For those of us who are not astronauts, there is still a way for us to think about setting foot on new moons and new planets for the first time: through writing! As the world starts to think seriously about sending people to Mars, and finding ways of making the red planet habitable for humans, we, as writers, can speculate on the experience, through writing exciting science fiction short stories, and books, and scripts, and even poems. Just like Matt Damon in Ridley Scott's The Martian, based on the book of the same name by Andy Weir, we can put ourselves in the shoes of earth's first explorers of new worlds.

Join science fiction author and poet Oliver Langmead and award-winning speculative writer Ruth EJ Booth for a workshop where you will use individual and group exercises to consider the trials facing explorers as they set foot on Mars and beyond.

It will be an afternoon of getting creative, thinking about new technologies and unforeseen hurdles that might help or hinder humanity as we explore the universe outside our own small planet.

Running time: 90 minutes

Materials will be provided. This workshop is suitable for writers aged 14+.

Price £10/£8 concession

Venue: Cheviot Room

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.