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<\/figure>My Odyssey Experience<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Lynda Rucker is a graduate of Odyssey’s first session in 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prior to hearing about Odyssey, I\u2019d never considered applying to a writing workshop. I felt the things that I wrote and liked to read fell between the cracks, and that I\u2019d be comfortable at neither a workshop focused on genre fiction nor one biased toward the realistic mode. But when I learned that the creator of the Dell Abyss fiction line was starting a sf\/f\/horror writing workshop, I couldn\u2019t resist. Here was an instructor whose sensibilities seemed to mesh with my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Odyssey forced me to consider my audience. Until then, the only people who had seen my fiction were the editors I\u2019d anxiously sent a handful of stories to and a couple of trusted friends or family members. Suddenly I wasn\u2019t writing for readers either anonymous and abstract, or inclined to indulgence. Instead I had a ring of seventeen faces demanding that I clarify my characters\u2019 motivations, fix up the ending in a way that satisfied them, and above all, keep them entertained! Writing is such an isolating endeavor. Rarely do we have the opportunity for such immediate and knowledgeable feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeanne\u2019s experience on both sides of the table, as editor and writer, offers a valuable perspective to the beginner, while the consistency of having her supervise the entire six weeks means she gets a real in-depth look at your strengths and weaknesses. Meanwhile, classmates who were much better read than I in the fields of science fiction and fantasy introduced me to a breadth of writers I\u2019d never have explored otherwise. I learned how to look at my fiction with a critical eye and pinpoint where I was going wrong. But even more importantly, for the first time in my life, I felt<\/i> like a writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since Odyssey, I’ve gone on to complete one novel and I’m working on two others. I’ve had short stories published in places like The Third Alternative<\/em> and Darkness Rising<\/em>. Two have received honorable mentions from Ellen Datlow in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror<\/em> and a third was selected for reprint in this year’s Mammoth Book of Best New Horror<\/em>, edited by Stephen Jones. Could I have done this without Odyssey? Probably, but it would have taken me a lot longer, I’d have been stumbling about in the dark a great deal more, and I would have been without the invaluable support of my former classmates, some of whom have gone on to become close friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n