People | Futurescapes brings together leading authors, agents, and editors from across science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and related genres. Between them, our faculty have hundreds of years of experience in the business and dozens of literary nominations and awards (the National Book Award, Hugo, Newbery, Nebula, Campbell, World Fantasy, Stoker, Edgar, Sturgeon, and Locus Awards, among others).  

Editors and agents of the Futurescapes faculty have represented such authors as Neil Gaiman, N.K. Jemisin, Patrick Rothfuss, Ted Chiang, and William Gibson. 

The attendees of Futurescapes are exceptional. Workshop attendees have come from as far away as Venice, Italy and Brisbane, Australia. Attendees are selected based on the outstanding merit of their writing. Part of the value of Futurescapes is the connections you build with an extraordinary league of next-generation literary giants. 

Format | Futurescapes lets you workshop your manuscript in small groups with faculty mentors. You will spend hours of time going over your work with our amazing faculty. And you will meet one-on-one with your faculty mentor. In addition to your primary critique group that will review your excerpt submission, you will also work with one of our faculty to hone your overall story structure to perfection, and with another on your query letter (the gateway to getting published). We will also have a chance to connect informally during an open-ended Q&A session, master classes, and informal pre-workshop events. 

Location | Futurescapes holds one workshop each year in an exoctic location, but most of our workshops are held online. Futurescapes is dedicated to providing world-class mentoriy while prioritizing affordability and accessibility in order to foster gifted writers from across the globe. Note that, because these workshops are virtual, we’ll schedule our meeting times in coordination with you as a participant to best meet all schedules. Sessions run up to 4 hours per day. If we have enough time zones represented, we may run in two shifts to accommodate all participants (so no one has to attend at 3 A.M.).

We wish we could provide scholarships to every workshop participant, but unfortunately it is not cheap to put on a workshop of this caliber. We do provide discounts to the Futurescapes Alumni Family. The price this year is as low as we can get it thanks to the virtual workshop setting. If you have hesitated in the past because of the price of registration and travel, this is your year. We do offer scholarships. You can apply for a scholarship with your application. Note: scholarships take the form of a reimbursement of tuition.

We make a promise both to you and our faculty that we will not accept your hard-earned tuition money unless your writing is at least approaching professional level. Our faculty love Futurescapes because they know that the writing will be of an exceptionally high caliber. They don’t do Futurescapes just for the fun of it, they want make connections, too, and find potential clients. 

You will move with your cohort and work with three different faculty leads; 1) one will review and provide feedback on your manuscript excerpt; 2) one will provide feedback on your query letter; and 3) one will provide an intensive focus on your synopsis and overall story structure.

Futurescapes is extremely competitive. The best way to position yourself for acceptance is to apply early. Futurescapes fills quickly. Early application means a higher spot on the waiting list.  

You may submit any original written work for your application (including something previously published). You do not need to use an excerpt from the work you intend to workshop in your application. 

Also, you may apply to multiple workshops simultaneously, increasing your odds of acceptance.

Futurescapes is not just for writers of: 

• Short-Fiction 

• Novels 

• Horror 

• Mystery 

• SF 

• Young Adult/Middle Grade Fiction  

• Adult Fiction 

Our faculty bring considerable strength to all of these categories. When placing you with mentor faculty, we will be mindful of your genre/market/etc. Futurescapes alumni receive preferential treatment when assigning attendees to faculty, but everyone gets to meet with at least one of their top faculty preferences. 

Deadline for submitting manuscript excerpts, query letters, and synopses varies by workshop, but generally at least five weeks prior to the first day of the workshop.