Blog

I will be offering 6 weekly sessions of my writing short stories workshop on Saturdays, 9:30 AM-12 PM Eastern time, starting January 4, 2025 and going through February 8.

In these six sessions, we will cover plot and story structure, character, world-building, style and technique, and how to move forward to begin (or continue) selling short stories. Each class will consist of lecture, discussion, and writing exercises for the first half and then turn to a critique of each other’s work. Students are expected to turn in at least one story for workshopping as well as critiquing each other’s stories.

Classes will be recorded for student use only.

To apply, please mail cat@kittywumpus.net a 1000 word writing sample (does not need to be a complete piece) as well as a brief (1-3 paragraph) statement about why you’d like to take the class. If accepted, the cost is $400 for Patreon supporters and other Rambo Academy community members; otherwise $500.

 There will be three Plunkett scholarships; to apply for one, simply mention that you would like to be considered for one, and whether you need a full or partial scholarship.

From Janet:

The New Mexico Wormhole has snapped shut and scattered the travellers back to Australia, Italy, Canada, and multiple states around the USA. I am STUFFED full of amazing writing tips, STUNNED by the beauty and wildlife surrounding the Painted Pony Resort, and warm and fuzzy with love for all my fantastic new friends.

Arley Sorg was tough; a straight shooter who didn’t mince words in a way that gave each of us a boost. We were all better than we thought and still had a lot to learn. Plus, a horned owl joined us from a nearby tree during his classes.

Minister Faust was calm; a gentle guide through the publishing desert. His “explain it to me like I’m a four-year-old” led to clear loglines that supported our newly created emotional impact statements. Plus, the man can cook like a pro!

C.C. Finlay was wise; he took no guff and made sure we understood his points. Thoughtful, insightful, and kind, Charlie was a favorite. How he carved special talk-time for each of us during a busy, busy schedule is both a mystery and a gift we all treasured.

Don Maass was fun; he turned his six-inch binder of notes and writing tips into amusing, personal reflections. Brilliant, generous, and friendly, Don always made room for our comments during class and earned our respect as he returned our quips with rapid shots from the hip.

Cat Rambo was quiet; they were the center of our New Mexican tornado. When you were with Cat, your heart rate lowered, and you felt cared for as a colleague and a friend. Cat was our tarantula whisperer, which either repelled or attracted people almost every day. Why the spiders only appeared on the walls around their building remains a mystery.

Over ten days, we learned more about VOICE, SCENE SHAPING, EMOTIONS AND INTERIORITY, MICROTENSION, ADDING ENERGY TO THE NOVEL MIDDLE, RELEVANT ENDINGS START AT THE BEGINNING, 8 LACKS THAT TORPEDO GOOD MANUSCRIPTS, and BUILDING AND KEEPING A WRITING CAREER FRESH. From day one to day ten, we all started going to bed earlier and earlier.

We saw scorpions glowing under black-lights, bunnies, deer, horned owl, javelinas, tarantulas, coyotes, roadrunners, ravens, quail, and a spadefoot toad.

We sat around an outdoor fireplace as Cat, Don, and Charlie read their work.

We sat in the hot tub(s) and stared at the star-filled sky, waiting for an inevitable shooting star.
We stood in the courtyard and absorbed the silence.

This year brought me several family health issues and I added caregiver to my growing list of responsibilities. As a Canadian with many friends in the US, the election brought stress, fear, and disbelief. I’m still an almost-published (that’s how I frame it—I’m waiting for that one desk on that right day—it’s as inevitable as a shooting star as long as I keep going. Right?)

This year, the Wayward Wormhole at the Painted Pony Resort offered me a reset. Its quiet touched my core and smoothed out the tangled worries I’d been keeping inside. Being with my people reminded me that I’m not alone and renewed my energy. Gaining skills, literally at the speed of sound, renewed my enthusiasm for the stories I’ve written and the ones yet to come.

People ask why Cat and I why we stick with the in-person workshop format when others are going virtual. There are several reasons, all confirmed during our time in New Mexico. Writers need new experiences. They need a safe and peaceful environment to write, learn, and reflect on how people move through life. Writers need other writers. They need tools. Writers need to spend non-writing time with accomplished writers to confirm their belief in their insane choice of career; they need to know their struggles are normal, even if their personal journey isn’t.

For me? Sitting outside under the Milky Way with a dozen-plus friends as Charlie Finlay reads from his latest (and unpublished) novel in front of a wood fire is an in-person memory I’ll never forget.

PS. Plans for The Wayward Wormhole 2025 – Barbados are in the works. We’ve contacted four outstanding instructors who’ve expressed interest, and we will announce a new format and focus by the end of February. We hope you’ll join us!

From Janet: This year’s Wormhole started a little early for me with a three-day conference in Surrey, BC where I touched base with Don Maass, spent some well-deserved face time with Cat Rambo, and met the effervescent Premee Mohamad along with several regular and new SIWC attendees. Then my husband Geoff picked me up at the hotel and we headed for the border. So far, so familiar to this West Coaster.

That was Sunday. Now it’s Monday and we’re in Washington state. It’s still a rain forest and I recognize most of the flora until we crossed the Snoqualmie Pass—then things changed a lot and slammed home the fact that we’re heading into the unknown; a new Wormhole full of students and instructors, a new environment full of unfamiliar flora along with both cute fauna and aggressive fauna. It’s exciting. Then the phone rang—I’d left my retainer in a BC hotel—but we’re across the border and not going back. The fun of travel.

Monday begins in Baker City, Oregon with -1 degree and frost. This is not what I’m used to. Within hours, we’re driving through Idaho. The hills are rolling and covered in a fine pale-yellow grass that softens them and is pleasing to the eye. I do my best to capture the feeling and look of this empty, mellow country which goes on and on. There are so many references to the Oregon Trail, and it’s easy (and terrifying) to imagine settlers crossing these lands in wagons with livestock in tow. It makes me think about the dynamics that put them in this place without considering the impact on the locals—human and animals.

By the end of the day we’re in Nevada and the landscape has changed to one that makes the rolling hills have taken on an edgier look with sharper edges and sage brush that gives it a five-o’clock shadow. I’m still thinking about the wagons making their way through this rough terraform, and when we come to a famous river crossing, the courage and focus required to find a home in this new world takes on a deeper meaning for having seen the environment firsthand. The feeling of being a stranger in an alien land is strong.

As Nevada gives way to Arizona, the land changes again. This time, huge, rounded boulders lie scattered about the terrain. Most are stacked three and four boulders high, as if giants had placed them during a game designed to balance the smooth stone in artistically lethal ways. There are story ideas strewn between the rock and cacti.

Thursday dawns with the bluest of skies. There’s one more shortish day of driving, one more hotel room, and we’re at The Painted Pony. My mind is full of meal planning, which means grocery shopping at an oversized level, the possibility of new friends and talking books, stories, and publishing. I love this moment, before anything needs troubleshooting, before looking for something forgotten or misplaced. Right now, the Wayward Wormhole is perfect.

The five-hour drive on Friday seems twice as long as the eight-hour drive the past Monday. Then we’re at the entrance to the long driveway. We bounce along the dirt road and up to the main house in front of us. The guest house is off to the left, and the bungalow is to the right. Every wall is smooth stucco supported by massive wooden beams. The doors are tall with full-length windows that brighten each room. The Painted Pony Resort slaps.

At 7:30 pm the sun had left the sky, leaving behind a breathtaking expanse of stars on both sides of the Milky Way. It’s quiet here. The hot tub is not too warm, and as my muscles loosen from the water and peace, I’m rewarded with the zing of a shooting star. And yes, the scorpions glow.

The Wayward Wormhole is now thirty-one days away. Aside from my heart palpitations, a
stomach that flips with butterflies every time someone brings up how soon we’ll be at the
Painted Pony Ranch, preparations are well underway, things are going well, and barring any
unforeseen roadblocks, the to-do list is manageable.

With that being said, this month I want to talk about the things I’m excited about. First, there’s
the work and who’s going to see it. Arley Sorg reading my short story and giving feedback?
Delectable! Conversations with Minister Faust about story and writing and philosophy?
Fantastic! Ten days with Donald Maass and Charlie Finlay knowing they’ve both read my novel
and want to help me move it toward publication? The German language probably has a word
that encompasses the torrent of emotion swirling throughout my body. There goes my stomach
again.

Second is the company. I’ve always felt out of place in groups. They don’t get my jokes, they
don’t love the same movies or TV shows, they don’t care about science or dragons or ravens,
and they certainly don’t discuss inter-species dino sex. Then I went to the Surrey International
Writers Conference in BC Canada, and discovered that even if I was the weird one, there were
many, many more people like me—they just weren’t in Campbell River (except for my best
friend—she’s weird in the best ways). So, step one: conferences are good. Then I went to the
Wayward Wormhole last year and discovered how fantastic it is to live with a bunch of nut-ball
crazy SF&F writers who were as obsessed with story as I am. Spending time with all of you is
the highlight of my year, and is the driving force behind every year’s location, instructor
selections, and format.

I’m also really looking forward to a change of pace, a bit of peace at the end of a tumultuous
year. My mum is eighty-two now and struggling with her memory and how she navigates
through this overly complex world. She and I have been investigating seniors’ homes, and it’s
hard watching her come to terms with her situation and its ultimate conclusion. There are some
good things happening too. My husband, Geoff and I have bought a condo in Victoria and gain
possession two days after we return from the Wormhole. Needless to say, I’ve been busy, and I
keep moving forward by imagining myself floating in the pool or talking some quiet time in the
desert. On the flip side, I also enjoy drinking and playing pool, and there’s a foosball table, but
I’m not sure my wrists can hold up under the strain of slamming that little ball down the
opponent’s…sorry…I can get competitive.

The Wormhole holds an entire world inside its writing bubble. It’s my happy place where my
people meet, where laughter and angst live in the same space, and I hope it’s all that and more
for you, too.

I’ve been rearranging the school somewhat, and part of that is a plan to continue doing multi-session classes, rather than a mixed bag of single session ones. Most of these will be on Saturday morning/afternoons, but I will try to mix things up a bit here and there so people in different time zones don’t have to get up at 3 AM.

Right now, I’m teaching my Extended Novel Workshop, aimed at people who have a novel in mind and want to work on preplanning and creating a schedule in which to execute it. We’re on week four of that right now, and today’s session will focus on worldbuilding. I’m really enjoying this workshop, and it’s such a great group of talented people. I can’t wait to read some of these books. So I definitely want to keep giving this each year.

I also want to do my Writing F&SF Stories workshop, and I’ll offer that in the Jan/Feb 2025 timeframe. That will feature six sessions on writing short stories, including writing and critiquing stories.

I’ve switched to a two months on, two months off model, which gives me more time to focus on writing and also helps me replenish my internal extroversion fuel. So I’ll offer one other extended workshop in the May/June period but I’m still figuring out what I want to do with that. Possibilities include:

• an advanced Writing F&SF Stories workshop
• a survey class on 20th century F&SF stories that would be reading & discussing multiple stories from a specific era each session
• a multi-session workshop on increasing emotional depth and complexity in your work
• a multi-session workshop focusing on literary techniques

I’d also like to do something on teaching writing sometime, but I don’t know if that would be one session or several.

Please tell me what you think. Are these appealing? Is there something you’d like to see me teach? As always, Patreon subscribers will get first chance to sign up for and a discount on these classes.

Have you ever had a ridiculously lofty desire buried so deep in your psyche that you’ve never mentioned it to anyone?  That’s what the Wayward Wormhole is for me.

Immersing myself into a world of writers where everyone is as obsessed, driven, and crazy about language and story for weeks at a time is my ultimate happy place. That passionate kiss of at a three-day conference only stoked my desire for more. I applied to some of the greats: Clarion and Odyssey and vowed to apply to Viable Paradise and Launch Pad as schedule and finances permit, but I’ve yet to receive an acceptance from any of them. Is that a reflection of my writing? Maybe…but they’re all incredibly popular and competitive. The sheer talent from the other applicants is intimidating. I’m not a natural. I’m a writer who makes all the usual mistakes and has to fight my way up the rejection ladder. On the flip side, I love learning about writing, and I’m damn stubborn, so I’ll keep going as long as I’m having fun.

Tired of waiting for an acceptance and finding that I aged with every passing year, I started giving myself an education from the many instructors that graced the workshops I wanted to attend. That’s where Cat Rambo came in. Their Academy for Wayward Writers was the perfect training ground for my struggling career as a writer. They brought in Tobias Buckell, Michael Underwood, Sarah Pinsker, Ann Leckie, Kate Heartfield, and Jamie Lackey, not to mention all the classes put together by Cat themselves. And it was great.

But it still wasn’t the deep end I dreamed about. Then, one day all the time spent on Cat’s Patreon and Discord brought the opportunity of a lifetime—a month of November—an intensive workshop in Spain. Was anyone interested? I was. Did she have a location? No. So I looked for one. I found a castle (A CASTLE!).  The next step was financial viability—was a venture like this something that could at least pay for itself? Spreadsheet time. The numbers said it could. We wouldn’t get rich, but we could offer a new, high-level intensive writing workshop offering access to exceptional instructors, and bring together fellow writers who were as eager to help each other succeed as you are to helping them. That’s what it’s all about!

Cat received a good deal of flack over the location’s lack of accessibility, and that was my fault. To anyone who wanted to attend and couldn’t, I can only apologize and say we are committed to doing better with each upcoming workshop.

Spending last November with Cat Rambo, Ann Leckie, Sarah Pinsker, and Tobias Buckell, along with eleven excellent writers in their twenties, thirties, fifties, and up, from four different countries, gave my confidence a much-needed boost, and with that, my writing leaped forward. We’re kept the Ride or Die Writing Group together in 2024, and students are getting published!

Cat Rambo has an amazing array of friends in the SFF community. They’ve all experienced her kindness, generosity, and balanced sense of right and wrong.

We’re heading to New Mexico this November with Arley Sorg, Minister Faust, Donald Maass, C.C. Finlay, plus a slate of students eager to repeat the magic from last year.

I can’t believe this is my life. Maybe we’ll see you there one day!

Thursday, 10 AM
Twenty Types of Terror: Exploring Horror Subgenres in Fiction and Games
Marriott Ballroom 1 – Cost $16, duration 2 hours

Horror comes in a variety of flavors, each with its own special advantages and disadvantages. Content warning: horror writing may range into all sorts of sensitive areas, including graphic violence and death. In this workshop, award-winning author and teacher Cat Rambo will run through the various forms, talking about how to write them, and performing exercises to generate storylines in several subgenres.

Thursday, 2 PM
Get in the Fight: Activism in Genre Writing
Marriott Ballroom 2 – free, duration 1 hour

Join our panel of writers as they discuss the need for every one of us to do what we can in the fight for equality – and what that could look like within the pages of your stories. Featuring: Cat Rambo, Bryan Young, Danian Darrell Jerry, Khaldoun Khelil, Victor Raymond PhD.

Thursday, 4 PM
Book Signing and Meet & Greet with Cat Rambo and Jeremy Bernstein
Exhibit Hall – free, duration 1 hour

Swing by the back of the Exhibit Hall to meet the panelists of the Writers’ Symposium and get your books signed. Or, buy a book or game – and get it signed on the spot. Or, just stop by and say hello! Most panelists will have merchandise for sale, but you’re welcome to bring what you already own to get signed. You may stop by without a ticket and we’ll try and accommodate you, time permitting.

Thursday, 6 PM
Meet the Writers
Wabash Ballroom 1 – free, duration 2 hours

Join writers of the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium to say hello, get your existing books signed, or purchase new ones here). Tickets are nice but not required during this 3hr open-house event! Many authors will have books for sale, and the GCWS USB drive will also be for sale. Featuring: Akis Linardos, Anthony W. Eichenlaub, Ava Kelly, Ben Riggs, Bradley P. Beaulieu, Brady McReynolds, Brandon Crilly, Brandon O’Brien, Bryan Young, C. S. E. Cooney, Carlos Hernandez, Cat Rambo, Kwame Mbalia, Danian Darrell Jerry, Daniel ‘Doc’ Myers, Dedren Snead, E.D.E. Bell, Erin M. Evans, Gabrielle Harbowy, Gregory A. Wilson, Howard Andrew Jones, James Farner, Jason Sanford, Jennifer Brozek, Jeremy Bernstein, Jerry Gordon, Jordan Jones-Brewster, Jordan Kurella, Khaldoun Khelil, Linda D. Addison, Marie Bilodeau, Michael R. Underwood, Monica Valentinelli, Richard Dansky, Sharang Biswas, Sheree Renée Thomas, Victor Raymond PhD, and Will Sobel.

Friday, 10 AM
Ageism in SFF: Broadening the Ages of Protagonists
Marriott Ballroom 3 – free, duration 1 hour

Join our panel of writers as they discuss ageism in genre fiction, and the need for and techniques of writing diverse protagonists of a certain age. Featuring: Ava Kelly, Cat Rambo, Chris A. Jackson, Danian Darrell Jerry, and Jeri “Red” Shepherd.

Friday, 12 PM
Embrace Your Weirdness (and Find Where it Intersects with Markets)
Marriott Ballroom 2 – free, duration 1 hour

Join our panel of writers and multi-media creators as they discuss how to effectively market authentic weirdness – and love yourself more for it!
Featuring: Cat Rambo, Akis Linardos, Briana Lawrence, Jerry Gordon, and Shauna Aura Knight.

Friday, 2 PM
New Books! New Games! New Love!
Marriott Ballroom 3 – free, duration 1 hour

Join our panel of authors as writer and host S.E. Lindberg asks each about the inspirations and challenges behind their new books, games, and works. This fun experience back from last year by request! Featuring: S.E. Lindberg, Cat Rambo, Erin M. Evans, and Kwame Mbalia.

Friday, 5 PM
Story Fundamentals: How to Write Short Stories – Cost $34; duration 4 hours

A compressed version of a six-week workshop, this single-session class gives you all the tools you need to start writing and sending out your own stories. You will do some writing exercises in class, but most of the time will be spent on lecture and discussion. You should emerge from the class with a greater command of storywriting as well as a hearty store of encouragement and motivation for creating new stories. In this workshop, award-winning author and teacher Cat Rambo will cover story structure, character-building, worldbuilding, plotting, and submitting the stories you’ve written.

Saturday, 10 AM
How to Unban Books
Marriott Ballroom 4 – free, duration 1 hour

Practical advice on how to challenge book challenges, run for school and library boards, and otherwise defend books. Featuring: Mikki Kendall, Cat Rambo, Dedren Snead, Kwame Mbalia, and Richard Lee Byers.

Saturday, 1 PM
Book Signing and Meet & Greet
Exhibit Hall – free, duration 1 hour

Swing by the back of the Exhibit Hall to meet the panelists of the Writers’ Symposium and get your books signed. Or, buy a book or game – and get it signed on the spot. Or, just stop by and say hello! Most panelists will have merchandise for sale, but you’re welcome to bring what you already own to get signed. You may stop by without a ticket and we’ll try and accommodate you, time permitting.

Sunday, 9 AM
Systems of Magic: How to Use Your Magic to Enrich Your Worldbuilding
Marriott Ballroom 2 – cost $16, duration 2 hours

How magic works in your world affects its inhabitants, its economy, and so much more, down to the smallest details. We’ll cover how to use a magic system to create a world that can cast a spell over its readers. In this workshop, award-winning author and teacher Cat Rambo will provide tips, techniques, and writing exercises will enable you to create or flesh out a world’s intrinsic magic.

Sunday, 10:30 AM
Farewell Breakfast for Patreon supporters and Wayward Writers Academy supporters
Location TBD – free, duration 1 1/2 hours

Time to say goodbye! Let’s do it over a late breakfast in a location that will be announced on Patreon and the Discord server, or ping Cat in e-mail to get the details.

When I first buckled down to seriously try writing after graduating from college, I dreamed of crafting epic fantasy similar to books by George R.R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie. Their works were breaths of fresh air. Unlike the novels of Tolkien or Robert Jordan, these authors eschewed the black-and-white worldview of good versus evil for shades of gray. I wanted to write just like them.

Of course, I eventually discovered that there’s a reason Martin and Abercrombie are best-selling authors, and Martin takes many years between books. What they do is really, really hard.

Switching to Young Adult

Discovering that writing epic fantasy is a monumental task was the first step in finding my authorial voice. My critique group told me that my writing was more suited to a young adult audience. At first, I was dismissive of this observation, but I came around when I started reading more young adult fantasy and science fiction. I soon appreciated these books possess an intoxicating sense of adventure and discovery.

A common science fiction trope is that aliens would think differently from humans. Larry Niven’s carnivorous Kzinti are curious only about things that interest them, C. J. Cherryh’s T’ca are multi-brained aliens that speak in matrices readable in any direction, and Steven Spielberg’s aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind communicate with music and gesture.

But, even just on the Earth, every human being thinks differently! This tremendous variation is called neurodiversity, and each individual’s distinctive cognitive style is their neurodivergence. Many kinds of neurodivergence are common, including autism, anxiety, synesthesia, and more – sometimes presenting challenges to individuals if society demands a different thinking style.

But could these different thinking styles actually help us understand aliens? Many autistic folks experience hyperfocus on special interests: could they better empathize with Kzinti? Could someone with dissociative personality disorder better understand the multiple-brained T’ca? And could a person with difficulty verbalizing better harmonize with Spielberg’s aliens?

My co-editor Liza Olmsted and I decided to explore whether neurodiversity would help us understand aliens in The Neurodiversiverse: Alien Encounters, a hopeful, empowering science fiction anthology from Thinking Ink Press exploring neurodivergent folks encountering aliens. Over forty contributors shared with us stories, poems and art exploring this theme.

For example, in “The Space Between Stitches” by Minerva Cerridwen, an autistic person’s hyperfocus helps her effortlessly repair an alien’s broken teleporter. In “Where Monolithic Minds Can’t Travel,” Akis Linardos explores whether aliens with multiple minds would resonate with dissociative disorder, unlocking travel to the stars. And in “Music, Not Words” by Ada Hoffmann, aliens that speak in music find harmony with a young woman who has trouble with words.

Many stories in The Neurodiversiverse are told from an authentic #ownvoices perspective, in which authors write stories about characters who share their own distinctive experiences. For example, I struggle with social anxiety disorder, and in my own “Shadows of Titanium Rain,” give those experiences to the character Djina as she struggles to understand solitary aliens.

Liza and I feel #ownvoices are particularly important because they improve the representation of marginalized voices in stories, which is part of the mission of Thinking Ink Press. Sometimes, it can be hard to imagine achieving something if you’ve never seen someone like yourself doing it – and it can be hard to solve a problem if you have no words to describe it.

We’re bringing The Neurodiversiverse to life no matter what, but because we’re a small press, we’re running a Kickstarter to help defray the costs of producing and promoting the book. In particular, we want to pay our authors the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Association (SFWA) “professional rate” of 8 cents a word, and the Kickstarter will help us do that.

Creating The Neurodiversiverse has been a voyage of discovery for us. Recently Thinking Ink Press embraced its identity as a publisher focused on marginalized voices – something we had always done, but not precisely noticed that we were doing; but once we noticed that it was our focus, we decided to lean in on that and do it well.

Exploring the topic of neurodiversity inspired me to propose “The Neurodiversiverse Anthology,” which I shared with our team to ensure we handled it sensitively. Liza was enthusiastic, joining as my coeditor and helping craft the anthology’s explicit focus on hopeful, empowering and #ownvoices stories. And work on the book awakened my understanding of my own struggles with neurodivergence, particularly social anxiety disorder and autism.

The Neurodiversiverse has opened doors for us as not just editors but as people with our own struggles with neurodivergence, and we hope it has a similar impact on everyone who reads it. So please back our Kickstarter (accessible during the campaign via neurodiversiverse.com) where you can not only help us pay our authors, you can get a copy of the book and find out the answer to the question, “Would neurodiversity help in an encounter with aliens?”

You can find the Kickstarter here.

---

About the author: By day, Anthony Francis teaches robots to learn; by night, he writes science fiction and draws comic books. His “Dakota Frost, Skindancer” urban fantasy series begins in the award-winning FROST MOON and continues in BLOOD ROCK and LIQUID FIRE. His latest novel is JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE. He co-edited the anthology DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME and is the co-editor of the forthcoming anthology THE NEURODIVERSIVERSE: ALIEN ENCOUNTERS; for more information check out neurodiversiverse.com . You can read more about Anthony’s words, art and science on his blog “The Library of Dresan” at dresan.com.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines. Or if you’re looking for community with fellow fantasy, science fiction, and horror writers, sign up for the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers Critclub!