I now have about a dozen new books in the reading queue!

I loved this video. My key takeaways:

- importance of setting in storytelling (I liked the point about taking a familiar story and placing it in a completely different setting to see how the story changes)

- striking a balance between a familiar setting with tropes that meet reader expectations, so they can dive right in, without being boring or unoriginal

And I want to play with the exercise she proposed (listing 5 genes, time periods, big settings and small settings, and mix/matching them in interesting combinations; she suggests writing a book blurb, but is it me or does this feel like a good prompted contest??)

Before I scope creep myself (yep, I just verbed a noun again), maybe I should just suggest it to Robert Waltz who judges "Invalid Item"  and has to come up with prompts on the regular.