Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Author Fran Wilde Builds Monsters, Predicts Futures with Local Writers

Fran Wilde, two-time Nebula award-winning author of such science fiction and fantasy novels as Riverland and Updraft, leads two online writing workshops sponsored by Forsyth County Public Library and Forsyth County Arts Alliance.

The first two-hour workshop, “Build a Monster,” is intended for tween and teen writers in grades 5 through 10 and will be hosted online at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 15.

Wilde explains that students will engage in “loud and fun” brainstorming activities designed to expand their creative writing skills. The workshop will help young writers use that creativity to build monster characters and then develop problem-solving techniques to defeat those monsters in their stories.

Admission to the “Build a Monster” workshop is free, but advance registration is required.

Wilde’s next two-hour workshop, “Writing the Future,” is intended for teen writers in grades 9 and up, as well as adults, and will be hosted online at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 22.

Writers often struggle to describe the possibilities of the future for readers in the present, so Wilde designed this workshop to help aspiring writers imagine future possibilities from multiple perspectives and write stories about them. Participants will use “Please, Stop Printing Unicorns,” Wilde’s front-page Op-Ed from The New York Times, as a starting point for discussing ideas and examples of writing about characters and settings in the future.

Admission to the “Writing the Future” workshop is free, but advance registration is required.

“We’re grateful to the Forsyth County Arts Alliance for supporting the library’s author visits and writing workshops and we’re delighted to host Fran Wilde’s virtual appearance for local writers,” says Programming Manager Tracy Walker.

“In addition to winning Nebula and Hugo awards and other literary honors, Ms. Wilde also directs the Genre Fiction MFA concentration at Western Colorado University and is a respected educator. We know teen and adult writers will come away with new perspectives for achieving their writing goals.”

To register for a writing workshop or for more information on Fran Wilde and her forthcoming novel The Ship of Stolen Words, please visit www.forsythpl.org



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