Events

Ongoing Events

Monday through Wednesday night at 9pm ET on my Twitch channel, I play a video game for fun! Chat with me as I ruminate about the gameplay, characters, narrative, design, graphics, real-world connections, and sometimes my own life as it relates to whatever is happening on-screen.

Currently playing: Dragon Age: Origins and Horizon: Forbidden West

Upcoming Events

Due to the current pandemic situation, all my upcoming events are virtual.

Flights of Foundry

September 27, 2024

2pm ET: Writing Your Story For Someone Else’s World While Getting Paid
10pm ET: Our Attraction to Monsters: Yes, Like That (NSFW)

September 29, 2024

11am ET: Romance in Games
2pm ET: Gargoyles fan chat
5pm ET: Reforging Sword & Sorcery
6pm ET: Apocalypse Now: Post-Apocalyptic Narratives For Our Current World
10pm ET: Chill-n-Chat

Past Events

Writer’s Digest University Annual Science Fiction & Fantasy Virtual Conference

Forces to Be Reckoned With: Crafting Factions

August 24, 2024 at 1pm ET

Whether you’re writing gritty sci-fi or epic romantasy, pitting factions against each other can yield compelling conflict and intense drama. But how do you come up with believable in-world groups with aligning, competing or mutually exclusive goals? Join Valerie Valdes for a presentation on techniques for creating nuanced alliances and rivalries, including character and worldbuilding strategies to help organically integrate clubs, cliques, and cabals into your narratives.

Writer’s Digest University Novel Writing Virtual Conference

Finding, Forming, and Fine-Tuning Your Fictional Voices

Saturday, January 13th, 1:00pm ET

Writers are often told to find their voice, but what does that mean? What is voice and how does it work in fiction? How can syntax and diction choices bring characters to life or make readers say, “That’s not how people talk!” Join Valerie Valdes for a presentation and Q&A about character voice, narrator voice, and authorial voice, including tips and approaches for tuning your inner ear, crafting dialogue, POV filtering, code-switching, and more.

Series Potential: Outlining Beyond Book One

October 19, 2023, 7:30pm ET

This craft talk will deep dive into what it means to write a series and the different TYPES of series there are: Stand-alones with series potential, duologies, trilogies, and open-ended series. Valerie will discuss the differences and similarities of single-book and multi-book character and plot arcs. Writers will learn how to leverage status quo and changing world states. This is a great class for writers of all sorts of genres that lend themselves to the series!

Infernal Salon

September 30, 2023 at 4:30pm ET

C. S. E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez have made a roleplaying game called Negocios Infernales that uses a spooky deck of custom cards to determine success and failure, inspire improvisation, create characters, and create mayhem in the collaborative story you are telling. For the Infernal Salon, writers will get a prompt of one or more cards, then write for 20 minutes. At the end of it all, the writers will share their infernally-inspired works!

National Novel Writing Month Prep Stream

October 4, 2023, 3pm ET

I’ll be hosting a National Novel Writing Month prep stream on my Twitch channel. There will be prompts and co-working sprints, and I’ll talk about my process for putting together a story for the Worldbuilding for Masochists anthology. You can also ask me any questions you have about writing, editing, my books and my cats!

Samit Basu discussing THE JINN-BOT OF SHANTIPORT with Valerie Valdes

October 10, 2023, 9:00pm ET

This virtual event with Samit Basu and discussion partner Valerie Valdes is free to attend! Mysterious Galaxy’s virtual events are hosted on Crowdcast. Click here to register for the event and here to view the virtual code of conduct.

Where Peace Is Lost book release!

August 29, 2023 at 9pm ET

Join me on my Twitch channel as I read from the first chapter of Where Peace Is Lost, chat about my books and show off my cats.

Writer’s Digest University Annual Science Fiction & Fantasy Virtual Conference
Digestible World-building for Writers

August 26, 2023 at 1pm ET

The process of building a science fiction or fantasy world can sometimes feel overwhelming. Where do you begin? Where do you stop? Join Valerie Valdes for a presentation and Q&A about worldbuilding approaches, tips, and tricks to make your imaginary places feel real.

Girl by Moonlight: Fractal Spire

A series of Speculate 2.0’s actual play episodes using the Girl by Moonlight system, in a joint production with Gregory A. Wilson’s Twitch channel. Brandon O’Brien GMs the crew of Michael R. Underwood, Valerie Valdes, Iori Kusano, and Jeoi Gawain Lin as they explore a technomagical conspiracy between reality and dreaming.

Learn the secrets to writing a quick and dirty first draft

October 31, 2022 at 2pm EDT

This free online event will get you ready for the most productive month in a writer’s calendar – National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Join top authors and previous NaNo winners as they reveal the hints, tips and cheats you need to turbocharge your November and write an entire novel in just thirty days. With Fiona Longmuir, Eden Royce, and Valerie Valdes.

NaNOrlando Writers Conference

October 15, 2022 at 2pm ET

Worldbuilding with Valerie Valdes: Developing your world is one of the keys to understanding your characters and the conflicts they’ll face. Find out what details are essential to consider before you start writing, and learn tips for not getting bogged down while playing god.

ChiCon 8

September 1, 2022

12:30pm ET: More Than Sexbots and Slaves
3:30pm ET: Virtual Table Talk

September 2, 2022

5pm ET: Reading
6:30pm ET: The Hero Doesn’t Always Journey
9:30pm ET: Cultural Borgification: Resisting Assimilation

September 3, 2022

2pm ET: The State of Latin SFF

September 4, 2022

12:30pm ET: The Problematic History of Speculative Fictions
6:30pm ET: Latinx Speculative Fiction—Authors, Stories, and Characters

Grayshade Kickstarter Finale Marathon TTRPG Extravaganza

July 15, 2022

At 12pm ET, a group of players and GMs will start a D&D 5E one-shot. For every $500 the Kickstarter earns, we will switch TTRPG systems, but keeping the characters as close to their archetypes as possible. Potential games include Scum & Villainy, Blades in the Dark, Brindlewood Bay, Boy Problems, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, and more! I’ll be playing from 3-5pm ET and 9pm-midnight.

Writefest

April 30, 2022

11am ET: Inclusivity and Representation: Writing a Real World
12pm ET: From Flash to Fiction: Going Zero to 20,000 Words and Where to Stop
1pm ET: The Query Letter: How to Land an Agent

May 1, 2022

6pm ET: Worldbuilding: When Is Your World a Character?

Flights of Foundry

April 8, 2022

4pm ET: Chill-n-Chat

April 9, 2022

10pm ET: Fantasy? On MY Spaceship?! Blending Science and Sorcery
11pm ET: Writing Non-Human Beings

April 10, 2022

11am ET: Up For Interpretation: Finding and Making Meaning in Fiction

Blades in the Dark: The Case of the Cindered Seal

A series of Speculate 2.0’s actual play episodes using the Blades in the Dark system, in a joint production with Gregory A. Wilson’s Twitch channel. Brandon O’Brien GMs the crew of Michael R. Underwood, Valerie Valdes, Iori Kusano, and Jeoi Gawain Lin as they explore a cultist mystery in the city of Duskwall. New episodes once a month.

Watch the whole series on YouTube!

Shiver: Death of the Author

A one-shot (for now) Speculate 2.0 actual play episode using the Shiver system, in a joint production with Gregory A. Wilson’s Twitch channel. Brandon O’Brien GMs the crew of Michael R. Underwood, Valerie Valdes, Iori Kusano, and Jeoi Gawain Lin as they attend a fancy party for up-and-coming writers, only to find a horrifying surprise awaits them.

Watch the episode on YouTube!

FIYAHCON

September 17, 2021

1:40pm ET: Marginalized Might: The Fiction of Oppressed Supers

September 18, 2021

Clarion West Writing Workshop

Myriad Methods of Outlining Fiction

September 30-October 14, 2021 from 4:30pm-6:00pm ET (1:30pm-3:00pm PT)

Most people think of outlining as a boring bullet-point approach to organizing a narrative, but there are a variety of ways to put together an outline that looks nothing like what you might expect. In this series of classes, you’ll learn different approaches to outlining fiction that you can add to your toolbox so you’ll always have something that works for you and the story you want to tell. Guided in-class exercises will let you practice these methods and receive feedback to improve your workflow and output.

Summer SciFi Panel

July 29, 2021 at 8pm ET (6pm MT)

Old Firehouse Books is thrilled to welcome four fabulous science fiction authors to a panel of stellar proportions! KB Wagers (Hold Fast Through the Fire), Mike Chen (We Could Be Heroes), Valerie Valdes (Prime Deceptions) and Jackson Ford (Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air) will be talking scifi adventure on Thursday, July 29th at 6pm MT. The event will be streaming to the Old Firehouse Books Facebook page, and is free.

San Antonio Book Festival

Something Queer Is Happening Up in Space: Space Operas

April 11, 2021 at 2pm ET

The diversification of fictional love stories happens not just on Earth but in space too. We’ve asked the writers of two excellent novels set high above Earth to talk about their characters and their loves in this session. A Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space opera sequel to Arkady Martine’s genre-reinventing, Hugo Award-winning debut, A Memory Called Empire and Everina Maxwell’s Winter’s Orbit is her gut-wrenching and romantic debut. Moderated by Valerie Valdes.

Flights of Foundry

April 16, 2021

6pm ET: Constelación – Founding a Bilingual Magazine

April 17, 2021

12pm ET: Writing Contest Winner Showcase: Monique Laban
10pm ET: Surviving Your Debut
11pm ET: The Clockwork of Mechanized Emotion in Games

April 18, 2021

10am ET: Co-working Session
6pm ET: What Puzzles in Games Do
11pm ET: Trends in Speculative Poetry

How We Get Through: Writing During a Second Pandemic Year

Sunday, March 7th, 2021 at 3pm EST

How do we write through a second pandemic year? Join us for discussion with writers and novelists who are working with these questions every single day. We’ll talk about what’s been difficult, ways to cope, and how to move forward. Featuring Valerie Valdes, author of Chilling Effect; Marshall Maresca, author of The Velocity of Revolution; Ryan Van Loan, author of The Sin In The Steel; Premee Mohamed, author of Beneath The Rising; A.J. Hackwith, author of The Library of the Unwritten; moderated by Karen Osborne, author of Architects of Memory

Clarion West Writing Workshop

Sprint to the Finish: Completing a Novel in a Short Time Frame

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021 from 7-8:30pm EST (4-5:30pm PST)

This workshop covers how to prep for and make it through a noveling marathon over a short, fixed time period (such as 60 days or eight weeks!). It includes time management strategies, self-analysis tools to maximize productivity, typical emotional trajectories the writer might experience and how to handle them, rewards and incentives, and other tips and tricks to get from idea to finished draft as quickly and smoothly as possible. It will also include exercises designed to help you leave with a solid plan for how to start or complete your own project.

Hometown Novel Nights

Thursday, January 21st at 6:30pm EST

The people who bring you HNN author events are now starting a writer’s group! Meet with established authors to learn from them about the craft, learn what the publishing world is like, talk with people on how to get past your creative blocks, or ask how to build your world. Featuring Randy Gravitt and Valerie Valdes, presented by the Newnan Carnegie Library.

Book Boot Camp: How to Write a Novel Fast

Saturday, January 16th at 2:00pm EST

Writing a book can be a logistical and emotional challenge. Author Valerie Valdes shares techniques and tools to help you commit to and follow through on finishing a novel in a short time frame.

Worldbuilders

I’ve NaNoWriMoed, Now What?

Thursday, December 3rd, 2020 at 12pm EST

Featuring Mur Lafferty, Casey Lucas-Quaid, Vida Cruz, Coral Alejandra Moore and Valerie Valdes.

Experience “Blades in the Dark”

Friday, December 11th, 2020 at 8pm EST

The Strange Friends crew brings new characters to a one-shot that showcases the heist-filled fun of Blades in the Dark. Featuring GM Brandon O’Brien, Michael R. Underwood, Valerie Valdes, Iori Kusano, and Jeoi Gawain Lin.

Rituals for Moving On From 2020

Tuesday, December 15th, 2020 at 12pm EST

Featuring Valerie Valdes, S.L. Huang, Gray Miller and Jamie Dillion.

New Voices from Orbit 2020 Reddit AMA

Tuesday, December 8 through Wednesday, December 9

Head over to Reddit r/Fantasy to ask me and other Orbit authors your questions about life, the universe and everything.

Soundclash: The Clampdown Fundraiser

Sunday, November 22nd, 2020 at 10:00am EST

A fundraiser to help improve the production of an all-BIPOC cast actual-play of a brand new game, with Brandon O’Brien and a bunch of cool folks.

Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WCXPGRspyU&feature=emb_title

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Live Author Panel

Friday, November 20th, 2020 at 3:30pm EST

Organized by the South Hampton public library in collaboration with Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

RoberCon (all times EDT)

Saturday, September 26th, 2020

11:00am: Speculative Poetry: Tips for Writing the Best Verse in the ‘Verse
3:00pm: Speculative Poetry Reading: Dramatic Journeys to Unknown Realms
4:00pm: Sprint to the Finish: Completing a Novel in a Short Time Frame

Sunday, September 27th, 2020

11:00am: From the Mind to the Story: Making the Journey of Ideas Smoother
4:00pm: Hooked to Our Screens: Video Games in the Time of COVID-19

Space Moms Launch!

Tuesday, September 8th, 2020, 4pm-10pm

Karen Osborne and Valerie Valdes host a virtual literary house party to celebrate their book releases. Scheduled to appear are: Andrea Stewart, Marina Lostetter, Mike Chen, Megan O’Keefe, C.L. Polk, K.B. Wagers and Michael R. Underwood, with more guests to be announced.

Columbus NASFiC

Friday, August 21st at 8:00pm EDT: BIPOC Round Table
Saturday, August 22nd at 12:00pm EDT: The Ever-Expanding Universe of Space Operas
Sunday, August 23rd at 1:00pm EDT: Reading

Hometown Novel Nights

Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 7:00pm EDT

Hosted by the Newnan Carnegie Library, featuring Valerie Valdes, Pat McKee and Angie Gallion. Each author will share about themselves, their writing journey, and their latest book(s). Books will be available to purchase from the Carnegie or Corner Arts Gallery & Studios.

R.A. Salvatore In Conversation

Sunday, August 16 at 10:00am EDT

A virtual panel at ReedPop Metaverse with Salvatore in conversation with author Valerie Valdes (Prime Deceptions) as they discuss the highly anticipated release of the final book in the Drizzt trilogy, Relentless (Legend of Drizzt: Generations #3) and their mutual love affair with fantasy and games in general.

ConZealand

Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 8:00pm EDT: Reading
Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 8:00pm EDT: Kaffeklatsch
Friday, July 31, 2020 at 11:00pm EDT: Not Your Parents’ Space Opera
Saturday, August 1, 2020 at 8:00pm EDT: In Space No One Can See You Hide the Evidence: Crimes in Space

The Ivy Bookshop

Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 6:30pm EDT

A virtual reading and conversation with Michael R. Underwood (Annihilation Aria) and Valerie Valdes.

Comic-Con@Home

Friday, July 24, 2020 from 3:00pm – 4:00pm PDT (6:00pm – 7:00pm EDT)

Galaxy Grrls, or the Female and Non-Binary Authors who Bridge the new Frontier of Space Fiction

Featuring Nicky Drayden (Escaping Exodus), Marina Lostetter (Noumenon Ultra), Jessie Mihalik (Chaos Reigning), Valerie Valdes (Chilling Effect), and K.B. Wagers (A Pale Light in the Black).

Flights of Foundry

May 16, 2020