Workshop: What If? Building Queer Worlds in Speculative Fiction

Speculative fiction is where queer writers ask radical questions. What if gender worked differently? What if desire was dangerous — or liberating? What if the rules of the world itself reflected your deepest questions about identity and freedom?

In this workshop, you’ll start with a question that matters to you — about identity, desire, or freedom — and build an entire speculative world around it. You’ll design how that world affects queer people, create a character navigating it, and write scenes that bring it to life.

Drawing on examples like Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, we’ll explore how queer speculative fiction isn’t just about representation — it’s about imagination, worldbuilding, and asking “what if?” in ways that reshape everything.

Come ready to write. Leave with a story that’s entirely your own. Students are encouraged, but not required, to share their work.