Workshops for Writers - August 3: Fanfiction and Transformative Works
Join the St. Louis Writers Guild from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. CDST on Saturday, August 3, 2024, for a free workshop with author Kathleen Kayembe on Fanfiction and Transformative Works.
Our presenter, Kathleen Kayembe, will join us in-person for this FREE workshop. We will gather at The Lodge Des Peres, 1050 Des Peres Rd., St. Louis, MO, 63131 for the presentation, or you may attend the meeting online. To do so, follow the event link from the St. Louis Writers Guild website.
People have always loved dreaming up their own stories about characters and settings created by other storytellers. These ubiquitous Transformative Works include Shakespeare's history plays (fiction about real monarchs), Virgil's Aeneid (a fan's sequel to The Illiad), Milton's Paradise Lost (retelling with a twist: the villain's point of view), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (retelling with a twist: what if zombies existed?), and innumerable fairy tale retellings from all over the world. When written by fans for fellow fans of a given work and shared for no commercial gain, we call it "fanfiction." When commissioned by companies wanting new stories about their intellectual property (IP), we call them things like "the newest Doctor Who episode," "The Avengers," and "that Netflix historical drama about the British royals." This workshop will explore ways Fanfiction and Transformative Works can springboard and strengthen our writing while adding a sense of play.
Kathleen Kayembe is the Octavia E. Butler Scholar from Clarion’s class of 2016, with stories in Lightspeed, Nightmare, and several Best of the Year anthologies; an essay in the Hugo-nominated anthology Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler; and previous publications with Less Than Three Press under her queer romance pen name, Kaseka Nvita. She runs Amherst Writers and Artists writing groups via Zoom, inhales stories on Audible and AO3, and lives in St. Louis with a kitchen witch and a four-legged guardian queen.