Harnessing The Elements: the Potential of Elemental Magic Systems – June 4, 2022 at 5:30 – 6:30PM EST
The archetypal and primal resonance of elemental magic systems make them a staple trope in fantasy magic systems — but how can we uniquely adapt this classic magical expression to simultaneously build up characters and the secondary world?
On this panel, we’ll explore techniques and modifications that can be used to refine the classic elemental magic system and provide more in-depth worldbuilding and story development. Learn how to enrich your reader’s experience by providing a fresh take on a much-loved convention in your own fantasy writing!
This panel is part of Storycrafting Sessions: Fantasy, a 100% FREE virtual conference happening on June 4th!
Sign up for this panel or look at the full event schedule!
The Moderator
Jade Benjamin
Jade Benjamin is a Canadian writer and Developmental Editor who is fiercely in love with language, words, and magical worlds. She is currently working hard to build a freelance writing and editing career around her 9-5 expenses-paying job and loves working on projects that expand her knowledge of story and structure.
Jade‘s preferred ambit is speculative secondary world fiction, and her experience with the genre runs the gamut from portal fantasy to sci-fi, with an emphasis on worldbuilding and magic systems. 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.
Find her online at Eclipse Wordsmything, her online editorial business!
The Guests
Celeste Harte
Celeste Harte is an African-American writer living in Spain. She loves reading and writing sci-fi and fantasy, and is obsessed with all things mermaids and dragons.
When she’s not building worlds and getting lost in her own fantasies, she’s probably dancing to random music or watching (yet another) Korean drama. In addition to her native language, she speaks Spanish and Catalan almost fluently, some French, and would love to learn Korean.
EJ Dawson
Beginning a writing journey with an epic 21 book series, Ejay Dawson started her author career in
2014 and has taken on the ups and downs of self-publishing with her fantasy series The Last
Prophecy since 2016. At the start of 2019, she put the series on the backburner to write Behind the
Veil in 25 days, and signed a publishing contract for the gothic noir novel to independent
publisher Literary Wanderlust.
Behind the Veil released on the October 1 st 2021. She resumed self-publishing a scifi series, Queen of Spades, which was released across 2020 and 2021 (now an award-winning series!) as well as signing another contract with Literary Wanderlust for NA fantasy, Echo of the Evercry. Believing in more than one path to a career in publishing, Ejay pursues self-publishing alongside querying traditional publishers with multiple manuscripts. Find Ejay online at her website or on Twitter!
Kit Caelsto
Kit Caelsto never grew out of the phase of being a “horse crazy girl”. Though she’s now over 40, she’s finally fulfilling her dream of writing equestrian books for others who haven’t grown out of being “horse crazy”. She lives in the Ozarks with her four very spoiled and very opinionated horses, as well as a large flock of poultry and enough cats to qualify her as a crazy cat lady. Her husband, though not an equestrian himself, understands and supports all her equestrian dreams.
She’s convinced three of the best things in the world are the smell of a sun warmed horse, the smell of leather tack, and making sure to hug her horses every single day.
Find the full schedule for all our event panels here! Harnessing The Elements: the Potential of Elemental Magic Systems is a part of the Storycrafting Sessions: Fantasy virtual conference.
This event is hosted by the Weeknight Writers group and sponsored by Renaissance Press.