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Jack Ketchum was a guest lecturer at Odyssey 2009, where he lectured on crafting strong openings, worked with students, and critiqued their stories. In this podcast, Jack discusses what the author needs to accomplish with the first sentence, the first paragraph, and the first page. Jack explains the importance of getting the reader emotionally involved immediately, by providing information that is intriguing and draws the reader in. He explains different strategies the author can use, such as making the reader laugh, creating questions in the reader's mind, or creating suspense. He also explains how to choose the right details for the opening. By presenting the class with a series of strong opening sentences from various stories and novels and studying what makes them intriguing, Jack reveals some of the subtle and powerful qualities of strong openings.

Jack Ketchum is the pseudonym for a former actor, singer, teacher, literary agent, lumber salesman, and soda jerk—a former flower child and baby boomer who figures that in 1956 Elvis, dinosaurs and horror probably saved his life. His first novel, Off Season, prompted the Village Voice to publicly scold its publisher in print for publishing violent pornography. He personally disagrees but is perfectly happy to let you decide for yourself. His short story "The Box" won a 1994 Bram Stoker Award from the HWA, his story "Gone" won again in 2000—and in 2003 he won Stokers for both best collection for Peaceable Kingdom and best long fiction for Closing Time. He has written eleven novels, four of which have recently been filmed—The Lost, The Girl Next Door, Red and Offspring. His stories are collected in The Exit At Toledo Blade Boulevard, Broken on the Wheel of Sex, Sleep Disorder (with Edward Lee), Peaceable Kingdom and Closing Time and Other Stories. His novella The Crossings was cited by Stephen King in his speech at the 2003 National Book Awards.

The text of this recording is copyright 2009 by Jack Ketchum. The sound recording is copyright 2010 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.

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Jeffrey A. Carver was a guest lecturer at Odyssey 2009, where he lectured on Story Structure: Conflict and Plot. In this podcast, Jeffrey explains the importance of structure. Structure supplies the skeleton for your story; without it, your story becomes a jellyfish. But structure is more than the organization and skeleton. It gives your story its purpose, movement, life. Jeffrey discusses the different components of structure and how they interact with each other. He especially stresses the interaction of plot and character in the structure, and explains that to discover plot, one must discover character. He offers various techniques for creating structure, from outlining in advance to discovering and recording it as your write. He also provides a checklist to help you examine your structure after you have a draft, so you can discover weaknesses and make necessary changes.

Jeffrey A. Carver is the author of sixteen science fiction novels, including Sunborn (Tor Books, November 2008). Prior to that, his most recent books were Battlestar Galactica: the Miniseries (a novelization), and Eternity's End, a grand-scale epic of conflict and mystery in the far future, which was a finalist for the Nebula Award.

His novels Neptune Crossing, Strange Attractors, and The Infinite Sea began his series known as The Chaos Chronicles, a hard science fiction series which continues with Sunborn. Science Fiction Chronicle named Neptune Crossing one of the best science fiction novels of the year, while Kirkus called Strange Attractors "dazzling, thrilling, innovative...probably Carver's best effort to date." Periodically he returns to his Star Rigger universe (Star Rigger's Way, Dragons in the Stars, and others), a favorite haunt for readers.

Carver's writing involves elements of both hard science and psychology, and is character-focused while exploring possibilities for science and technology in the future, including nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and the possibilities for travel (and both contact and conflict) among the stars. His novels and stories explore not just technological but moral, ethical, and spiritual challenges for tomorrow.

In addition to writing, Carver teaches. In 1995, he developed and hosted an educational TV series, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing—a live, interactive broadcast into middle school classrooms. Reaching into schools across the U.S., the show encouraged student writers to stretch their imaginations and learn the basic skills of storytelling and writing. Much of that teaching is now free online for aspiring writers at writesf.com. He also teaches regularly at the New England Young Writers Conference at Bread Loaf, Vermont, and at the Ultimate Science Fiction Writing Workshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the fall of 2009, he taught SF writing at MIT, as well.

A native of Huron, Ohio, Carver is a graduate of Brown University, with graduate work in marine resources management at the University of Rhode Island. He has been a high school wrestler, a scuba diving instructor, a quahog diver, a UPS sorter, a technical writer and developmental editor, a private pilot, and a stay-at-home dad. He lives with his family in Arlington, Massachusetts, and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and The Authors Guild. For more information, visit his website at starrigger.net.

Several of Carver's novels (and some short stories) are available for free download as ebooks at http://www.starrigger.net/Downloads.htm.

The text of this recording is copyright 2009 by Jeffrey A. Carver. The sound recording is copyright 2009 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.

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Patricia Bray was a guest lecturer at Odyssey 2009, where she lectured about the uses of the sidekick in fiction. In this podcast, the second of two parts, Patricia explains how the sidekick's characteristics can balance those of the protagonist, or contrast with those of the protagonist. She discusses the requirements for a good sidekick, and describes how the sidekick's character arc can complement or contrast with the protagonist's character arc. She explains the difference between a sidekick/protagonist story and a story with multiple protagonists. She also lists some of the very useful purposes a sidekick can serve in a story, such as making your protagonist more believable, providing an embodiment of the protagonist's motivation, and serving as the external conscience of protagonist. She also reviews the various mistakes an author can make in creating a sidekick. Patricia discusses sidekicks in short stories as well as novels, and explains when you might want to use the sidekick's point of view. You can find part 1 of Patricia's discussion of sidekicks in Podcast #31.

Patricia Bray is the author of a dozen novels, including Devlin's Luck, which won the 2003 Compton Crook Award for the best first novel in the field of science fiction or fantasy. A multi-genre author whose career spans both Regency romance and epic fantasy, Patricia has had her books translated into Russian, German, Hebrew and Portuguese. She is a two-time co-chair of the Southern Tier Writer's conference, and her articles on the writer's craft have appeared in numerous publications, including Broadsheet, Nink, STARbytes, and RWA's Keys to Success: A Professional Writer's Career Handbook.

Patricia lives in upstate New York, where she combines her writing with a full-time career as an I/T professional, ensuring that she is never more than a few feet away from a keyboard. Her latest novel is The Final Sacrifice, the concluding volume in The Chronicles of Josan, which was released by Bantam Spectra in July 2008.

The text of this recording is copyright 2009 by Patricia Bray. The sound recording is copyright 2009 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.

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In her lecture at Odyssey 2009, Patricia Bray explored the role of a sidekick in fiction. In this podcast, the first of two parts, Patricia defines a sidekick and explains the inherently unequal nature of the hero/sidekick relationship. Giving examples that illuminate the long literary tradition of sidekicks, Patricia identifies the genres that tend to have sidekicks and the differences between a protagonist's sidekick and an antagonist's sidekick. She explains why sidekicks are necessary in some stories and novels and the specific ways in which they can be used.

Patricia Bray is the author of a dozen novels, including Devlin's Luck, which won the 2003 Compton Crook Award for the best first novel in the field of science fiction or fantasy. A multi-genre author whose career spans both Regency romance and epic fantasy, Patricia has had her books translated into Russian, German, Hebrew and Portuguese. She is a two-time co-chair of the Southern Tier Writer's conference, and her articles on the writer's craft have appeared in numerous publications, including Broadsheet, Nink, STARbytes, and RWA's Keys to Success: A Professional Writer's Career Handbook.

Patricia lives in upstate New York, where she combines her writing with a full-time career as an I/T professional, ensuring that she is never more than a few feet away from a keyboard. Her latest novel is The Final Sacrifice, the concluding volume in The Chronicles of Josan, which was released by Bantam Spectra in July 2008.

The text of this recording is copyright 2009 by Patricia Bray. The sound recording is copyright 2009 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.

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In her lecture at Odyssey 2004, Catherine Asaro explained how to develop a scientific "What if?" for your story. In this podcast, she covers some of the challenges of getting the science into your science fiction. Too much detail may bore readers, while insufficient detail may leave readers skeptical or confused. Catherine suggests various ways to introduce scientific exposition in your stories while keeping the reader tense and interested. Maintaining scientific accuracy may at times seem limiting to your story, but it may actually force you to be more creative and come up with exciting solutions. Science can also help you to extrapolate and figure out what your futuristic world would really be like. Catherine provides various examples and explains how to develop your novum in a scientifically accurate way, taking into consideration the consequences of that novum.

Catherine Asaro is a writer, scientist, and dancer. Praised for her ability to mix hard science fiction with character-driven stories, she has a Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard. Among her many awards, she has received the Nebula for her novel The Quantum Rose and her novella "The Space-time Pool." Catherine currently has twenty-four novels out. Her most recent fantasy is The Night Bird (Luna 2008). Her latest science fiction book, Diamond Star (Baen 2009), is about a rock star in the future. The paperback of Catherine's book The Ruby Dice was also released in 2009. Her next book, Carnelians, will be out from Baen in the next year.

In April 2009, Starflight Music released the soundtrack for the book, a CD also titled Diamond Star, by the rock band Point Valid, in collaboration with Catherine. The CD presents songs from the book, with three additional works by Hayim Ani, lead vocalist and guitarist for the band. After Point Valid dispersed to college, Donald Wolcott joined the project as the pianist for Catherine's vocals in concerts and at science fiction cons.

The text of this recording is copyright 2004 by Catherine Asaro. The sound recording is copyright 2009 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.

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In her guest lecture at the 2005 Odyssey workshop, P. D. Cacek debunked some of the alleged "rules" about writing. In this podcast, she covers a series of such "rules," explains their limitations and inaccuracies, and provides the more complex truth. For example, writers are often advised to limit the number of point-of-view characters in their novels to three. That's an arbitrary number and certainly not the best choice for every novel. While it is true that an author should think carefully about POV, and keep the number of POV characters to a minimum, the author must write what the story needs. Writers are often told to use complete sentences and correct grammar. That is not always the best option for a particular moment or scene. But the author needs to know the rules of grammar before breaking them, so that when he does break them, he does so mindfully and for good reason.

The winner of both a Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Award, P. D. Cacek has written over two hundred short stories, appearing in such anthologies as 999, Joe Lansdale's Lords of the Razor, Night Visions 12, Inferno and the inaugural YA anthology of horror fiction from Scholastic Books, 666:The Sign of the Beast.

Although probably always considering herself a short story writer, Cacek has four published novels, just completed a fifth, Visitation Rites (a good old-fashioned ghost story) and has started writing plays — two so far, The Last Daughter and The Stories Teller . . . neither of which are horror.

A native Westerner, Cacek now lives in Fort Washington, PA . . . in a haunted house across from a haunted mill.

When not writing, she can often be found either with a group of costumed story-tellers called The Patient Creatures (www.creatureseast.com), or haunting local cemeteries looking for inspiration.

You can visit her web-site at www.pdcacek.com.

The text of this recording is copyright 2005 by P. D. Cacek. The sound recording is copyright 2009 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.

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This is part 2 of a two-part podcast. You can find part 1 in Podcast #27. In his guest lecture at Odyssey 2003, Bruce Holland Rogers discussed narrative theory and the importance of structure. In this podcast, Bruce explains his own use of structure in flash fiction and continues his fascinating list of various structures that can work well for short stories and very well for short shorts. These include the story in which a character has an epiphany; the ethnographic story; the story that parodies a familiar short document; the story of a character interacting with another and changing direction; the story that's like a picture that can be interpreted in two ways; the traditional story that is compressed; the story of thesis, antithesis, synthesis; the ellipsis that relies on the reader's knowledge of the form, so he can fill in what's missing; the suspense story predicated upon unusual attitudes or activities that puzzle the reader; the logical progression from an absurd premise; the story in which the thing that never happens, happens this one time; and the story that subverts an expected strategy or structure. Bruce discusses the requirements and goals of these various structures and provides examples from his own work.

Bruce Holland Rogers has a home base in Eugene, Oregon, the tie-dye capital of the world. His fiction is all over the literary map. Some of it is SF, some is fantasy, some is literary. He has written mysteries, experimental fiction, and work that's hard to label.

For six years, Bruce wrote a column about the spiritual and psychological challenges of full-time fiction writing for Speculations magazine. Many of those columns have been collected in a book, Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer (an alternate selection of the Writers Digest Book Club). He is a motivational speaker and trains workers and managers in creativity and practical problem solving.

He has taught creative writing at the University of Colorado and the University of Illinois. Bruce has also taught non-credit courses for the University of Colorado, Carroll College, the University of Wisconsin, and the private Flatiron Fiction Workshop. He makes frequent appearances at writer's conferences. He is currently a member of the permanent faculty at the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA program, a low-residency program that stands alone and is not affiliated with a college or university. It is the first and so far only program of its kind. Bruce offers an annual subscription to his short stories, emailing out a story to subscribers every three weeks for a mere $10. You can find out more at www.shortshortshort.com.

The text of this recording is copyright 2003 by Bruce Holland Rogers. The sound recording is copyright 2009 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.

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In his guest lecture at Odyssey 2003, Bruce Holland Rogers discussed narrative theory and the importance of structure. Structure can provide a story with unity and can give an author direction. In this podcast, Bruce explains his own use of structure and provides a fascinating list of various structures that can work very well for short stories or short shorts. These include the fable or parable, the expressionistic story, the fairy tale, and the character sketch. Bruce discusses the requirements and goals of these various structures and provides examples from his own work. This is part 1 of a two-part podcast. For more structures and examples, listen to part 2 in Podcast #28.

Bruce Holland Rogers has a home base in Eugene, Oregon, the tie-dye capital of the world. His fiction is all over the literary map. Some of it is SF, some is fantasy, some is literary. He has written mysteries, experimental fiction, and work that's hard to label.

For six years, Bruce wrote a column about the spiritual and psychological challenges of full-time fiction writing for Speculations magazine. Many of those columns have been collected in a book, Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer (an alternate selection of the Writers Digest Book Club). He is a motivational speaker and trains workers and managers in creativity and practical problem solving.

He has taught creative writing at the University of Colorado and the University of Illinois. Bruce has also taught non-credit courses for the University of Colorado, Carroll College, the University of Wisconsin, and the private Flatiron Fiction Workshop. He makes frequent appearances at writer's conferences. He is currently a member of the permanent faculty at the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA program, a low-residency program that stands alone and is not affiliated with a college or university. It is the first and so far only program of its kind. Bruce offers an annual subscription to his short stories, emailing out a story to subscribers every three weeks for a mere $10. You can find out more at www.shortshortshort.com.

The text of this recording is copyright 2003 by Bruce Holland Rogers. The sound recording is copyright 2009 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.

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At Odyssey 2005, Allen M. Steele lectured on building a world's environment. In this excerpt from his lecture, Allen takes writers through the process of creating a believable, realistic world, using the setting from his "Coyote" novels as an example. He explains how to use scientific discoveries as a basis for setting, and how to use real-life locations as inspirations for your imaginary land. He talks about common problems in invented settings, such as the homogeneous world and the habitable planet that has no atmosphere-generating volcanoes. From designing the solar system to the geography of the planet to the plants and animals, Allen covers the important elements necessary to creating an entire environment. If the author does it correctly, he can create a setting that "sucks the reader's eyeballs out of his head and pulls him into story."

Allen M. Steele was born in Nashville, Tennessee. He received his B.A. in Communications from New England College in Henniker, NH, and his M.A. in Journalism from the University of Missouri. His novels and short fiction collections include Orbital Decay, Labyrinth of Night, Oceanspace, Chronospace, The Last Science Fiction Writer, and the "Coyote" series—Coyote, Coyote Rising, Coyote Frontier, and, most recently, Coyote Horizon.

His work has appeared in all the major SF magazines as well as in many anthologies. He was First Runner-Up for the 1990 John W. Campbell Award, and Orbital Decay won the 1990 Locus Award for Best First Novel. He's won two Hugo Awards ('96, '97), two Locus Awards, four Asimov's Readers Awards, the Analog AnLab Award, the 1996 Science Fiction Weekly Reader Appreciation Award, and 1998 Science Fiction Chronicle Readers Award as well as the 1993 Donald A. Wollheim Award and the 2002 Phoenix Award. Steele serves on the Board of Advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation.

He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife Linda and their two dogs.

The text of this recording is copyright 2005 by Allen M. Steele. The sound recording is copyright 2009 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.

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In their guest lecture at Odyssey 2008, Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman discussed the many differences between writing a novel and writing a short story. In this podcast, Delia and Ellen explore how the opening of a novel differs from the opening of a short story. What must the beginning of a novel do, what can it do, and how much space does it have to do these things? Ellen and Delia list the elements that should usually be established in the opening chapter. They also explain that many novelists don't know the right opening for their novel until they reach the end. Thus, it's very important to keep pushing ahead, rather than to get bogged down rewriting the opening chapters. Ellen and Delia discuss the difficulties of getting through a first draft and offer valuable advice on how to make it to the end. They also explore some of the things that short stories can't do and novels can.

Delia Sherman was born in Tokyo, Japan, and brought up in New York City. She spent much of her early life at one end of a classroom or another, at Brown University where she earned a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies in 1981 and at Boston University and Northeastern, where she taught Freshman Composition and Fantasy. Her first novel, Through a Brazen Mirror (Ace, 1989), was an Ace Fantasy Special. In 1990, she was nominated for the Campbell Award for Best New SF Writer. Her second novel, The Porcelain Dove (Dutton, 1993; Plume, 1994), won the Mythopoeic Award. Her short fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award. She made her debut in the world of children's literature with short stories in The Green Man and Faery Reel (edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow) and Firebirds (Viking, 2003). Her first novel for children is the urban fantasy Changeling (Viking, 2006), with sequel The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen due out in 2009.

Delia has been a judge for the Crawford Award for Best First Fantasy Novel and the World Fantasy Award, served on the Motherboard of the James Tiptree Jr. Award, and is a founding member of the Interstitial Arts Foundation.

As an editor of books and anthologies, Delia's continuing quest is to get more of the kind of fantasy she likes out to readers. She has been a contributing editor for Tor Books and has co-edited, with Ellen Kushner and Don Keller, the fantasy anthology The Horns of Elfland (Roc) as well as the Bordertown punk-elf anthology The Essential Bordertown with Terri Windling. She has edited Interficitons: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing (Small Beer Press, 2007) with Theodora Goss and Interfictions 2 (Small Beer Press, 2009) with Christopher Barzak. She teaches SF and Fantasy writing whenever she can at Odyssey, Clarion, and workshops at regional and national science fiction conventions.

Delia lives with fellow author and fantasist Ellen Kushner in a rambling apartment in New York City. She is a social rather than a solitary writer and can work anywhere, which is a good thing because she loves to travel, and if she couldn't write on airplanes, she'd never get anything done.

Author, performer and radio personality Ellen Kushner hosts and writes the national public radio series Sound & Spirit. Her newest novel, The Privilege of the Sword, won the 2007 Locus Award for Best Fantasy novel, and was nominated for the Nebula and the World Fantasy Awards, as well as being a Tiptree Honor Book. Her first novel, Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners, was hailed as the progenitor of the "Mannerpunk" school of fantasy. Her second novel, Thomas the Rhymer, won both the 1991 World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award. With Delia Sherman she co-wrote The Fall of the Kings. Her short fiction has appeared in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, and, most recently, in Coyote Road and Troll's Eye View.

Her spoken word performances include The Golden Dreydl (with Shirim Klezmer Orchestra, on Rykodisc CD), which was published as a children's book by Charlesbridge in 2007 and appeared as a play ("The Klezmer Nutcracker") at New York's Vital Theatre in 2008.

She has also taught at the Clarion Workshop, the Cape Cod Writers' Workshop, and the American Book Center in Amsterdam. She is a founding member of the Interstitial Arts Foundation. She lives in New York City with Delia Sherman and a recently-unpacked suitcase or two.

The text of this recording is copyright 2008 by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman. The sound recording is copyright 2009 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.

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In her guest lecture at Odyssey 2008, literary agent Jenny Rappaport provided so much useful information that we've chosen to make a second excerpt from her talk available as another podcast (for her first excerpt, see Podcast #23). In this podcast, Jenny explains how to write a strong query letter. Jenny first discusses what a query letter shouldn't do and what information shouldn't be included. You can find an example of what Jenny considers a bad query letter on her blog, here: http://litsoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/huh-or-plot-does-not-make-sense.html (you need to scroll down). Jenny explains the importance of a strong hook to open a query letter and reads examples of weak hooks and strong hooks. The query letter then needs to establish the novel's conflict and get the reader engaged with the main character and the plot. Jenny discusses how to describe your novel--what makes a middle grade book, a young adult book, or an adult book--and whether to compare your book to other books.

Jenny Rappaport is the owner of The Rappaport Agency, LLC, a boutique literary agency specializing in the genres of science fiction and fantasy, young adult, and romance. She has previously worked at Folio Literary Management and the L. Perkins Agency. Jenny attended Carnegie Mellon University where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing. She is a 2002 graduate of Orson Scott Card's Literary Boot Camp. Her nonfiction has appeared in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, and her microfiction in Thaumatrope. She is currently working on a novel in her free time.

The text of this recording is copyright 2008 by Jenny Rappaport. The sound recording is copyright 2009 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.

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In her guest lecture at Odyssey 2008, Jenny Rappaport gave her assessment of the publishing industry and explained how an author can break into publishing, navigate the changing marketplace, and survive. In this podcast, Jenny explains step-by-step how to get an agent: how to write a strong synopsis; the best strategy for sending queries to agents; how to get your work into the hands of as many agents at once as possible. She also discusses what to do when an agent says she wants to represent you: what to look for in a representation agreement, what fees you should agree to, and how to form a positive relationship with your agent. How important it is to get an agent? What can an agent do for you, and what can't an agent do? Jenny describes the various publishers and imprints currently buying fantasy, science fiction, and horror. She also discusses how well the various genres are selling, the cyclical nature of genres, and how the genre of a work influences a publisher's decision whether or not to publish that work.

Jenny Rappaport is the owner of The Rappaport Agency, LLC, a boutique literary agency specializing in the genres of science fiction and fantasy, young adult, and romance. She has previously worked at Folio Literary Management and the L. Perkins Agency. Jenny attended Carnegie Mellon University where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing. She is a 2002 graduate of Orson Scott Card's Literary Boot Camp. Her nonfiction has appeared in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, and her microfiction in Thaumatrope. She is currently working on a novel in her free time.

The text of this recording is copyright 2008 by Jenny Rappaport. The sound recording is copyright 2009 by Odyssey Writing Workshops.