Spec Fic: Writing the Future with Helen Hagemann

Spec Fic: Writing the Future with Helen Hagemann @ the Fremantle Arts Centre, Friday, 25th November, 1pm-3pm.  This workshop is designed to help writers think about ways in which we might look further ahead into the future and be slightly prophetic in our speculative fiction / sci-fi. We will read an extract from The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver set in the years 2029- 2047. Writing exercises will involve looking at some of the individual posibiblities that Shriver raises in her work. And being our last class of the year we may even discuss 2017 before it arrives!

Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room 3.

Time: 1-3pm. What to bring:  Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad

Cost:  OOTA $20  - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save).  
Please note: No credit card facility and new attendees who arrive without the class fee will be asked to pay on the day via direct debit transfer. For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com  

The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver
The year is 2029, and nothing is as it should be. The very essence of American life, the dollar, is under attack. In a coordinated move by the rest of the world’s governments, the dollar loses all its value. The American President declares that the States will default on all its loans–prices skyrocket, currency becomes essentially worthless, and we watch one family struggle to survive through it all.

The Mandibles can count on their inheritance no longer, and each member must come to terms with this in their own way–from the elegant expat author Nollie, in her middle age, returning to the U.S. from Paris after many years abroad, to her precocious teenage nephew Willing, who is the only one to actually understand the crisis, to the brilliant Georgetown economics professor Lowell, who watches his whole vision of the world disintegrate before his eyes.