Writing Worlds: Conversations About World Building

Our guest on Writing Worlds today is the award winning fantasy author Stephen Aryan.  With two trilogies: the Age of Darkness, and the Age of Dread set in his world of Mordana to his name , alongside his Persian inspired The Nightingale and The Falcon trilogy.  Stephen is not only a prolific author but he has also been prolific in supporting and offering advice to other writers.  You can find out...

On the writing worlds podcast today we are chatting with a speculative fiction author, editor, writing mentor and a dedicated fan of science fiction and fantasy literature.  Last year Ren Hutchings released 2 books in an indecently short period of time, The Legend Liminal and An Unbreakable World, a sequel to their 2022 time travelling space opera, Under Fortunate Stars.  Ren also writes short fic...

Our guest on writing worlds this week is one of the biggest names in science fiction. Peter F. Hamilton is the author of many bestselling novels and series , including the Greg Mandel series, the Night’s Dawn trilogy, the Commonwealth Saga, the Void trilogy, the Chronicle of the Fallers and the Salvation Sequence, as well as short-story collections and several standalone titles. You can follow Pet...

This week on Writing Worlds we are chatting about belief systems with novelist and podcaster MJ Kuhn M.J. Kuhn is a fantasy writer by night and a mild-mannered marketer by day. She is the internationally bestselling author of Among Thieves and Thick as Thieves and the upcoming Killswitch Protocol, cohost of SFF Addicts podcast and the FanFiAddict Book Club, and she lives in the metro Detroit area...

Welcome to this bonus episode of Writing Worlds, the podcast about the art of world building with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory. For this episode, we're continuing our chat with award-winning novelist Gareth L. Powell about spaceships in world building. Gareth is a double winner of the BSFA award for best novel and shortlisted for awards including the Locus awards and the British Fantasy Awards. ...

Our guest on the Writing Worlds podcast this week is novelist and short fiction writer Jeremy Szal. An author of space opera, fantasy and a genre he calls ‘Space Punk’ , Jeremy is the writer of the three book “Common Saga” , a host of short fiction and From 2014 to 2020, he was the fiction editor and audio producer for the Hugo-winning podcast StarShipSofa where he worked with the likes of George...

Our guest on the Writing Worlds Podcast today is a novelist, short story writer, prize winning audio dramatist, presenter of the Spotlight Indie YouTube channel and a part time robot.   Frasier Armitage is the author of several novels including "Cage of Stars' which will be the inspiration for today's discussion but we may also reference his previous novels including "Time's Elipse" and "New Yeste...

Our guest on the Writing Worlds Podcast today is the bestselling and award winning  novelist, poet and academic C.J. Cooke.  C.J.'s novels including the acclaimed 'The Lighthouse Witches' 'The Nesting'  and 'The Ghost Woods' lean on the gothic tradition.  Carolyn has built a huge and devoted international following and it is often the sense of world and place in her books that immerse readers so d...

Our guest on the Writing Worlds podcast this week is novelist, short story author, game writer and live action role playing game organiser and player, Stewart Hotston. Stewart’s novel 'The Entropy of Loss' was a finalist for both the BSFA and Subjective Chaos awards and it’s one of 7 novels Stewart has published. As well as writing for the page Stewart has also written for 'Age of Ascent', the com...

Our guest on the Writing Worlds podcast this week is novelist and musician Alexandra Beaumont.  Alex’s fantasy is inspired by folklore, mythology,  history and the coastline of Cornwall in the far south west of England.  Her novels Dissonance of Birdsong and Ballad of River Bones (together known as the Myst Cycle) tell the story of a young woman, Eseld on a mission to cure the sacred birds her peo...

Thank you for listening to the Writing Worlds Podcast with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.  Today on Writing Worlds we are honoured to be joined by novelist, short story writer and publisher Gareth L Powell.   Gareth is a double winner of the BSFA award for best novel and shortlisted for awards including the Locus awards and the British Fantasy Awards.  Gareth's work includes the epic "Embers of W...

Thank you for joining us for this review of season one of Writing Worlds with hosts Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory. To hear our bonus content please join us on Patreon here ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/AltStories⁠⁠ You can purchase a copy of Emily Inkpen's book "The Dex Legacy: Season Two Scripts and Commentary" by searching for Emily Inkpen in your local Amazon store. Writing Worlds is created and...

Thank you for listening to the Writing Worlds Podcast with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.  In this episode we feature Arthur C. Clarke Award winning novelist, Chris Beckett. The author of 9 critically acclaimed novels and a number of short stories which have featured in publications such as Interzone and Asimov's Science Fiction, Chris has also written an audio drama adaptation of his novel "Two...

Thank you for listening to the Writing Worlds Podcast with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.  In this episode we feature author illustrator and podcaster Adrian M Gibson. Adrian's novel "Mushroom Blues' explores a world in the wake of a devastating war in which the fungal inhabitants of the island nation of Hoppon and its capital city of Neo Kinoko are in dire straits, wracked by food shortages, pov...

Thank you for listening to the Writing Worlds Podcast with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.  In this episode we feature author Tim Hardie and voice actor and audio book reader RJ Bayley.  Tim and RJ talk about the creation of the audio book version of Tim’s novel Hall of Bones and we discuss the reasons why an author might consider producing an audio book and the economics and practicalities of doi...

Thank you for listening to the Writing Worlds Podcast with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.  In this episode we feature multi-award-winning novelist, poet and academic Arkady Martine. You can find out more about Arkady by visiting her website https://www.arkadymartine.net/ Follow Arkady on Bluesky here https://bsky.app/profile/byzantienne.bsky.social And on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/...

Thank you for listening to the Writing Worlds Podcast with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.  Join our Patreon here https://www.patreon.com/AltStories In this episode we feature multi-award-winning novelist Joanne Harris. We would like to offer our thanks and appreciation to Joanne for taking the time to record this episode with us. You can find out more about Joanne by visiting her website https://...

Thank you for listening to the Writing Worlds Podcast with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.  Join the Alternative Stories Patreon for exclusive, early release and ad-free Writing Worlds content. ⁠https://www.patreon.com/AltStories⁠ In this episode we feature authors Kaitlin Felix and Joshua Gillingham for a conversation about Norse-inspired writing and world-building. You can find out more about Ka...

Thank you for listening to the Writing Worlds Podcast with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.  Join the Alternative Stories Patreon for exclusive, early release and ad-free Writing Worlds content. https://www.patreon.com/AltStories   In this episode we feature the author of the urban fantasy Rivers of London series Ben Aaronovitch You can find out more about Ben and his world by visiting his website...

In this episode Chris and Emily chat with novelist and short fiction author Premee Mohamed about the concept and processes of terraforming. Visit Premee's website here https://premeemohamed.com/ Follow Premee on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/premeesaurus/ And on Bluesky here https://bsky.app/profile/premeemohamed.com Writing Worlds is created and presented by Emily Inkpen and Chris Greg...

Thank you for listening to the Writing Worlds Podcast with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.  In this episode we chat with novelist, short story writer and teacher Zoe Gilbert about her magical realist worlds in her acclaimed novels ‘Folk’ and ‘Mischief Acts’. A full transcript of this episode can be found here  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iyXLmA6ePQ0WKTpX6kqeDHwD5IrsvzCf/edit?usp=sharing&ou...

In this episode we chat with actor, writer, director Nicholas Briggs about his work on Doctor Who both on BBC TV and in audio drama versions published by Big Finish. You can read a transcript of this episode here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_etg3gGotMSEAwfhlscQB85tOhELaoDn/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=115587715767862763681&rtpof=true&sd=true   Find out more about Nicholas Briggs and his work by v...

Thank you for listening to the Writing Worlds Podcast with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.   In this episode Emily and Chris are in conversation with Adrian Tchaikovsky.  Find out more about Adrian and order copies of his books by visiting his website here https://adriantchaikovsky.com/ Follow Adrian on Bluesky here https://bsky.app/profile/aptshadow.bsky.social If you'd like to hear more from Adr...

Thank you for listening to the Writing Worlds Podcast with Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.   In this episode, recorded live at the Cymera Festival in Edinburgh we speak to speculative fiction writer Lyndsey Croal about her approaches to world building in her short fiction, novels and audio drama.   We would like to thank Lyndsey Croal for being our guest on this episode, Ann Landmann and her team...

Welcome to the first episode of The Writing World Podcast with our regular presenters Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory.   Writing Worlds is aimed at writers and those who love to hear about the process of designing and describing imaginary worlds in fiction.  We'll talk to writers, drama makers and those on the periphery of world building who bring these worlds to life.  Each week we'll introduce ne...