Fall Virtual Workshop
October 10-13, 2024
| Workshop the first 6,500 words of your Novel |
| 7:1 Student-Faculty Ratio |
| Polish Your Query Package (Query & Synopsis) |
| Work with Top Agents & Authors in Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror |
| Our Faculty have won Hugo, Nebula, Newbery & World Fantasy Awards |
| Apply Early - Seating is Capped and Competitive |
2024 Keynote Speaker
Fonda Lee
Fonda Lee is the author of the epic fantasy Green Bone Saga, consisting of the novels Jade City, Jade War, and Jade Legacy, along with a prequel novella The Jade Setter of Janloon and a short story collection, Jade Shards. She is also the author of the science fiction novels Zeroboxer, Exo and Cross Fire. Her most recent work is the fantasy novella, Untethered Sky.
Fonda is a winner of the World Fantasy Award, the Locus Award, and a five-time winner of the Aurora Award (Canada’s national science fiction and fantasy award), as well as a multiple finalist for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Oregon Book Award. Her novels have garnered multiple starred reviews and appeared on Best of Year lists from NPR, Barnes & Noble, Syfy Wire, and others. Jade City has been translated in a dozen languages, named to TIME Magazine’s Top 100 Fantasy Books of All Time, and optioned for television development.
The 2024 Fall Faculty
Futurescapes faculty have won or been nominated for numerous literary honors, including the Hugo, Nebula, Compton-Crook, World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, Newbery, Locus, Norton, and the National Book Award.
Eva Scalzo | Agent, Speilburg Literary
Eva Scalzo was born in New Jersey, but has lived in Houston, Buenos Aires, San Juan, and Boston before settling down outside of Binghamton, New York. She has a B.A. in the Humanities from the University of Puerto Rico and a M.A. in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College. Since graduating, she has spent her career in scholarly publishing, working for Houghton Mifflin, Blackwell Publishing, John Wiley & Sons, and Cornell University in a variety of roles. She has been with Speilburg Literary since 2013, and started accepting clients in 2017. Eva is a member of SCBWI and the AALA, where she serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the AALA newsletter on the Communications Committee.
Kesia Lupo | Author & Agent, The Bindery
Kesia grew up in the UK and Germany, studied History at Oxford University and Creative Writing at Bath Spa, then launched her publishing career at Pan Macmillan, London, as an editorial assistant in 2013. She transitioned from adult books to children’s when she joined boutique publisher Chicken House—then from a senior editorial role to agenting when she joined The Bindery in 2023. While her expertise lies in middle-grade and YA fiction, Kesia reads widely across genres, including adult SFF and horror, historical fiction, romance, and non-fiction.
Kesia is a new U.S. resident and currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband. As well as working in publishing, she's the author of three YA novels—We Are Blood and Thunder, We Are Bound by Stars (a fantasy duology), and Let’s Play Murder, a horror/thriller, all published by Bloomsbury in the UK. You will normally find her writing if she’s not reading!
Maeve MacLysaght | Agent, Copps Literary Services
Maeve cut her teeth in publishing at houses like Scholastic and Insight Editions representing foreign and subsidiary rights before transitioning to agenting to work more closely with authors. She agented at Ladderbird Literary before joining Copps Literary Services as agent and rights manager in 2022.
She reads widely across genre and age range and particularly interested in genre-blending fiction.
Lindsay Davis Auld | Agent, Writers House
Writers House is one of the largest literary agencies in the world and is known for providing an extraordinary amount of individual client attention combined with the benefits of full service foreign rights and subsidiary rights departments.
Lindsay started at Writers House in the West Coast office and has worked with a wide range of New York Times bestsellers, award-winners, and debut authors and illustrators. After studying literature at Bowdoin College, she joined Teach for America before beginning her publishing career at Harcourt Children’s Books and then Writers House.
She’s particularly drawn to fantasy, mysteries, historical fiction, friendship stories, romance, magical realism, adventure, and books with humor--light or dark or both. She would also love to see manuscripts from diverse and underrepresented authors and artists. She has always been passionate about books, and, as an agent, she’s eager to help bring fresh voices, characters and stories to readers.
Britt Seiss | Agent, Britt Seiss Creative Management
Britt Siess Creative Management represents primarily graphic novels and illustrated works, including picture books. Britt Siess, President and founder of BSCM, has a passion for comics and sequential art, as well as a keen editorial eye that she brings to every project. She works closely with all of her clients from project development to publication.
BSCM uses Lyons & Salky Law, LLP, an NYC based firm specializing in the publishing and media industries to assist us in the negotiation of book contracts on behalf of our clients. We are pleased to be able to provide this service for our agency’s clients to be sure they are best set up for success.
Natania Barron | Author, Manly Wade Wellman Award Winner
The award-winning fantasy author of Queen of None, Natania Barron is preoccupied with mythology, monsters, mayhem, and magic. From medieval tales to Regency fantasy romance, her often historically-inspired novels are lush with description and vibrant characters. Of her first novel, Pilgrim of the Sky, Library Journal wrote: “Barron’s debut is an sf adventure that mixes high action with exquisitely detailed depictions of everyday existence in these alternate worlds.”
T.S. Ferguson | Agent, Azantian Literary
Before joining Azantian Literary Agency, T.S. Ferguson worked for 16 years as an editor for some of the top children's and teen book publishers in the business, including Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Harlequin Teen/Inkyard Press, and JIMMY Patterson Books. He has worked with New York Times bestselling and award-winning authors such as Sherman Alexie, Sara Zarr, Suzanne Selfors, Pseudonymous Bosch, Robin Talley, Hillary Monahan (writing as Eva Darrows), and Adi Alsaid.
T.S. is looking for young adult and middle grade fiction across all genres that combines high-concept, hooky stories with writing and voice that feel standout. An addicting, page-turning quality is always a plus! He has a special place in his heart for dark and edgy stories (including but not limited to horror), fairy tales, mythology, action-adventure, LGBTQ stories, graphic novels, and stories by and about under-represented voices. He is not the best fit for sports-centric stories, high sci-fi, or non-fiction.
Jenissa Graham | Agent, Bookends Literary
For Jenissa, her passion for books started in third grade when she read Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and fell in love with the world building and underdog story. Her interest in storytelling bloomed the same year in an essay she wrote for school about a magical crayon that came to life to help solve a mystery. This was the first of many ideas in her head that she decided to write in spiral notebooks and jot down on sticky notes.
Jenissa’s publishing career started at Writers House when she was selected for the Fall 2020 internship class. In January 2021, she was hired full time in the subrights department as the Global Licensing and Media Rights Assistant. She moved to BookEnds in April 2022, where she is thrilled to begin building a list as an Associate Agent and Subrights Manager. Jenissa is interested in increasing the BIPOC space in Publishing and is always on the lookout for new underrepresented authors.
Eric Smith| Author & Agent, P.S. Literary
As an agent with P.S. Literary, he’s worked on New York Times bestselling and award-winning books. His recent novels include the YALSA Best Books for Young Readers selection Don’t Read the Comments (Inkyard Press, 2020), You Can Go Your Own Way (Inkyard Press, 2021), and the anthologies Battle of the Bands (Candlewick, 2021) and First-Year Orientation (Candlewick, 2023), both co-edited with award-winning author Lauren Gibaldi.
His other books include the IndieBound bestseller The Geek’s Guide to Dating (Quirk), the Inked duology (Bloomsbury), Jagged Little Pill: The Novel (Abrams), With or Without You, and The Girl and the Grove (Flux). His writing has sold into nine languages.
Brenna English-Loeb | Agent, Transatlantic
Brenna English-Loeb joined Transatlantic in 2019 after working for several years at Janklow & Nesbit Associates and Writers House, where she had the pleasure of working with New York Times bestselling and award-winning authors across multiple genres. Brenna grew up in beautiful Upstate New York and studied English and Theatre at Bucknell University.
Brenna is also the owner of BEL Tower Editorial, where she works with authors as a developmental editor on such big-picture issues as world-building, plot and character development, pacing and theme, among other areas of concern, such as query and synopsis critiques.
Scholarships and tuition payment plans are available
*If accepted, you must register before the close of the next application period to avoid the price increase!
Applications Open!
Futurescapes is extremely competitive. You must apply for admission. Admissions decisions are made on a rolling basis. It is recommended that you apply early as the workshop’s limited spots will fill quickly.
Frequently Asked Questions
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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.
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Acceptance rates vary by workshop, but generally Futurescapes is as competitive as admissions to many top tier graduate programs. The Fall workshop has a lower student cap and is likely to be more competitive than most.
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We prefer you make your tuition payment within two weeks. We also participate in the PayPal Pay-in-Four (or Pay-in-Three) program that allows you to pay in installments over a longer period of time.
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We’re looking for a few things:
Mastery of the fundamental mechanics of writing.
Compelling plot, characters, dialogue, and world.
Evidence of at least one standout attribute (e.g., sharp dialogue, great humor, impressive world building, etc.)
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You will need to submit your up to 6,500 word excerpt and query letter by September 1, 202.4
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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 feedback on your first page.
Included with your tuition are master classes taught by our incredible faculty.
You will have an (up to) 4 hour block each day of the workshop. You’ll be able to choose either a morning or evening block (based on U.S. Eastern Standard Time).