Podcasts

Odyssey Podcast #135 Brandon Sanderson was a guest lecturer at the 2020 Odyssey Writing Workshop. In this excerpt from his lecture, Brandon talks about story progress, promise, and payoff. Brandon was born in 1975 in Lincoln, Nebraska. By junior high he had lost interest in the novels suggested to him, and Read more

Odyssey Podcast #134 JG Faherty was a guest lecturer at the 2020 Odyssey Writing Workshop. In this excerpt from his question-and-answer session, JG answers questions about his biggest career break and his biggest dislike about the writing life. A life-long resident of New York’s haunted Hudson Valley, JG is the author Read more

Odyssey Podcast #133 JG Faherty was a guest lecturer at the 2020 Odyssey Writing Workshop. In this excerpt from his question-and-answer session, JG answers questions about writing advice and beta readers. A life-long resident of New York’s haunted Hudson Valley, JG is the author of seven novels, ten novellas, and more Read more

Odyssey Podcast #132 In Winter 2018, award-winning novelist Barbara Ashford taught the Odyssey Online course One Brick at a Time: Crafting Compelling Scenes, and she’ll be teaching the class again this winter. In this excerpt from the first class, Barbara talks about techniques writers can use to evaluate the effectiveness Read more

Odyssey Podcast #129 Holly Black was a guest lecturer at the 2019 Odyssey Writing Workshop. In this excerpt from her question-and-answer session, Holly answers questions about writing young adult and middle grade fiction. One student points out that some people think fantastic creatures must be a certain way. How do Read more

Odyssey Podcast #128 Nisi Shawl, the Jeff Pert Memorial Lecturer at Odyssey 2019, lectured on dialect and representation. In this excerpt, the second of two parts, Nisi explains techniques to reveal that a character speaks in dialect without using phoneticization. Word omission and word order (syntax) can show non-standard speech Read more

Odyssey Podcast #127 Nisi Shawl was the Jeff Pert Memorial Guest Lecturer at Odyssey 2019 and spoke about dialect and representation. In this excerpt, the first of two parts, Nisi discusses dialogue, what dialogue can reveal, and the special concerns and challenges that arise when using dialect. Nisi explains that Read more

Every month or two, the Odyssey Writing Workshop releases new podcasts created from excerpts from lectures given by guest writers, editors, and agents at the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Each one is ten to fifteen minutes long. Our two newest podcasts feature authors and guest lecturers Alexander Jablokov (Brain Thief), from Read more

Laura Anne Gilman was the writer-in-residence at Odyssey 2010. During her week at Odyssey, Laura Anne lectured on a variety of topics, participated in critique sessions, and worked individually with writers. In this podcast, Laura Anne discusses how to approach revisions. Before one can revise, one first needs to get Read more