Interview

Episode 237 – Building and Destroying Worlds with Angeline Trevena

In this episode Mark interviews Angeline Trevena, an author of dystopian urban fantasy and post-apocalyptic fiction, a podcaster, an events manager, and the author of a number of phenomenal books about world-building.

Prior to the main content, Mark shares a short personal update, including the fact one of his patrons will win a copy of Angeline’s latest edition of 30 Days of Worldbuilding, a coupon code to get $100 off registration for Superstars Writing Seminars 2023 (STARKSSWS2023) and a word about this episode’s sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation, Mark and Angeline talk about:

  • The release of the 2nd edition of her book 30 Days of World-Building
  • How Angeline has always loved fantasy, and choose-your-own-adventure books
  • The way reading The Chronicles of Narnia was one of the factors that led to her love and passion for world-building
  • The original 30 Days of World-Building starting as an 30 day Instagram challenge, that became a worksheet, that eventually became a book
  • How to Destroy the World, the 2nd world-building book in the same series that Angeline released
  • The original 30 days of world-building prompts that takes you from scratch, all the way up to creating a world ready to drop your characters into
  • Angeline’s three rules for world-building: Revealing character, pushing the plot forward, and exploring the themes of your novel
  • Being a panster and an avid world-builder at the same time
  • Destroying a world or creating a dystopian or post-apocalyptic setting
  • How dystopian stories can often be filled with a lot of hope
  • Food within world-building, including all the rituals and festivals that have been created around food
  • How food can be a massive part of religion and magic
  • Some of the other writing that Angeline has done
  • Involving her 9 year old in the writing/early critique process of her middle grade books
  • And more…

After the interview, Mark reflects on the use of food in culture, religion, society, in rituals, as well as a way to help demonstrate or establish character and conflict in a scene.

Links of Interest:


The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

3 thoughts on “Episode 237 – Building and Destroying Worlds with Angeline Trevena”

  1. Fantastic interview. Could have listened to you chatting for hours. I’m also a pantser writing post apoc – all I know when I start a series is what caused the world to end (which happens in chapter 1). My preparation is to build a cast of characters, then let them loose in the rubble 🙂

    1. Thanks, Kevin. Glad that you enjoyed the fun chat with Angeline. And love the “let them loose” in the rubble” phrase, BTW.

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