisure.com, several airline magazines, and other national and international magazines and websites.

She currently lives in the New York area, but she lived and worked in Barcelona for five years and enjoyed the life of an expat since it helped to hone her powers of observation and also allowed her to think in different languages. She has lived and worked in Boston, a city she also finds charming. Cristina has an undergraduate degree with honors in her field from Harvard University, a master’s in English from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, and a master’s in Teaching from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education.

Cristina has worked as an English teacher, in the corporate and non-profit sectors, and as a college counselor for international students and U.S. residents. She has also been a producer on a Netflix documentary called When a Dream Comes True.

Additionally, she has written a middle grade fantasy novel and looks forward to seeing this book in the hands of young readers soon - it is currently with two literary agents who are reviewing it.