From the most fantastical of fantasies to the grittiest of streetwise thrillers, from the horror of Stephen King to the romantic dreams of Danielle Steel, all fiction has one thing in common. It has to exist in a world which is believable, coherent, and self-sustaining.

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What would you say is harder? Writing fiction set in “our” world, with its scaffolding familiar to you and to your readers and already set up for you to build on? Or creating an entire world out of thin air and imagination, and making it live in your reader's mind and heart? They're both tough, and they have different challenges. But whether or not your world succeeds is one of the cornerstones of whether your story stands or falls.

Join award-winning fiction and fantasy writer Alma Alexander, author of the international sensation “The Secrets of Jin-Shei,” a finalist in the Washington State Book Awards and now published in several languages. Learn how to create a world that's as real as the one you work and play in every day; how to build a place that other people will long to visit, be happy to immerse themselves into, or love to hate (and yes, those are important too).

You will do a lot of writing, a lot of thinking, and you'll be pointed to a lot of books where you can visit other people's worlds and learn from what they did. World-building is one the most exhilarating things about writing, and in this workshop you will be pointed to techniques that work just as well if you're trying to write a contemporary thriller or a work of high fantasy.

Alma has experience with many world realities, being born in what was once Yugoslavia, growing up in three African countries, being educated in the United Kingdom, living and working in New Zealand, and now settled in Bellingham, Wash.

As Alma Alexander or Alma Hromic, she has published numerous books, including a memoir, “Houses in Africa”; “The Dolphin's Daughter and Other Stories,” a best-selling book of three fables; “Letters from the Fire,” a contemporary novel told in email format, coauthored by her husband Deck Deckert (Harper Collins New Zealand); and “Changer of Days” (Harper Collins, New Zealand). She has also had numerous pieces of short fiction and nonfiction published in several countries.

Alma has been a guest speaker, workshop leader and panelist at writers' conferences including Whidbey Island Writers' Conference and the Surrey International Writers' Conference in Canada, as well as dozens of science fiction and fantasy conventions. Her work has been nominated for several writing awards.

Fee: $295 includes accommodations, five meal.
Optional two-day retreat: Stay Monday and Tuesday after the workshop to work on your own project; $175 includes six meals; two-person limit.

An Interview with Alma Alexander
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