With just a few days left until the Storycrafting Sessions: Worldbuilding Deep Dive event on February 20th, it’s time to announce our final round of panelists!
The Panels
Today’s announcement includes the panelists for the last two panels:
We Don’t Take Imperial Credits: Developing Economics, Currency and Trade in Speculative Fiction
Conlang Development: Enriching Your Worldbuilding with New Words and Phrases
The Panelists
Steve Savage
Moderator of We Don’t Take Imperial Credits: Developing Economics, Currency, and Trade in Speculative Fiction
Steve Savage writes extensively on how people can leverage their creativity in a variety of ways. He’s most well known for the Way With World series of Worldbuidling books, an ever-growing collection of guides to coach people on creating fictional settings. The series is currently at seventeen books and counting.
He is also writes the Avenoth series, about the adventures and misadventures of people in a solar system of sorcery, super-science, internet-using gods, and interplanetary demons. The first book, A Bridge To The Quiet Planet was released in 2018, with the sequel, A School Of Many Futures arriving this year.
Find him at Steve’s website or his press site. He also maintains the random tools site Seventh Sanctum.
Jasmine Gower
Panelist on We Don’t Take Imperial Credits: Developing Economics, Currency, and Trade in Speculative Fiction
Jasmine Gower, author of Moonshine and other queer fantasy works, hails from Portland, Oregon. Jasmine received a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Arts in Book Publishing from Portland State University.
Inspired to write by a childhood filled with fantasy novels, 90s video games, and the curious experience of growing up in the rural Willamette Valley, Jasmine has a passion for exploring themes of gender, sexuality, and disability through the conventions of speculative fiction, mythology, and fantasy world-building.
Jasmine is represented by Laura Zats at Headwater Literary Management.
Find Jasmine at Jasminegower.com or on Twitter @Jas_Gower.
Dustin R Cummings
Panelist on We Don’t Take Imperial Credits: Developing Economics, Currency, and Trade in Speculative Fiction
Dustin Cummings is an author who lives in New York, NY. Originally from Mid-Michigan, he is an avid fan of science fiction and fantasy. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, classical music, and long walks. He is an assistant professor of surgery in the New York Metropolitan area.
Find Dustin at DustinRCummings.com.
Stephen Graham King
Panelist on We Don’t Take Imperial Credits: Developing Economics, Currency, and Trade in Speculative Fiction
Stephen Graham King (He/They) is a writer of space opera novels, re-imagining the classic genre and its high tech adventurers through an unabashedly queer lens. His stories have appeared in the anthologies North of Infinity II, Desolate Places and Ruins Metropolis. His books include Chasing Cold, and the novels in his Maverick Heart series: Soul’s Blood, Gatecrasher, A Congress of Ships, and the forthcoming Ghost Light Burn, due later this year. He is also a long term survivor of metastatic synovial sarcoma and an avid black and white street photographer. He can be found online, along with all his social media coordinates, at stephengrahamking.com.
Dianna Gunn
Panelist on We Don’t Take Imperial Credits: Developing Economics, Currency, and Trade in Speculative Fiction and Conlang Development: Enriching Your Worldbuilding with New Words and Phrases
Dianna Gunn is a freelance SEO writer, digital marketing consultant, indie author, podcast producer, and about 18 other things. She is dedicated to helping other indie authors navigate the complex world of business and marketing. To accomplish this, she published her first workbook, Branding for Fiction Authors, in 2019.
In 2021, Gunn launched the Author Marketing Club, a 100% free educational initiative for authors overwhelmed by marketing. She is also the founder of the Weeknight Writers group and main event organizer.
You can buy Dianna Gunn’s workbooks for authors and her first novel, Moonshadow’s Guardian on her Ko-fi store. Moonshadow’s Guardian is also available everywhere ebooks are sold.
Jade Benjamin
Moderator of Conlang Development: Enriching Your Worldbuilding with New Words and Phrases
Jade Benjamin is a Canadian writer and editor who is fiercely in love with language, words, and magical worlds. After acquiring a double undergraduate degree in English (and Environmental Sciences), a Postgraduate Certificate in Book Publishing, and interning as an Editorial Assistant at Fitzhenry and Whiteside Ltd. (Markham, Ontario) she discovered that finding a permanent paid position in Canadian traditional publishing was easier said than done.
Jade now works as a freelance editor, fitting work for independent author clients around her 9-5 expenses-paying job. She has a penchant for collecting interesting names and a fondness for projects that expand her knowledge of story structure and use of evocative language.
When she isn’t working, writing, or editing, Jade can be found reading, keeping up with an inordinate number of podcasts, adopting furry family members and contributing to Weeknight Writers events.
Laitie Montai
Panelist on Conlang Development: Enriching Your Worldbuilding with New Words and Phrases
Born and raised in Rochester, NY, Laitie Montai has had a pretty average life. But a look inside her imagination would make you think otherwise. She can usually be found daydreaming or writing or her daydreams down in a word document or journal. Today, she still lives in Rochester with her Mr. Beloved, two cats, and fifteen fish.
Find Laitie on Twitter at @laitie315.
KJ Harrowick
Panelist on Conlang Development: Enriching Your Worldbuilding with New Words and Phrases
K. J. Harrowick is a fantasy and science fiction author with a strong passion for twisted stories blending grimdark worlds and futurist technology with threads of romance and revenge.
K.J. is the co-creator of Writer In Motion, Rewrite It Club, the creator of Winterviews and the 2020 Director for CampRevPit, sharing her love of community with those around her. She’s also won first prize in the #WonderPitch contest (2017), contributed to Dan Koboldt’s Science in Sci-Fi series with the article “Erroneous Code in Fiction” (November 2018), was a panelist in the Write Hive online convention (April 2020), and was a RevPit winner (May 2020).
Her debut novel BLOODFLOWER is slotted for fall 2021 where she hopes to capture readers hearts by casting a grimdark lens on what might happen when a woman who craves peace is thrust into a world of revenge and sacrifice.
Find KJ Harrowick on her website or on Twitter @KJHarrowick.
Dan Fitzgerald
Panelist on Conlang Development: Enriching Your Worldbuilding with New Words and Phrases
Dan Fitzgerald is a fantasy author living in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, DC with his wife, twin boys, and two cats. When he is not writing, he might be gardening, taking photographs of nature, doing yoga, cooking, or listening to French music. The Maer Cycle is his debut trilogy, with Hollow Road and The Archive on several book bloggers’ best-of lists for 2020, and The Place Below coming March 4 2021. His upcoming duology, The Weirdwater Confluence, will be published in October 2021 and January 2022. All books published by Shadow Spark Publishing.
Find out more about Dan and his books at www.danfitzwrites.com, or look him up on Twitter or Instagram, under the name danfitzwrites.
Want to see even more awesome panels about worldbuilding? Check out the full schedule here!