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In this invigorating one-day workshop, the poet Ed Steck will explore the concepts of “worldbuilding,” the process of constructing a fictional world, including the political and social atmosphere, history, environmental landscapes, government, and any other expandable concept relevant to the construction of a believable (or unbelievable) world. Worldbuilding is typically used in the composition of science fiction, fantasy, role-playing games, and other genre works. A writer may create maps, legends, glossaries, new languages, customs, and so forth, to initiate the reader into a fully-functioning worldscape. We will observe the world around us, and our movements through it, to create a bank of sensory data that we can use in creating a poem.
Ed Steck will share The Whole Worldbuilding Reader for participants, which will include an archive of materials (both written and visual), writing prompts to evoke the practice of worldbuilding in poetry, and an essay on the practice as well.
This particular version of the workshop will include a focus on exercises, tactics, and ideas behind enacting worldbuilding ideas while interacting with the real world around you. In particular, Steck will discuss these approaches in terms of the natural world, but remain applicable to the physical, unnatural, and supernatural worlds. Here, “I Take the Glowing Path” by Steck is an example of this process in completion: http://themapisnot.com/issue-ix-ed-steck
Ed Steck is the author of An Interface for a Fractal Landscape (Ugly Duckling Presse), The Garden: Synthetic Environment for Analysis and Simulation (Ugly Duckling Presse), The Rose (with Adam Marnie, Hassla), sleep as information/the fountain is a water feature (COR&P), Far Rainbow (Make Now Books), A Time Stream in Spaces: The Cultic Parody of Time-Induced Capital (West), and The Necro-Luminescence of Pink Mist (Skeleton Man Press). His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, High Desert Test Sites, and more. He is a recipient of two Fund for Poetry Grants, the Artist Opportunity Grant from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, and an Investing in Professional Artists Grant from the Pittsburgh Foundation.
Virtual classes are usually based on video conferencing. At the moment we use Zoom. Instructors may utilize email as well as the specific ‘class page’ to share materials.
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