Thinking about participating in First Draft Fall? Trying to figure out how you're going to get yourself writing when everything is falling apart around you? This is the panel for you!

Writing With Hope: Staying Motivated When the World Is On Fire will discuss staying motivated to write when society is collapsing around our ears, writing queer works in the face of censorship, and writing our hopes for things like improved accessibility and queer acceptance into our stories.

This event is hosted by the Weeknight Writers Group, a social enterprise dedicated to providing affordable and accessible support for authors. The first hour of this deep-dive will focus on questions from the moderator, while the second half will emphasize live questions from our audience. Members of our Sustaining Membership Program (https://ko-fi.com/weeknightwriters/tiers) will have an opportunity to ask advance questions which will be prioritized during the event.

There will be live captions at the event thanks to our partnership with Renaissance Press, a Canadian publisher dedicated to uplifting diverse voices.

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Meet Our Panelists

Stephen Graham King (He/They) is a disabled survivor of metastatic synovial sarcoma, a story chronicled in the memoir, Just Breathe: My Journey Through Cancer and Back. Since then, he has concentrated on writing speculative fiction, in particular, queer-themed space opera, and his short fiction has appeared in the anthologies North of Infinity II, Desolate Places, Ruins Metropolis, and the forthcoming Nothing Without Us Too. Find Stephen at https://stephengrahamking.com/

Kara Buchanan, a former city planning journalist and musician turned fiction writer, is the creator of “Magica Riot” and the Maidensong Magica universe. After a dozen years writing about urban issues for various publications in her hometown, she moved to the Pacific Northwest and finally got to become her real self. Taking her love of magical girl anime, her life playing in bands, and her personal experiences dealing with gender issues, she created Magica Riot to bring a joyful, action-packed queer story of self-discovery and adventure to the world. Find out more about her and her books at https://magicariot.com.

Jordan Kurella has lived all over the world (including Moscow and Manhattan). In his past lives, he was a photographer, radio DJ, and social worker. His work has been nominated for the Nebula Award and the Sturgeon Award. He is the author of the fantasy novella, I NEVER LIKED YOU ANYWAY, the short story collection, WHEN I WAS LOST, and the climate fiction novella, THE DEATH OF MOUNTAINS. Jordan lives in limbo with his perfect dog and practical cat. Find out more about him and his books at http://jordankurella.com/.

Meet Our Moderators

Dianna Gunn is the founder of Weeknight Writers and a life-long advocate for fiction writers living in poverty, LGBTQIA+, and disabled authors. She's also a fantasy and horror author, having published the Moonshadow Rising Duology and Killer Debt: An Anthology of Murder. Her next horror anthology, Choices: An Anthology of Reproductive Horror, releases on September 30th.

Jade Benjamin is a Canadian writer and editor who is fiercely in love with language, words, and magical worlds. Jade now works as a freelance editor, fitting work for independent author clients around her 9-5 expenses-paying job. She has a penchant for collecting interesting names and a fondness for projects that expand her knowledge of story structure and use of evocative language. You can find out more about her editorial work and how to hire her at Eclipse Wordsmything.