In this workshop we began by imagining possible futures together. What might environmental, social, political, and technological conditions look like in 200 years’ time?

 

We drew on our shared knowledge of imagined futures in the work of published speculative fiction writers, as well as our own lived experiences and projections. We undertook fieldwork in the immediate vicinity in Hexham and Allenheads, imagining a place transformed by the passage of time. We looked at the first sentences of some of our favourite SF novels and worked on constructing our own openings that signal to the reader that they are in a different time and what kind of setting. We discussed approaches to narrators and considered how the cast of SF fiction might be similar and different from the characters and voices in other novels. Participants brought an example of a future technology from a published novel and an example of an effective opening (1 sentence to 1 paragraph maximum) from a published speculative fiction novel, novella or short story.

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Tracey Warr’s future fiction is collected in The Water Age and other fictions. Her historical fiction is published by Impress Books. Her writing has won awards from Arts Council Wales, The Authors’ Foundation and Santander. Her non-fiction writing includes The Midden (Garret, 2018) on art and ecology research and Remote Performances in Nature and Architecture (Routledge, 2015). https://traceywarrwriting.com

 

Rob La Frenais is working on a new book about art on the moon for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landings. He was the first curator to experience zero gravity on a parabolic flight from Star City in Moscow. His most recently published book was Self Etc. (Intellect, 2018) on the work of artist Anne Bean. http://roblafrenais.info

 

Full programme for the Hexham Book Festival. https://www.hexhambookfestival.co.uk