Rogue Worldbuilding
A Fiction Writing Course for Futures
19 June – 17 July 2026
Online (Zoom)
Max 25 participants
"You don't really understand a future until you've had to write a character who wakes up in it."
Rogue Worldbuilding is a five-week online writing course led by science fiction author, critic, and futures practitioner Paul Graham Raven. Over the course of a month, a small cohort of committed writers and thinkers will come together—every Friday, every week—to write stories set in futures that haven't happened yet, workshop each other's work with honesty and care, and discover what serious creative practice can do for the imagination.
This is not a passive course. You will write. You will share. You will be read, and you will read others.
WHAT MAKES THIS COURSE DIFFERENT
This is a real writing course, not a webinar.
Rogue Worldbuilding is structured around the two things that actually make writers better: writing regularly, and having your work read by others. Each week builds on the last. Each piece you write opens a door that didn’t exist until you imagined it.
Paul Graham Raven has spent his career at the intersection of science fiction and futures thinking, telling stories about times to come from the inside, not the outside. He brings the sharpest tools of literary craft together with a deep understanding of what futures work actually needs: specificity, empathy, and the courage to inhabit a world that doesn't exist yet.
This is a space to escape and go deeper.
Sometimes the most important thing a course can offer is permission to stop being a professional for a few hours a week, and to be something more interesting: a storyteller. Rogue Worldbuilding is a refuge from the inbox, the deliverables, the relentless forward motion of the day job.
But it's also a place where escape becomes the work. Because stories set in futures aren't just entertainment: they're one of the most powerful tools we have for understanding where we are, where we're going, and what we might want to do about it.
This course is not for people who want to find the time. It's for people who will make it.
The time commitment is real and manageable, but it's not zero.
Every week, you will:
• Watch or attend a one-hour live seminar with Paul (every Friday afternoon CET, recorded for those who may need to catch up)
• Attend a one-hour workshopping call with 3–4 fellow students, guided by Paul (various slots every Wednesday and Thursday, grouped by timezone and/or availability)
• Write 2,000 words of new fiction.
That's roughly 4–5 hours a week, including reading your peers' work, plus an hour of supplementary reading or videos from masters of the craft
It's structured so that busy people can do it, if they commit.
The seminars are on Fridays so you have the whole weekend to write.
WHO THIS COURSE IS FOR
This course is for three kinds of people:
Writers who want to get serious. You've been dabbling. You write fragments, you have ideas, you've started stories that didn't go anywhere. You want the structure, the accountability, and the expert guidance to learn the art of fiction writing, actually finish something, and understand why it works.
Futures practitioners and professionals who want to write. You work in foresight, strategy, design, advocacy, research, and you sense that stories can do something your reports and frameworks can't. You want to learn the craft that unlocks that power, and to connect your professional imagination to a creative one.
Anyone who needs a creative outlet that is theirs alone. This is a place to simply find the pleasure and the challenge of making something from nothing—a story, a world, a future you built with your own hands.
FORMAT & SCHEDULE
Online on via Zoom
19 June – 17 July 2026
Week 1 — Introducing Fiction for Futures
There is no submission before Week 1; this is the warm-up week.
Friday, 19 June | Live seminar #1 |
|---|---|
Saturday - Tuesday, 20 - 23 June | writing 2,000 words of a new story |
Wednesday & Thursday, 24 & 25 June | small-group critique workshops* (group discussion of challenges encountered, discoveries made, questions raised) |
*You will join only one 1-hour session during these two days. Groups will be assigned on the basis of timezones and other commitments. Workshops will NOT be recorded.
Week 2 — Worldbuilding 101
How do you build a world that breathes? How do you explore that world through characters, objects, and scenes rather than exposition? This week we go deep into the art of showing rather than telling — and of treating the world itself as a character.
Friday, 26 June | Live seminar #2 |
Saturday - Tuesday, 27 - 30 June | Writing; further work on your Week 1 story, to produce 2,000 words for workshopping |
Wednesday & Thursday, 1 & 2 July | small-group critique workshops (focus on showing versus telling, world-as-character and world-as-setting) |
Week 3 — Character and Point of View
This week, you'll start a second story: the same world as the first one, but seen through a different pair of eyes. Nothing teaches you more about a story — or a future — than doing the work to see it through another set of eyes.
Friday, 3 July | Live seminar #3 |
|---|---|
Saturday - Tuesday, 4 - 7 July | (re)writing your Week 2 story in a different point-of-view; 2,000 new words |
Wednesday & Thursday, 8 & 9 July | small-group critique workshops (focus on point-of-view, character, interiority) |
Week 4 — How to Play the Red-Team Blues
This week, you'll take one of your two stories from earlier weeks and add another 2,000 words to produce a full finished draft — a tale with a beginning, middle, and an end, as well as a point. Starting stories is the easy bit; bringing them into land, making them pay off properly, is what separates the want-tos from the can-dos.
Friday, 10 July | Live seminar #4 |
|---|---|
Saturday - Tuesday, 11 - 14 July | Add 2,000 words to complete a full draft of either Story 1 or 2 |
Wednesday & Thursday, 15 & 16 July | small-group critique workshops (discussion of stories as complete units; shape, plot, pace) |
Week 5 — Recap, Review, Q&A
The end of the course, but the beginning of your writing life. Recap the journey, ask hanging questions, share the highs and lows and lessons learned.
Friday, 17 July | Live seminar #5 |
|---|
After the Course (July – August 2026)
A 30-minute one-on-one session with Paul, booked individually by each student: a private conversation about your work, your writing, and what comes next.
WHAT YOU'LL RECEIVE
Five hours of live seminar teaching with Paul Graham Raven
Four hours of guided small-group critique workshopping
Three rounds of written feedback from Paul, delivered directly to you in our Rogue Union community platform
A 30-minute one-on-one conversation with Paul, plus his written feedback on your finished story
A small, committed cohort of fellow writers, the kind you'll still be in touch with when it's over
WHAT WE ASK FROM YOU
This is a writing workshop. Its value is entirely proportional to what you put in, and what you're willing to receive.
• Show up to as many live seminars as possible. (They're recorded, so you can catch up. But being there live is different.)
• Write at least 2,000 words of fiction every week. Not notes. Not outlines. Actual fiction.
• Submit your work on time (Tuesday 9am CET) so that your fellow workshop members have time to read it.
• Read the work of your workshop peers every week, with care and generosity.
• Listen to feedback with humility. Your story is not you. Critique of your work is not critique of your worth.
A word about the workshop rules: if you don't submit your work on time, you are welcome to attend your workshop session as a listener. But you will not be invited to discuss others' work. Having your writing read and critiqued is exposing. If you haven't put yourself in the hot-seat, you don't get to put anyone else there either. This is standard writing workshop practice, and it exists for good reason: the vulnerability is shared.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR
PRICE & ACCOMMODATION
Course fee
Early bird price
until 23 May 2026
€850
€850
(exclusive of 21% VAT)
Regular price
from 24 May 2026 onwards
€1,150
€1,150
(exclusive of 21% VAT)
HOW TO SIGN UP
Fill out the registration form.
You will receive a confirmation from us, along with your invoice and payment instructions.
You'll have 7 days from the date you receive the invoice to complete payment and secure your spot.
DEADLINE
We are accepting applications on a rolling basis. Places are limited to keep the workshop groups small. Once they're gone, they're gone.
CANCELLATION POLICY
We know life is unpredictable, and we want to offer as much flexibility as we reasonably can. At the same time, this course depends on a small, committed cohort. Late cancellations affect everyone in the group.
• Until 15 May 2026: Full refund
• 15–31 May 2026: 50% refund
• From 1 June 2026 onwards: No refund
Exception: if we are able to fill your spot, we will refund you in full, regardless of the date. We'll let you know right away if that becomes possible.
Rogue Worldbuilding
A Fiction Writing Course for Futures
19 June – 17 July 2026
Online (Zoom)
Max 25 participants
"You don't really understand a future until you've had to write a character who wakes up in it."
Rogue Worldbuilding is a five-week online writing course led by science fiction author, critic, and futures practitioner Paul Graham Raven. Over the course of a month, a small cohort of committed writers and thinkers will come together—every Friday, every week—to write stories set in futures that haven't happened yet, workshop each other's work with honesty and care, and discover what serious creative practice can do for the imagination.
This is not a passive course. You will write. You will share. You will be read, and you will read others.
WHAT MAKES THIS COURSE DIFFERENT
This is a real writing course, not a webinar.
Rogue Worldbuilding is structured around the two things that actually make writers better: writing regularly, and having your work read by others. Each week builds on the last. Each piece you write opens a door that didn’t exist until you imagined it.
Paul Graham Raven has spent his career at the intersection of science fiction and futures thinking, telling stories about times to come from the inside, not the outside. He brings the sharpest tools of literary craft together with a deep understanding of what futures work actually needs: specificity, empathy, and the courage to inhabit a world that doesn't exist yet.
This is a space to escape and go deeper.
Sometimes the most important thing a course can offer is permission to stop being a professional for a few hours a week, and to be something more interesting: a storyteller. Rogue Worldbuilding is a refuge from the inbox, the deliverables, the relentless forward motion of the day job.
But it's also a place where escape becomes the work. Because stories set in futures aren't just entertainment: they're one of the most powerful tools we have for understanding where we are, where we're going, and what we might want to do about it.
This course is not for people who want to find the time. It's for people who will make it.
The time commitment is real and manageable, but it's not zero.
Every week, you will:
• Watch or attend a one-hour live seminar with Paul (every Friday afternoon CET, recorded for those who may need to catch up)
• Attend a one-hour workshopping call with 3–4 fellow students, guided by Paul (various slots every Wednesday and Thursday, grouped by timezone and/or availability)
• Write 2,000 words of new fiction.
That's roughly 4–5 hours a week, including reading your peers' work, plus an hour of supplementary reading or videos from masters of the craft
It's structured so that busy people can do it, if they commit.
The seminars are on Fridays so you have the whole weekend to write.
WHO THIS COURSE IS FOR
This course is for three kinds of people:
Writers who want to get serious. You've been dabbling. You write fragments, you have ideas, you've started stories that didn't go anywhere. You want the structure, the accountability, and the expert guidance to learn the art of fiction writing, actually finish something, and understand why it works.
Futures practitioners and professionals who want to write. You work in foresight, strategy, design, advocacy, research, and you sense that stories can do something your reports and frameworks can't. You want to learn the craft that unlocks that power, and to connect your professional imagination to a creative one.
Anyone who needs a creative outlet that is theirs alone. This is a place to simply find the pleasure and the challenge of making something from nothing—a story, a world, a future you built with your own hands.
FORMAT & SCHEDULE
Online on via Zoom
19 June – 17 July 2026
Week 1 — Introducing Fiction for Futures
There is no submission before Week 1; this is the warm-up week.
Friday, 19 June | Live seminar #1 |
|---|---|
Saturday - Tuesday, 20 - 23 June | writing 2,000 words of a new story |
Wednesday & Thursday, 24 & 25 June | small-group critique workshops* (group discussion of challenges encountered, discoveries made, questions raised) |
*You will join only one 1-hour session during these two days. Groups will be assigned on the basis of timezones and other commitments. Workshops will NOT be recorded.
Week 2 — Worldbuilding 101
How do you build a world that breathes? How do you explore that world through characters, objects, and scenes rather than exposition? This week we go deep into the art of showing rather than telling — and of treating the world itself as a character.
Friday, 26 June | Live seminar #2 |
Saturday - Tuesday, 27 - 30 June | Writing; further work on your Week 1 story, to produce 2,000 words for workshopping |
Wednesday & Thursday, 1 & 2 July | small-group critique workshops (focus on showing versus telling, world-as-character and world-as-setting) |
Week 3 — Character and Point of View
This week, you'll start a second story: the same world as the first one, but seen through a different pair of eyes. Nothing teaches you more about a story — or a future — than doing the work to see it through another set of eyes.
Friday, 3 July | Live seminar #3 |
|---|---|
Saturday - Tuesday, 4 - 7 July | (re)writing your Week 2 story in a different point-of-view; 2,000 new words |
Wednesday & Thursday, 8 & 9 July | small-group critique workshops (focus on point-of-view, character, interiority) |
Week 4 — How to Play the Red-Team Blues
This week, you'll take one of your two stories from earlier weeks and add another 2,000 words to produce a full finished draft — a tale with a beginning, middle, and an end, as well as a point. Starting stories is the easy bit; bringing them into land, making them pay off properly, is what separates the want-tos from the can-dos.
Friday, 10 July | Live seminar #4 |
|---|---|
Saturday - Tuesday, 11 - 14 July | Add 2,000 words to complete a full draft of either Story 1 or 2 |
Wednesday & Thursday, 15 & 16 July | small-group critique workshops (discussion of stories as complete units; shape, plot, pace) |
Week 5 — Recap, Review, Q&A
The end of the course, but the beginning of your writing life. Recap the journey, ask hanging questions, share the highs and lows and lessons learned.
Friday, 17 July | Live seminar #5 |
|---|
After the Course (July – August 2026)
A 30-minute one-on-one session with Paul, booked individually by each student: a private conversation about your work, your writing, and what comes next.
WHAT YOU'LL RECEIVE
Five hours of live seminar teaching with Paul Graham Raven
Four hours of guided small-group critique workshopping
Three rounds of written feedback from Paul, delivered directly to you in our Rogue Union community platform
A 30-minute one-on-one conversation with Paul, plus his written feedback on your finished story
A small, committed cohort of fellow writers, the kind you'll still be in touch with when it's over
WHAT WE ASK FROM YOU
This is a writing workshop. Its value is entirely proportional to what you put in, and what you're willing to receive.
• Show up to as many live seminars as possible. (They're recorded, so you can catch up. But being there live is different.)
• Write at least 2,000 words of fiction every week. Not notes. Not outlines. Actual fiction.
• Submit your work on time (Tuesday 9am CET) so that your fellow workshop members have time to read it.
• Read the work of your workshop peers every week, with care and generosity.
• Listen to feedback with humility. Your story is not you. Critique of your work is not critique of your worth.
A word about the workshop rules: if you don't submit your work on time, you are welcome to attend your workshop session as a listener. But you will not be invited to discuss others' work. Having your writing read and critiqued is exposing. If you haven't put yourself in the hot-seat, you don't get to put anyone else there either. This is standard writing workshop practice, and it exists for good reason: the vulnerability is shared.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR
PRICE & ACCOMMODATION
Course fee
Early bird price
until 23 May 2026
€850
€850
(exclusive of 21% VAT)
Regular price
from 24 May 2026 onwards
€1,150
€1,150
(exclusive of 21% VAT)
HOW TO SIGN UP
Fill out the registration form.
You will receive a confirmation from us, along with your invoice and payment instructions.
You'll have 7 days from the date you receive the invoice to complete payment and secure your spot.
DEADLINE
We are accepting applications on a rolling basis. Places are limited to keep the workshop groups small. Once they're gone, they're gone.
CANCELLATION POLICY
We know life is unpredictable, and we want to offer as much flexibility as we reasonably can. At the same time, this course depends on a small, committed cohort. Late cancellations affect everyone in the group.
• Until 15 May 2026: Full refund
• 15–31 May 2026: 50% refund
• From 1 June 2026 onwards: No refund
Exception: if we are able to fill your spot, we will refund you in full, regardless of the date. We'll let you know right away if that becomes possible.
Rogue Worldbuilding
A Fiction Writing Course for Futures
19 June – 17 July 2026
Online (Zoom)
Max 25 participants
"You don't really understand a future until you've had to write a character who wakes up in it."
Rogue Worldbuilding is a five-week online writing course led by science fiction author, critic, and futures practitioner Paul Graham Raven. Over the course of a month, a small cohort of committed writers and thinkers will come together—every Friday, every week—to write stories set in futures that haven't happened yet, workshop each other's work with honesty and care, and discover what serious creative practice can do for the imagination.
This is not a passive course. You will write. You will share. You will be read, and you will read others.
WHAT MAKES THIS COURSE DIFFERENT
This is a real writing course, not a webinar.
Rogue Worldbuilding is structured around the two things that actually make writers better: writing regularly, and having your work read by others. Each week builds on the last. Each piece you write opens a door that didn’t exist until you imagined it.
Paul Graham Raven has spent his career at the intersection of science fiction and futures thinking, telling stories about times to come from the inside, not the outside. He brings the sharpest tools of literary craft together with a deep understanding of what futures work actually needs: specificity, empathy, and the courage to inhabit a world that doesn't exist yet.
This is a space to escape and go deeper.
Sometimes the most important thing a course can offer is permission to stop being a professional for a few hours a week, and to be something more interesting: a storyteller. Rogue Worldbuilding is a refuge from the inbox, the deliverables, the relentless forward motion of the day job.
But it's also a place where escape becomes the work. Because stories set in futures aren't just entertainment: they're one of the most powerful tools we have for understanding where we are, where we're going, and what we might want to do about it.
This course is not for people who want to find the time. It's for people who will make it.
The time commitment is real and manageable, but it's not zero.
Every week, you will:
• Watch or attend a one-hour live seminar with Paul (every Friday afternoon CET, recorded for those who may need to catch up)
• Attend a one-hour workshopping call with 3–4 fellow students, guided by Paul (various slots every Wednesday and Thursday, grouped by timezone and/or availability)
• Write 2,000 words of new fiction.
That's roughly 4–5 hours a week, including reading your peers' work, plus an hour of supplementary reading or videos from masters of the craft
It's structured so that busy people can do it, if they commit.
The seminars are on Fridays so you have the whole weekend to write.
WHO THIS COURSE IS FOR
This course is for three kinds of people:
Writers who want to get serious. You've been dabbling. You write fragments, you have ideas, you've started stories that didn't go anywhere. You want the structure, the accountability, and the expert guidance to learn the art of fiction writing, actually finish something, and understand why it works.
Futures practitioners and professionals who want to write. You work in foresight, strategy, design, advocacy, research, and you sense that stories can do something your reports and frameworks can't. You want to learn the craft that unlocks that power, and to connect your professional imagination to a creative one.
Anyone who needs a creative outlet that is theirs alone. This is a place to simply find the pleasure and the challenge of making something from nothing—a story, a world, a future you built with your own hands.
FORMAT & SCHEDULE
Online on via Zoom
19 June – 17 July 2026
Week 1 — Introducing Fiction for Futures
There is no submission before Week 1; this is the warm-up week.
Friday, 19 June | Live seminar #1 |
|---|---|
Saturday - Tuesday, 20 - 23 June | writing 2,000 words of a new story |
Wednesday & Thursday, 24 & 25 June | small-group critique workshops* (group discussion of challenges encountered, discoveries made, questions raised) |
*You will join only one 1-hour session during these two days. Groups will be assigned on the basis of timezones and other commitments. Workshops will NOT be recorded.
Week 2 — Worldbuilding 101
How do you build a world that breathes? How do you explore that world through characters, objects, and scenes rather than exposition? This week we go deep into the art of showing rather than telling — and of treating the world itself as a character.
Friday, 26 June | Live seminar #2 |
Saturday - Tuesday, 27 - 30 June | Writing; further work on your Week 1 story, to produce 2,000 words for workshopping |
Wednesday & Thursday, 1 & 2 July | small-group critique workshops (focus on showing versus telling, world-as-character and world-as-setting) |
Week 3 — Character and Point of View
This week, you'll start a second story: the same world as the first one, but seen through a different pair of eyes. Nothing teaches you more about a story — or a future — than doing the work to see it through another set of eyes.
Friday, 3 July | Live seminar #3 |
|---|---|
Saturday - Tuesday, 4 - 7 July | (re)writing your Week 2 story in a different point-of-view; 2,000 new words |
Wednesday & Thursday, 8 & 9 July | small-group critique workshops (focus on point-of-view, character, interiority) |
Week 4 — How to Play the Red-Team Blues
This week, you'll take one of your two stories from earlier weeks and add another 2,000 words to produce a full finished draft — a tale with a beginning, middle, and an end, as well as a point. Starting stories is the easy bit; bringing them into land, making them pay off properly, is what separates the want-tos from the can-dos.
Friday, 10 July | Live seminar #4 |
|---|---|
Saturday - Tuesday, 11 - 14 July | Add 2,000 words to complete a full draft of either Story 1 or 2 |
Wednesday & Thursday, 15 & 16 July | small-group critique workshops (discussion of stories as complete units; shape, plot, pace) |
Week 5 — Recap, Review, Q&A
The end of the course, but the beginning of your writing life. Recap the journey, ask hanging questions, share the highs and lows and lessons learned.
Friday, 17 July | Live seminar #5 |
|---|
After the Course (July – August 2026)
A 30-minute one-on-one session with Paul, booked individually by each student: a private conversation about your work, your writing, and what comes next.
WHAT YOU'LL RECEIVE
Five hours of live seminar teaching with Paul Graham Raven
Four hours of guided small-group critique workshopping
Three rounds of written feedback from Paul, delivered directly to you in our Rogue Union community platform
A 30-minute one-on-one conversation with Paul, plus his written feedback on your finished story
A small, committed cohort of fellow writers, the kind you'll still be in touch with when it's over
WHAT WE ASK FROM YOU
This is a writing workshop. Its value is entirely proportional to what you put in, and what you're willing to receive.
• Show up to as many live seminars as possible. (They're recorded, so you can catch up. But being there live is different.)
• Write at least 2,000 words of fiction every week. Not notes. Not outlines. Actual fiction.
• Submit your work on time (Tuesday 9am CET) so that your fellow workshop members have time to read it.
• Read the work of your workshop peers every week, with care and generosity.
• Listen to feedback with humility. Your story is not you. Critique of your work is not critique of your worth.
A word about the workshop rules: if you don't submit your work on time, you are welcome to attend your workshop session as a listener. But you will not be invited to discuss others' work. Having your writing read and critiqued is exposing. If you haven't put yourself in the hot-seat, you don't get to put anyone else there either. This is standard writing workshop practice, and it exists for good reason: the vulnerability is shared.
COURSE INSTRUCTOR
PRICE & ACCOMMODATION
Course fee
Early bird price
until 23 May 2026
€850
€850
(exclusive of 21% VAT)
Regular price
from 24 May 2026 onwards
€1,150
€1,150
(exclusive of 21% VAT)
HOW TO SIGN UP
Fill out the registration form.
You will receive a confirmation from us, along with your invoice and payment instructions.
You'll have 7 days from the date you receive the invoice to complete payment and secure your spot.
DEADLINE
We are accepting applications on a rolling basis. Places are limited to keep the workshop groups small. Once they're gone, they're gone.
CANCELLATION POLICY
We know life is unpredictable, and we want to offer as much flexibility as we reasonably can. At the same time, this course depends on a small, committed cohort. Late cancellations affect everyone in the group.
• Until 15 May 2026: Full refund
• 15–31 May 2026: 50% refund
• From 1 June 2026 onwards: No refund
Exception: if we are able to fill your spot, we will refund you in full, regardless of the date. We'll let you know right away if that becomes possible.