Bite-Size Worlds: Writing Speculative Short Stories

Name: Bite-Size Worlds: Writing Speculative Short Stories
Start: 2024-9-29T14:15-4:00
End: 2024-9-29T15:00-4:00

29sep2:15 pm3:00 pmBite-Size Worlds: Writing Speculative Short StoriesSuzan Palumbo, Paola Ferrante, Gary Barwin, moderated by Anuja Varghese 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm(GMT-04:00)

Event Details

Here’s a challenge: build a believable world from scratch in 3,000 words. Or 1,000. Or less! It’s a tough ask even before you throw goblin court politics or ancient monsters or far-future warp technology into the mix. These authors are experts in creating worlds that suit the needs (and tight word counts) of short stories, all while immersing readers in complex fantastical settings. Join Suzan Palumbo, Paola Ferrante, and Gary Barwin, with moderator Anuja Varghese, as they get into what makes a speculative short story feel—well—real!

Speakers for this event

Anuja Varghese

Anuja Varghese

Moderator
Anuja Varghese (she/her) is an award-winning writer and editor based in Hamilton, ON. Her work appears in Hobart, Corvid Queen, Southern Humanities Review, The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, and Plenitude Magazine, as well as the Queer Little Nightmares anthology, among others. Her debut short story collection, titled Chrysalis (House of Anansi Press, 2023) explores South Asian diaspora experience through a feminist, speculative lens. In 2023, Chrysalis won the Writers Trust of Canada Dayne Ogilvie Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. Find Anuja on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok (@anuja_v across platforms) or through her website www.anujavarghese.com.

URL https://www.anujavarghese.com/

Moderator
Gary Barwin

Gary Barwin

Gary Barwin is the author of 31 books including Scandal at the Alphorn Factory: New and Selected Short Fiction 2024-1984 and the national bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates which won the Leacock Medal and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award and the Giller Prize and was long listed for Canada Reads. He lives in Hamilton.

URL https://garybarwin.com/
Paola Ferrante

Paola Ferrante

Paola Ferrante is a writer living with depression. Her debut fiction collection, Her Body Among Animals (Book*hug Press, 2023), was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award, a runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Award, a Silver Medal Winner in Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, and is forthcoming in August 2024 in the UK from Influx Press. Her debut poetry collection, What To Wear When Surviving a Lion Attack (Mansfield Press, 2019), was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She was born, and still resides in, Toronto with her partner Mat and their son.
Suzan Palumbo

Suzan Palumbo

Suzan Palumbo (she/her, they/them) is a Trinidadian – Canadian, dark speculative fiction writer and editor whose short stories have been nominated for the Nebula, Aurora, World Fantasy and Locus awards. Countess, her queer, Caribbean, space opera novella, will be published by ECW Press in September 2024. Skin Thief: Stories, her debut collection, is available now from Neon Hemlock Press. She is represented by Michael Curry of the Donald Maass Literary agency and can be contacted via her website at suzanpalumbo.carrd.co

URL https://suzanpalumbo.carrd.co/