NEW EPISODE: Episode 167: Spice Up Your Worldbuilding. ft. @niadavenport.bsky.social!
Let's get spicy! We talk all sorts of, ahem, arrangements, with our incredible special guest. Bring a glass of water, maybe... ;)
Listen now: https://bit.ly/WFMPOD167
#Worldbuilding
06.11.2025 02:15 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
NEW EPISODE: Episode 167: Spice Up Your Worldbuilding. ft. @niadavenport.bsky.social!
Let's get spicy! We talk all sorts of, ahem, arrangements, with our incredible special guest. Bring a glass of water, maybe... ;)
Listen now: https://bit.ly/WFMPOD167
#Worldbuilding
06.11.2025 02:15 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
A black greyhound with white paws on a green dog bed.
In THE PHOTONIC EFFECT, Captain Demora Kim of the starship Horizon has a greyhound named Indy, rescued from an underground track on a Mars colony.
This is Indy in real life, our first racer rescue.
Request THE PHOTONIC EFFECT on Netgalley now! www.netgalley.com/catalog/book...
30.10.2025 20:54 — 👍 13 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
I LIKE BIG BIRDS AND I CANNOT LIE
30.10.2025 20:52 — 👍 98 🔁 15 💬 4 📌 1
Can I put a free audiobook in your trick-r-treat bag?
30.10.2025 21:53 — 👍 9 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
Apprehension / Red Star Hustle Author Event
Join us October 29, 2025 at 7pm for a Conversation Apprehension by Mary Robinettte Kowal and Red Star Hustle by Sam J. Miller. ApprehensionA family vacation arranged by Bonnyjean, a grieving mother, ...
I want to be clear that I'm not promising you'll get to meet Elsie, but... we are doing a trial to see how she does at a book event tonight in D.C.
Oh, also @sentencebender.bsky.social and I will be there with our new book APPREHENSION/RED STAR HUSTLE
littledistrictbooks.com/products/app...
29.10.2025 13:52 — 👍 57 🔁 4 💬 2 📌 0
A promo WFM graphic featuring Episode 166: the Histo-Remix, with Alix E Harrow
We use history a lot in our worldbuilding, whether as a direct re-interpretation or as inspiration for a secondary world. So… why? And what choices do we need to examine as we do so? @alixeharrow.bsky.social joins us to discuss weaving history into fiction.
Link: bit.ly/WFMPOD166
24.10.2025 02:03 — 👍 16 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
Since this etymology gets discussed with improbable frequency on @worldbuildcast.bsky.social 😂
26.10.2025 03:33 — 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
A promo WFM graphic featuring Episode 166: the Histo-Remix, with Alix E Harrow
We use history a lot in our worldbuilding, whether as a direct re-interpretation or as inspiration for a secondary world. So… why? And what choices do we need to examine as we do so? @alixeharrow.bsky.social joins us to discuss weaving history into fiction.
Link: bit.ly/WFMPOD166
24.10.2025 02:03 — 👍 16 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
What are you writing this evening? Any intriguing worldbuilding tidbits to share?
24.10.2025 01:55 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1
As a bonus, in our Discord you may encounter friends from fabulous podcasts such as @hugospodcast.com, @octothorpecast.bsky.social, and @worldbuildcast.bsky.social, all in furtherance of my ultimate goal to create the megafancast, Hugoctothorpe Building There for Girl Masochists!
28.09.2025 17:23 — 👍 9 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
A graphic promoting episode 163, featuring a curled up dragon on a purple background
If you're a fan of mythical beasties, we've got the episode for you. Biology, ecology, and some plain good fun.
#worldbuilding
bit.ly/WFMPOD1163
14.09.2025 16:00 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
We talk to @devafagan.bsky.social about worldbuilding religions, including when you, the creator, has given your world a specific afterlife, or what does "faith" mean when Gods are actually walking around, and what exactly IS the Bajoran religion on DS9, anyway?
28.08.2025 17:14 — 👍 5 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
a promo graphic for WFM featuring Deva Fagan and the cover of her book House of Dust over a sunset temple background
Fantasy religions often feel like reskins either of ancient Greek or Norse pantheons or of the medieval Catholic church. But what more interesting choices can we make when building faith within an invented world?
@devafagan.bsky.social joins us to explore some of the options!
bit.ly/WFMPOD162
28.08.2025 16:58 — 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1
YouTube video by ReligionForBreakfast
Why Fictional Religions Feel So Fake
This is a neat video by @andrewmarkhenry.bsky.social, relevant to the considerations we've been playing with as part of #MythAugust, and very much the sort of thing we mean when we talk about a world feeling "lived-in" on @worldbuildcast.bsky.social.
youtu.be/pjrrUZeJMSo
22.08.2025 21:55 — 👍 27 🔁 8 💬 3 📌 0
A social media graphic promoting episode 161, which features a large dragon beside the episode title and images of the hosts, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Cass Morris, and Natania Barron.
Okay, so when you're #worldbuilding, how do you set the scene? How do you get your readers to anchor themselves without infodumping and overwhelming them?
In our most recent episode, 161, we discuss just that!
link: bit.ly/WFMPOD161
21.08.2025 15:44 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
A social media graphic promoting episode 161, which features a large dragon beside the episode title and images of the hosts, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Cass Morris, and Natania Barron.
Okay, so when you're #worldbuilding, how do you set the scene? How do you get your readers to anchor themselves without infodumping and overwhelming them?
In our most recent episode, 161, we discuss just that!
link: bit.ly/WFMPOD161
21.08.2025 15:44 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
It was surreal and awesome to see @cassmorriswrites.com and @fondalee.bsky.social geeking out together on the "Worldbuilding Through Structures of Society" panel at #WorldCon @seattlein2025.org. After so long being a fan listening to @worldbuildcast.bsky.social it was magic to see this live!
16.08.2025 18:48 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
I'm only about 20% of the way through it so far, but WITCH ROADS by @kateelliottsff.bsky.social is an absolute banger. Extremely confident writing, rich worldbuilding with a great deal of texture as well as layered mysteries.
Especially recommended for @worldbuildcast.bsky.social sickos.
20.08.2025 14:02 — 👍 8 🔁 2 💬 2 📌 0
Friends at @seattlein2025.org #WorldCon!
Join us tomorrow (Saturday) at 3pm for an informal meet-up at Andare Italian Kitchen & Bar (the bar portion) in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Seattle. The podcast hosts will be there to chat before we go make ourselves beautiful for the Hugo Award Ceremony!
16.08.2025 00:14 — 👍 6 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 1
A - Listeners of @worldbuildcast.bsky.social know that Roman fast food restaurants are one of my favorite historical fun facts.
B - Whole lot of blockable people in the comments & QTs! Gotta love the "I'm not a historian but I'm pretty sure this is wrong" brigade. 🙄
26.07.2025 14:24 — 👍 32 🔁 4 💬 3 📌 0
Episode 156: From a Certain Point of View, ft. KATE ELLIOTT | Worldbuilding for Masochists
It's one of the first choices you'll make when writing a story, consciously or not: what point of view are you writing from? First person singular? Third person limited? Omniscient? Something else? The POV can affect a reader's experience of the narrative and the worldbuilding, either subtly or dramatically -- so how do you decide what's right for this story? Kate Elliott joins us to explore the possibilities! In this episode, we look at how the point of view can shape both what you communciate about a world and how you communicate it. The POV shows the rhythms of life and can be a good way to feed worldbuilding to the reader -- but it can also expose a character's gaps in knowledge or their biases and prejudices! After all, a commoner and a noble living in same location will interact with different pieces of the world and in very different ways. That, in turn, can affect how the author thinks of the world: what we spotlight, where we might have gaps, and prompting a need to check our own biases. And on top of all of that, POV is also something with its own trends within genres and over time! So we dig into those influences as well. Transcript for Episode 156 Our Guest: Kate Elliott has been publishing science fiction and fantasy for over thirty years with a particular focus in immersive world building and epic stories of adventure & transformative cultural change. She’s written epic fantasy, space opera, science fiction, Young Adult fantasy, and the Afro-Celtic post-Roman alternate-history fantasy with lawyer dinosaurs, Cold Magic, as well as two novellas set in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Norton, and Locus Awards. Her novel Black Wolves won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Epic Fantasy 2015. She lives in Hawaii, where she paddles outrigger canoes and spoils her schnauzer.
I was about to recommend @worldbuildcast.bsky.social but remembered that you've actually been ON this podcast quite recently! 😂
Sharing that link in this thread for anyone else who might enjoy your excellent thoughts on POV in worldbuilding.
worldbuildingformasochists.podbean.com/e/episode-15...
27.07.2025 05:02 — 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Anyway listen to @worldbuildcast.bsky.social, we talk about craft a lot and we know the difference between worldbuilding and whatever tf this Discourse thinks it's about
29.07.2025 16:27 — 👍 8 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Lindsey is sitting with her arms folded on a table with a grey tablecloth, a microphone and packet of typed notes in front of her. She's wearing a blue face mask with a blue sweater and has medium-length wavy brown-silver hair. In the foreground you can see a portable air purifier and a paperback titled Traveling Light: Tales of the Magical Gates, with twelve authors listed on the cover, herself included. She looks very happy.
Hi! I'm a nerdy queer writer w/ work in the anthology Traveling Light from Hugo-finalist podcast @worldbuildcast.bsky.social. A 2x Paralympian, I set a world record in 2004 & won a bronze medal in 2008. So far I'm the only US woman to win an Olympic or Paralympic archery medal in singles since 1996.
30.07.2025 22:06 — 👍 13 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
Direct link, of course, at bit.ly/WFMPOD160, for those so inclined.
02.08.2025 21:37 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A promo graphic for Worldbuiding for Masochists featuring special guest Sarah Beth Durst -- it features a lantern under a starry sky
What makes a story -- and a world -- "cozy"? What are the conflicts, challenges, and obstacles like when, instead of taking the Ring to Mordor, you heroes are trying to keep a coffee shop afloat or open a pet shop? @sarahbethdurst.bsky.social joins us! #worldbuilding
02.08.2025 21:36 — 👍 8 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
It's a promo graphic featuring John Wiswell and the cover of his two books, Wearing the Lion and Someone You Can Build a Nest In. This is episode 159 of Worldbuilding for Masochists, with hosts Marshall Ryan Maresca, Cass Morris, and Natania Barron.
Join us as we talk heroes with the always delightful @wiswell.bsky.social!
Is heroism about physical strength? Strength of faith? Strength of heart? Or is it about cunning and cleverness? Let's discuss!
Direct link: bit.ly/WFMPOD159
18.07.2025 17:37 — 👍 18 🔁 7 💬 2 📌 3
Award winning science fiction author. Cat furniture. Horse patsy. Almost certainly two ornimegalonyxes in a trenchcoat.
https://buttondown.email/matociquala
THE FOLDED SKY https://books2read.com/u/mBB0QZ
ANGEL MAKER https://books2read.com/u/3kzy2W
Epic romantic fantasy HOUSE OF DUSK out now! Lover of dogs, fairytales, and geometry. She/her.
Newsletter: https://devafagan.com/newsletter/
Free Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/devafagan
Everything else: https://linktr.ee/devafagan
NYT-bestselling fantasy author in charlottesville va
Author of SLAYERS OF OLD, KITEMASTER, TERMINAL ALLIANCE, LIBRIOMANCER, GOBLIN QUEST, and other fun stuff. Knows where his towel is. He/him.
Writer & Paralympic medalist. FD/MAS. She/her.
♿🏳️🌈
https://www.lindseycarmichael.com
📷 PFP credit to Ace Jones Taylor.
🧵 Cover credit to HGEmbroideryArt.
Fan Writer.
@nerdsofafeather.bsky.social Editor
Work at Journey Planet, @skiffyandfanty.com @reactorsff.bsky.social
@file770.bsky.social & more!
Part of @edmontonin2030.bsky.social bid.
Podcaster. #photography #ttrpg I'm just this guy, you know? He/him.
sff novels & weird seagull noises 👽 🌈
rep: maria napolitano // kt literary
books: sargassa, bloodtide (daw)
https://linktr.ee/sophieburnham
Antifascist middle-aged mall goth. Lives: Seattle. From: FL/TX/KY/TN (in that order). Book rep: Stacia Decker at DCL; film rep: Tara Timinsky, Grandview LA. Contact - Cherie.priest@gmail.com
Award-winning author of prose & comics, maker of food and small objects she/her/hers http://nalohopkinson.com
SFF author, speaker, lawyer, programmer; Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy; rep by Russ Galen; The Dandelion Dynasty & “The Paper Menagerie"
Author, artist, old-school nerd who likes to write books with dragons in them. x2 Astounding nominated author of the A CHORUS OF DRAGONS series and THE SKY ON FIRE from Tor books. Rep'd by Chris Lotts.
NYT/Sunday Times/Indie bestselling author of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and The Daevabad Trilogy
The (reluctantly) official BlueSky account of award-winning author (Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion), editor, teacher (@writingtheother.com), and freelance adventuress K. Tempest Bradford (she/her).
SF/F Writer - The Books of the Raksura, The Murderbot Diaries, Witch King, and more. Nebula and Hugo Award winner. NYT and Sunday Times Bestseller. (She/her) Agent: Jennifer Jackson
queer SFF author, essayist, poet. he/they 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
https://fozmeadows.wordpress.com
Writer, scientist, bug. she/her. #yeg. 🇨🇦 🇬🇾 Winner of a Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, Ignyte, and Aurora award! Rep: Michael Curry 📚🪲 Tips for cat treats! https://ko-fi.com/premee
author of ROAD TO RUIN (@SagaSFF 5/14/24) & FLIGHT OF THE FALLEN (6/10/25) | words in Uncanny, Anomaly, Fantasy, etc | creator of http://thepublishingcalculator.com | linktr.ee/khanalee | 28 | she/they | repped by Paul Lucas
#1 Sunday Times Bestselling Writer 🖊, FORGED BY BLOOD ('23), EXILED BY IRON ('24) HarperVoyager US & UK
Games, interactive theatre, writing, art. ENnies, IndieCade, IGDN winner. Teaching at NYU & Fordham
Words: Eurogamer, Lightspeed, Augur, Strange Horizons, Baffling. SFWA member
My book THE IRON BELOW REMEMBERS is now out (from Neon Hemlock Press)!
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Drowning Empire trilogy and The Gods Below, cat herder, silly hat enthusiast, coach at The Novelry
https://linktr.ee/andreagstewart
