"History of SF: First Stories"
with Isaac Bell
Sat, Oct 3 @ 2pm
Before there was "science" or even "fiction" as clear genres, our stories encompassed the greatest reaches of our imagination. Gilgamesh and other demigods of myth tied closely to social concepts such as Atlantis, Classical Roman stories of traveling in space, or medieval ideas about automatons and technology.
In this class we'll look at how these tales led to the fantastical ideas about the world that we later called Fantasy and Science Fiction.
About instructor Isaac Bell.
Register online at Patreon - only $25
"Science into Fiction" Spec-Fic Writing Workshops:
Series 1: "The Higgs Boson in This Particular Universe"
Series 2: "Creativity and the Brain"
Series 3: "Writing in (and about) the Age of Artificial Intelligence"
Series 4: "Six great stories and what makes them work: The science of SF writing"
Series 5 "Hopepunk" coming Fall 2026: apply now!
Chris McKitterick's Spec-Fic Writing Workshop & Repeat Offenders Workshop
Kij Johnson & Barbara Webb's SF&F Novel Writing Workshops and Masterclasses
More Ad Astra Universe-ity Workshops and Classes
Speculative-fiction writing resources
Ad Astra Scholarships
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We believe strongly in the free sharing of information, so you'll find a lot of content - including course syllabi
and many materials from our classes - on this and related sites and social
networks as educational outreach. Feel free to use this content for independent
study, or to adapt it for your own educational and nonprofit purposes; just
please credit us and link back to this website. We'd also love to hear from you
if you use our materials!
This site is associated with the Science Fiction and Fantasy
Writers of America (SFWA), the Science Fiction Research Association
(SFRA), AboutSF, and other organizations, and its contents are copyright 1992-present
Christopher McKitterick
except where noted, and licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License: Feel free to use and adapt for non-profit purposes, with attribution. For publication or profit purposes, please contact
McKitterick
or other creators as noted.
This site does not use cookies and is free from tracking. We
do not use or condone the use of machine-generated text or images for
educational or creative purposes (except as satire), and do not accept student or teacher work
manufactured by algorithms.
Works on this site are licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
updated 8/24/2026
We believe strongly in the free sharing of information, so you'll find a lot of content - including course syllabi and many materials from our classes - on this and related sites and social networks as educational outreach. Feel free to use this content for independent study, or to adapt it for your own educational and nonprofit purposes; just please credit us and link back to this website. We'd also love to hear from you if you use our materials!
This site is associated with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA), AboutSF, and other organizations, and its contents are copyright 1992-present Christopher McKitterick except where noted, and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License: Feel free to use and adapt for non-profit purposes, with attribution. For publication or profit purposes, please contact McKitterick or other creators as noted.
This site does not use cookies and is free from tracking. We do not use or condone the use of machine-generated text or images for educational or creative purposes (except as satire), and do not accept student or teacher work manufactured by algorithms.
Works on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
updated 8/24/2026