Sandina Martinez

Reimagining what already exists or inventing something new is the basis of worldbuilding. For me, this process begins with questions that reality can’t answer—at least not fully. What does the future look like when our current systems have collapsed? What might history have been if a single variable had shifted? I’ve learned speculative fiction thrives in the space between what is/was and what could be, and the worlds writers create are where those possibilities take shape. As I’ve talked...

Dreams have a pliable logic. Many of my story ideas begin while I’m asleep. In them, time weaves back and forth, places and faces overlap, people from my everyday past (or present) exist in multiple versions of themselves. When I wake up, I’m usually left only with fragments: a singular image, a feeling, perhaps a lingering question or two. Those fragments often become the seeds of something larger in my writing process. As surreal as those beginnings are, I’ve learned that my stories emerge...