We’re pleased to announce that the second season of Narrative Worlds will debut on Sunday, November 21, at 1:00pm Pacific Time! 

Part of the ongoing 2021 Nebula Conference Online, this worldbuilding webinar series is hosted by best-selling author and SFWA member Kate Elliott. Her guest for the first episode of Season 2 will be award-winning author and SFWA member Fonda Lee. They will discuss “Go Big or Go Home! Bringing Hefty Themes, Structures, and Influences to Doorstopper Novels.” 

SFWA President Jeffe Kennedy says, “We’re excited to once again offer the Nebula Narrative Worlds discussion series! Kate and her exceptional guests do such a great job digging beyond the surface details of worldbuilding and into the nitty gritty decisions writers make.”

This monthly Sunday series will dig into the idea of Narrative Worlds and the theory and practice of building the worlds in which stories are set. Rather than focusing on a survey of basics like “What elements do you need to create a setting?” host Kate Elliott will discuss a specific single topic in more depth each month with a guest. Topics will include technology, language, power, cosmology, use of details, agriculture, material culture, social space, and more. 

Upcoming guests include Ann Leckie, Karen Lord, Michelle Sagara, Saladin Ahmed, and Martha Wells! Upcoming dates for Narrative Worlds are November 21, December 19, January 16, February 20, March 20, and April 24.

As an online webinar series, Narrative Worlds offers a format that can reach as many people as possible. The live vidcast is scheduled to fit a spread of time zones: 

6 am Sydney, Australia / 1 pm San Francisco, USA / 2 pm Sante Fe, USA / 3 pm Chicago, USA/ 4 pm Boston, USA / 5 pm Rio de Janeiro, Brazil / 8 pm Dakar, Senegal / 9 pm London, UK / 10 pm Berlin, Germany

Attendance for the live taping is free for registered attendees of the 2021 Nebula Conference. Registrations may be purchased at any time from the Nebula event website, and they include the archive of event recordings from the virtual 2021 Nebula Conference, which took place in June, and access to the Nebula Weekly Writing Dates, among other benefits. The year-long registration lasts through April 2022. One week after the live vidcast, the episode will be made available to the public for free on the SFWA Youtube channel. A playlist is already available for Season 1 of Narrative Worlds.

KATE ELLIOTT’s most recent novel is Unconquerable Sun, gender spun Alexander the Great in space. She is best known for her Crown of Stars epic fantasy series, the Afro-Celtic post-Roman alt-history fantasy (with lawyer dinosaurs) Cold Magic, and YA fantasy Court of Fives. Her particular focus is immersive world building and centering women in epic stories of adventure and  transformative cultural change. She lives in Hawaii, where she paddles outrigger canoes and spoils her schnauzer. You can find her online at kateelliott.substack.com and @KateElliottSFF on Twitter.

FONDA LEE is the World Fantasy Award-winning author of the epic fantasy Green Bone Saga, beginning with Jade City, continuing in Jade War, and concluding in Jade Legacy. She is also the author of the acclaimed young adult science fiction novels Zeroboxer, Exo, and Cross Fire. Fonda is a three-time winner of the Aurora Award and a multiple finalist for the Nebula Award and Locus Award. A former corporate strategist and black belt martial artist, she currently resides in the Pacific Northwest. www.fondalee.com.