Graduate Interviews | Odyssey Writing Workshops

Interview: Graduate Larry Hodges (Part 2 of 2)

Larry Hodges is a science fiction and fantasy writer, as well as a table tennis coach. (Yes, that’s a strange combination.) Larry is a graduate of the 2006 Odyssey Writing Workshop, the 2007 Orson Scott Card Literary Boot Camp, and the 2008 Taos Toolbox Writers Workshop. He’s an active member of SFWA with over 100 short story sales, including ones to Analog, Amazing Stories, and Escape Pod, and 18 to Galaxy’s Edge. He’s also published several novels (When Parallel Lines Meet, co-written with Mike Resnick and Lezli Robyn; Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions; Sorcerers in Space; and The Spirit of Pong) and short story collections (Pings and Pongs, More Pings and Pongs, and Still More Pings and Pongs). In the world of non-fiction, Larry’s a full-time writer with 17 books and over 1,900 published articles in over 170 different publications. You can visit him online at www.larryhodges.com.

Part 1 of this interview, posted last Sunday, is available here.

One of your most recent publications is “Ninety-Nine Sextillion Souls in a Ball,” in the November/December 2021 issue of Dark Matter Magazine. What led you to write this story?

I like to take ideas to their logical extremes. I took the passage from the Bible, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,” and wondered what would happen if the world were taken over by religious fanatics who took this to its logical conclusion. Assume they have advanced technology that can convert matter into food and other necessities, and other needed technologies. Let’s assume every woman from age 13 on is forced to have a baby every nine months, and nobody dies. Then population would eventually start doubling every six years. (It’s a little more complicated than that—fortunately, I have a degree in math, and I had a math professor check my work.) The numbers go up exponentially—believe it or not, it would take only about 250 years to convert the entire Earth’s mass into humans, and they would number about 99 sextillion! So that was the story I wrote. (99 Sextillion is 99,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.)

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By Odyssey Editor, 4 years ago May 10, 2026

Interview: Graduate Larry Hodges (Part 1 of 2)

Larry Hodges is a science fiction and fantasy writer, as well as a table tennis coach. (Yes, that’s a strange combination.) Larry is a graduate of the 2006 Odyssey Writing Workshop, the 2007 Orson Scott Card Literary Boot Camp, and the 2008 Taos Toolbox Writers Workshop. He’s an active member of SFWA with over 100 short story sales, including ones to Analog, Amazing Stories, and Escape Pod, and 18 to Galaxy’s Edge. He’s also published several novels (When Parallel Lines Meet, co-written with Mike Resnick and Lezli Robyn; Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions; Sorcerers in Space; and The Spirit of Pong) and short story collections (Pings and Pongs, More Pings and Pongs, and Still More Pings and Pongs). In the world of non-fiction, Larry’s a full-time writer with 17 books and over 1,900 published articles in over 170 different publications. You can visit him online at www.larryhodges.com.

You’re a 2006 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. What made you decide to attend? What insights did you gain into your own work?

I did some research and asked around, and Odyssey seemed the most recommended workshop. (Having Robert J. Sawyer as a “Writer in Residence” that year greatly helped!) Probably the biggest insight I learned about my own work was that I’m an “idea” and “humor/satire” writer who needs to focus on character and other aspects equally. I also went in knowing that I had little feel for description, and so have spent years working to overcome that. One thing that helped: Robert and Odyssey Director Jeanne Cavelos suggested writing a story that was all about description, and so I wrote and sold “In the Belly of the Beast,” where the whole story takes place in the belly of a dragon that has swallowed a bunch of people, including a wizard who creates a field to protect them in the dragon’s stomach—and much of the story revolved around vivid descriptions of the “venue.” It also became a character story about the wizard.

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By Odyssey Editor, 4 years ago May 10, 2026

Interview: Graduate Arley Sorg

Arley Sorg is co-editor-in-chief at Fantasy Magazine, senior editor at Locus Magazine, associate editor at both Lightspeed and Nightmare Magazines, and a columnist for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He takes on multiple roles, including slush reader, movie and book reviewer, and interviewer, at multiple venues, including Clarkesworld Magazine and his own site: arleysorg.com. Arley grew up in England, Hawaii, and Colorado and studied Asian Religions at Pitzer College. He lives in Oakland and, in non-pandemic times, usually writes in local coffee shops. He is a 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate.

You attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2014. Can you talk about your pre-Odyssey writing process? What kind of writing schedule, if any, did you keep?

I was a “push yourself” kind of writer. I had a couple of regular writing groups, both for co-working sessions and for critique.

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By Odyssey Editor, 5 years ago May 10, 2026

Interview: Graduate Linden A. Lewis

Linden A. Lewis (she/they) is a queer writer and world wanderer currently living in Madrid with a couple of American cats who have little kitty passports. Tall and tattooed, Linden exists only because society has stopped burning witches.

Linden attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2016, and their short fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. They are represented by Alexandra Machinist at ICM Partners in New York City. Their first novel, The First Sister, was released in August 2020.

While there is a 95% chance Linden is a cryptid, they can often be spotted in the wild cosplaying or acting (yes, they appeared in an episode of The Walking Dead). Nowadays, they are most frequently found lurking on both Instagram and Twitter @lindenalewis.

You’re a 2016 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. What made you decide to attend?

In 2015, I wrote and began querying a book, but I knew, even before I started getting rejections, that someone was wrong with it. Something was missing. After a year of hearing the same thing from agents, I decided to apply to the Odyssey Writing Workshop, hoping I’d be able to discover what I lacked. Turned out I was right!

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By Odyssey Editor, 5 years ago May 10, 2026

Interview: Graduate & Guest Lecturer Scott H. Andrews

WFC2012-ScottA — Photo credit: Al Bogdan

Odyssey graduate Scott H. Andrews will be a guest lecturer at this summer’s Odyssey Writing Workshop. Scott lives in Virginia with his wife, two cats, twelve guitars, a dozen overflowing bookcases, and hundreds of beer bottles from all over the world. He writes, teaches college chemistry, and is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of the eight-time Hugo Award finalist and World Fantasy Award-winning online fantasy magazine Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Scott’s literary short fiction has won a $1000 prize from the Briar Cliff Review, and his genre short fiction has appeared in Space & Time, Crossed Genres, and Ann VanderMeer’s Weird Tales. Scott has taught writing at the Odyssey Workshop, Writefest, and online for Odyssey Online Classes, Clarion West, and Cat Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers. He has lectured on short fiction, secondary-world fantasy, editing, magazine publishing, audio podcasting, and beer on dozens of convention panels at multiple Worldcons, World Fantasy conventions, and regional conventions in the Northeast and Midwest. He is a seven-time finalist and 2019 winner of the World Fantasy Award, and he celebrates International Stout Day at least once a year.

In 2020, the Odyssey Writing Workshop took place not on the campus of St. Anselm in New Hampshire, but in the homes of writers all around the globe via Zoom. Many science fiction and fantasy conventions have moved to meeting online as well. How can writers tackle this unique method of learning and networking in order to make the most of it?

For residential writing workshops like Odyssey, meeting virtually is definitely a different learning environment than living in a dorm for six weeks. I think it’s important to approach it with the same total professionalism that you would if you were living on-site and immersed in that environment 24-7. Which requires intense dedication! When I lectured to the 2020 Odyssey class, I was extremely impressed how thoroughly involved they were, despite being located each at home rather than together on a campus. They had even developed a very active social community in addition to their writing community, which to me showed their enthusiasm to wring every ounce out of that virtual workshop experience.

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By Odyssey Editor, 5 years ago May 10, 2026

Interview: Graduate & Guest Lecturer Gregory Ashe

Odyssey graduate and bestselling author Gregory Ashe will be a guest lecturer at this summer’s Odyssey Writing Workshop. Gregory is a longtime Midwesterner. He has lived in Chicago, Bloomington (IN), and Saint Louis, his current home. He primarily writes contemporary mysteries, with forays into romance, fantasy, and horror. Predominantly, his stories feature LGBTQ protagonists. When not reading and writing, he is an educator.

For more information, visit his website: www.gregoryashe.com.

As a guest lecturer at this summer’s Odyssey Workshop, you’ll be lecturing, workshopping, and meeting individually with students. What do you think is the most important advice you can give to developing writers?

The most important thing writers can do is keep trying. That’s not just general encouragement, although I do believe that persistence and hard work will probably pay greater dividends than waiting for genius, talent, or inspiration. I also mean keep trying new things: new genres, new points of view, new narrative structures, new character types, new lengths. As with so many crafts, failures in writing often teach more than successes, and trying new things will force you to stretch and grow—and it may help you see your own strengths and weaknesses.

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By Odyssey Editor, 5 years ago May 10, 2026

Interview: Graduate Adria Laycraft

Freelance editor, fiction author, and wood artisan Adria Laycraft earned honours in Journalism in 1992 and has always worked with words and visual art. She co-edited the Urban Green Man anthology in 2013, which was nominated for an Aurora Award, and launched her debut novel Jumpship Hope in 2019. Look for her short stories in various magazines and anthologies, both online and in print. Adria is a grateful member of Calgary’s Imaginative Fiction Writers Association (IFWA) and a proud survivor of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Learn more at adrialaycraft.com, or follow her YouTube channels Carving the Cottonwood and Girl Gone Ground.

You attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2006. What made you decide to attend?

A big-name author told me I was ready, that it would do me good if I was up for the commitment. I had only ever heard of Clarion at that point. I wanted to prove to myself that I had what it took. I actually did my own personal Odyssey the winter before, following the syllabus I found online, just to test myself and my discipline. (more…)

By Odyssey Editor, 6 years ago May 11, 2026

Interview: Graduate Alec Hutson

Alec Hutson is a 2003 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. He lives in Shanghai and is the author of the epic fantasy trilogy The Raveling. The first novel in the trilogy, The Crimson Queen, was named one of Booknest’s Top 100 Fantasy Books of Our Century.

You attended Odyssey in 2003. Can you talk about your pre-Odyssey writing process? What kind of writing schedule, if any, did you keep?

I had none! I had just graduated college, and although I’d dreamed of being a writer, I hadn’t written more than a few short stories. (more…)

By Odyssey Editor, 6 years ago May 11, 2026

Interview: Graduate Corry L. Lee

Corry L. Lee is a 2009 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. She is a science fiction and fantasy author, Ph.D. physicist, award-winning science teacher, data geek, and mom. Her debut novel, Weave the Lightning (Solaris, April 2020), “infuses magical resistance with a Russian flair” (Lightspeed Magazine). In Ph.D. research at Harvard, Corry shed light on the universe fractions of a second after the Big Bang. At a major tech company, she connected science to technology, improving the customer experience through online experimentation. A transplant to Seattle, Washington from sunny Colorado, she is learning to embrace rainy days. Learn more at corrylee.com or on Twitter @CorryLLee.

Weave the Lightning is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indie-Bound, and Powell’s. You can read an excerpt here.

You attended Odyssey in 2009. Can you talk about your pre-Odyssey writing process? What kind of writing schedule, if any, did you keep?

Before Odyssey, I snuck writing into the cracks of my life. I was working on my Ph.D., and so tended to write in odd hours and weekends…whenever I could escape problem sets and research. It wasn’t so much a schedule as the thing I did to decompress. (more…)

By Odyssey Editor, 6 years ago May 11, 2026

Interview: Graduate & Guest Lecturer E.C. Ambrose

Author and Odyssey graduate E.C. Ambrose will be a guest lecturer at this summer’s Odyssey Writing Workshop. She writes knowledge-inspired adventure fiction including The Dark Apostle series about medieval surgery, The Singer’s Legacy fantasy series (as Elaine Isaak), and the Bone Guard international thrillers (as E. Chris Ambrose). Her latest releases are Bone Guard Two: The Nazi Skull, and The King of Next Week (Guardbridge). In the process of researching her books, Elaine learned how to hunt with a falcon, clear a building of possible assailants, and pull traction on a broken limb. Her short stories have appeared in Fireside, Warrior Women, and Fantasy for the Throne, among many others, and she has edited several volumes of New Hampshire Pulp Fiction. A graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop, Elaine has returned there to teach, as well as at conventions and writer’s groups across the country. She has judged writing competitions from New Hampshire Literary Idol to the World Fantasy Award.

Elaine dropped out of art school to found her own business. A former professional costumer and soft sculpture creator, Elaine now works as a part-time adventure guide. In addition to writing, Elaine creates wearable art employing weaving, dyeing, and felting into her unique garments. To learn about all of her writing, check out RocinanteBooks.com.

The most important thing about your first works are to FINISH THEM. We tend to obsess about where to start, how to start, how to handle this or that thing, or (heaven forbid!) which publisher or agent to send this book to when it turns out to be brilliant, because of course it will be. Or we fret that it just won’t ever be good enough and polish the same three chapters over and over every time we feel we have leveled up as a writer. But here’s the deal. You can’t level up until/unless you finish things. The only way to really learn how to write a story arc is to complete one. Then another. Then another, then get feedback on them and write another one. Then study some of your favorite stories with your newly jaundiced writer’s eyes, then write another. Finish things. The first ones won’t be great things, most likely, but they will teach you how to middle and how to end. Learning how to middle and how to end will help you understand where and how to begin. Focus less on polishing and revising and more on delivering words of story on the page. Bonus: when you finish a thing, it feels really good! (more…)

By Odyssey Editor, 6 years ago May 11, 2026