I look a little stuffed in this photo, but people, it’s not easy to take a screenshot of five people WHILE hosting a panel, where everyone looks somewhat good. Next time, Darius Vinesar, can you take a nice screenshot, please? At least no one’s eyes are closed, which was not true in my other attempts… 
This is me and Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman (and yes, they’re adorable together, they’re just like they look in the photo), and David D. Levine and Walter Jon Williams, and we’re all talking about writing in shared worlds and it was a GREAT discussion and could easily have gone on for another hour or two, but we were VERY disciplined and kept it to a tight 75 minutes (or so).
This panel is part of the SLF membership drive, and Darius will be editing it shortly and will have it up on our YouTube channel and site, so if you weren’t able to attend live, you can still check it out. Tons of good info in here, if you’re interested in trying to write in a shared world yourself, or just want to learn more about the different ways they work.
(Next Saturday’s panel is on building community — writing can be a lonely business. Details here: https://speculativeliterature.org/genesis-membership-drive/)
We mostly talked about Wild Cards and Tremontaine, of course, but tip of the hat to Thieves’ World, Bordertown, and Whitehall. Gosh, I *loved* Bordertown when I discovered it as a teenager.
It’s really a tremendous privilege, getting to play in these worlds with other writers I admire so much. We all write differently, but I think we all bring interesting things to the table, and when they combine — fireworks!
(Which, coincidentally, is the title of one of the chapters I wrote for Tremontaine…)