Whether you are creating a new universe, a land of fantasy, an important historical moment, or a suburban utopia, crafting and communicating setting to your reader is a vital element of fiction. In this lecture, we will discuss how to build worlds that transport readers. We will look at practical ways to make our settings play an active role in our novels rather than just serve as wallpaper.
FRANCES DE PONTES PEEBLES is the author of the novels The Seamstress and The Air You Breathe. From Pernambuco, Brazil, she is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is a 2020 Creative Writing Fellow in Literature from The National Endowment for the Arts, and has received a Fulbright grant and Brazil’s Sacatar Fellowship. Her short fiction has appeared in O. Henry Prize Stories, Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, Electric Literature, and Guernica. She is proud to serve on the Board of the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.
