Your characters and the relationships they have -- romantic, sexual, friendly, familial, professional -- will drive much of what readers connect to in your stories. So what sort of relationship dynamics do you want to build into your world's cultures? Foz Meadows joins us to discuss all the things that make up the space between two or more hearts.
From power structures and politics to financial inheritance and gender roles, there's a lot to consider. What kinds of relationships are possible in your world? Is marriage even a thing? If so, how many people can be in a marriage? Is your world totally queernorm, not at all, or somewhere on the spectrum in-between? And how about sex positivity? Who embraces free love, and who prefers chastity? These considerations can help you build a world that feels emotionally real, even if it challenges a reader's preconceptions of what a "relationship" means.
Transcript for Episode 78 (with thanks to our scribes! Want to join the team? Email us at worldbuildcast at gmail dot com)
Our Guest: Foz Meadows is a genderqueer fantasy author, essayist, reviewer, blogger and poet. She has most recently published An Accident of Stars and A Tyranny of Queens with Angry Robot, and Coral Bones with Rebellion; a full list of her publications can be found here. Foz is a reviewer for Strange Horizons, and has been a contributing writer for The Book Smugglers, Black Gate and The Huffington Post, as well as a repeat contributor to the podcast Geek Girl Riot. Her essays have appeared in various venues online, including The Mary Sue, A Dribble Of Ink and Uncanny Magzine. She is a four-time Hugo Award nominee for Best Fan Writer, which she won in 2019; she also won the 2017 Ditmar Award for Best Fan Writer, for which she has been nominated three times. In 2017, An Accident of Stars was a finalist for the Bisexual Book Awards, and in 2018, ‘Coral Bones’ won the Norma K. Hemming Award in the short fiction category.
An itinerant Australian, Foz currently lives in California with not enough books, her very own philosopher and their voluble spawn. Surprisingly, this is a good thing.
Episode 30: Fantasy Race and Avoiding Fantasy Racism ft. K. TEMPEST BRADFORD, K.S. VILLOSO, and SARAH GUAN!
Episode 29: Cornerstones and Building Blocks
Episode 28: Framing the Concept
Episode 27: Potpourri 2: 2 Pot, 2 Pourri (Welcome to Season 2!)
Episode 26: Take Pride in your Worldbuilding featuring K.A. DOORE!
Episode 25: Rebel Scum and the Evil Empire Featuring ANDREA STEWART!
Episode 24: Dress for the Quest You Want Featuring MELISSA CARUSO!
Episode 23: We Are Gathered Together Featuring TOCHI ONYEBUCHI!
Episode 22: First We Eat (Featuring CASS MORRIS!)
Episode 21: Medicine and the Concept of the Body (Featuring FREYA MARSKE!)
Episode 20: When Two Wizards Love Each Other Very Much... (feat. Cat Sebastian!)
Episode 19: Triskadekaphilia
Episode 18: Monuments and Wonders
Episode 17: A Brief History of... (featuring S.A. Chakraborty)
Episode 16: A Game of Anything But Thrones
Episode 15: Potpourri
Episode 14: Have Yourself A Merry Little Something
Episode 13: And Now A Reading From The Sacred Text... (feat. Tasha Suri)
Episode 12: The Play’s The Thing (feat. Cass Morris!)
Episode 11: Threads of Life
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