Science Fiction Writers from Around the World Converge on Campus

Sixteen aspiring writers converged on Saint Anselm College this summer, bringing with them their stories of zombies and vampires, the far future and living on the moon. These students flew in from as far as Australia and Singapore, leaving behind their families and quitting their jobs, to spend six weeks honing their writing skills with Jeanne Cavelos, editor, author, former astrophysicist and part-time English professor.

As leader of the annual Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop, which she runs for six weeks every June and July on the Saint Anselm campus, Cavelos has helped developing writers sharpen their skills and manuscripts every summer for the last 14 years. Her program is offered to writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror whose writing is close to publication quality.

This year's students ranged in ages from 19 to 56 and included a real-estate investor, a college writing instructor, a trainer of psychotherapists, a bookseller, a physics graduate student from Harvard, a Ph.D. in archaeology, and a communications executive among others.

"We get such a fascinating group of people every year…. And they are people of all ages, people of all backgrounds, from all different places" said Cavelos. "It's wonderful because you get such a richness of connections."

Cavelos also finds that many people have what she calls "an artistic awakening" due to the group's diversity. People start reading one another's work and their eyes are opened to a whole new genre.

Student Lisa Poh attended the workshop to focus on her fantasy writing, but found that her opinion about horror had changed.

"Horror is not just about scary, but it can be suspenseful, about a human condition and what horrible things people can or will do to each other" she said. "I think that horror helps to write better fiction because much of life is not pleasant, there are things that are dark."

Poh, of Singapore, has wanted to write since she was a young child, but it wasn't until she reached a crossroads in her life that she decided to see where writing would take her; it took her half way across the world. A former communications executive, Poh, quit her job to attend Odyssey and pursue her passion for writing.

She has thrown herself into the rigorous residential program, where on top of time spent in class, one-to-one sessions with Cavelos and workshops, students can spend as much as eight hours a night on "homework." That involves readings, journal entries, and critiques of fellow classmates work, as well as producing new works of fiction.

"I would love if it were relaxing and peaceful, but to make a major change in someone's writing in just six weeks, we have to really work incredibly hard" says Cavelos.

The work pays off: since 1996, more than half of the program's graduates have gone on to be published. This figure includes New York Times best selling author, Carrie Vaughn who graduated from Odyssey in 1998 and returned this summer as writer-in-residence. Vaughn is the author of the popular "Kitty" novels; Kitty and the Midnight Hour was her first novel and the sixth of the series was published in March 2009.

Guest lecturers this year included Jeffrey A. Carver, Melissa Scott, Patricia Bray, Jack Ketchum, and editor in chief of ACE and ROC science fiction imprints, Ginjer Buchanan.

Cavelos herself is a best-selling author and has won the World Fantasy Award for her work. She was first an astrophysicist and later became an editor at Bantum Double Day Dell publishing company, a position she left to focus on her own writing.

Karen McKenzie, who traveled from Melbourne, Australia to attend Odyssey, is a project manager for a blindness agency named Vision Australia. Although she is legally blind and required special services and technology to participate, McKenzie was committed to attending the workshop, which she said was harder than she expected. She is currently writing an urban fantasy novel, which she calls a coming of age story.

"Writing is hard," she said. "You can't learn all at once but in a 6 week intensive program you practice and truly absorb it so you actually use it."

"And love the name: Odyssey. It truly is a journey."

Shorter version originally published in the NH Sunday News, August 2, 2009.

For more information on the Odyssey Fantasy Workshop