Ep. 52: Worldbuilding: The Art of Plausibility in Fiction
In this episode we dive into the art of worldbuilding, a critical aspect not just for fantasy and sci-fi authors, but for all genres, including historical and contemporary fiction. We explore how worldbuilding is the foundation that brings settings to life, creating believability and plausibility for readers, and discuss the challenges of balancing facts with imagination in historical fiction, using Gina’s work on 1960s America and Melody’s early 1900s novel as examples.
We also touch on the reader’s role in engaging with fantasy worlds and how authors can manage the level of detail needed without overwhelming their audience. With references to familiar authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and Patrick O’Brien, we highlight the similarities in storytelling across genres, emphasizing the interconnectedness of story, characters, and the worlds they inhabit. Tune in as we analyze how these elements enhance (or hinder!) the narratives we create, leaving us all with a lot to ponder about our writing processes.
RESOURCES
Note that some links are affiliate links!
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1 Million Words Club, with KimBoo York
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Soul of the Seasons, by Melody, A Scout
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Dancing at The Orange Peel, by Gina Hogan Edwards
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Master and Commander, by Patrick O’Brian
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The Hands of the Emperor, by Victoria Goddard
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The Marrowbone Marble Company, by Glenn Taylor
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Ep. 52: Worldbuilding: The Art of Plausibility in Fiction
00:00:02
Dave Hogan, Gina’s Pop
Welcome to Around the Writer’s Table, a podcast focusing on the crossroads of creativity, craft, and conscious living for writers of all ages and backgrounds. Your hosts are Gina, Melody, and KimBoo, three close friends and women of a certain age, who bring to the table their eclectic backgrounds and unique perspectives on the trials, tribulations, and the joys of writing. So pull up a chair and get comfortable here around the writer’s table.
00:00:43
Gina Hogan Edwards
Welcome, listeners. We’re glad to have you back for another episode of Around the Writer’s Table. This is episode 52. I am Gina Hogan Edwards, one of your co-hosts, and I’m here today with my two buddies, Kimboo and Melody. And we’ve got a great topic for you. We’ve been alternating episodes between interviewing other writers and then having these group chats with the three of us. So today you get all three of us. Let’s start out with a little round of introductions. I’m going to start with you, Melody.
00:01:19
Melody, A Scout
Hey, Gina. Welcome back, listeners. My name is Melody, A Scout, and I am an author, a writer. I love everything having to do with plants. I’m a landscaper and a designer. I also wrote a book called Soul of the Seasons: Creating Balance, Resilience, and Connection by Tapping the Wisdom of the Natural World. So glad to be here today in the wake of a hurricane last week and impending hurricane tomorrow or the next day.
00:01:56
KimBoo York
This is between hurricanes. Yeah, that’s where we’re at right now, folks, Florida life.
00:02:03
Gina
Thank you, Melody. Kimboo, how are you doing today?
00:02:07
KimBoo
Well, yeah, for between hurricanes, I think we’re doing pretty good. If listeners are worried, we are actually north, we’re up in Tallahassee. So Milton is not aiming for us, but we all do have a lot of friends in the crosshairs. So forgive us if we go a little off topic sometimes today because we’re all a little worried about people we care about. But I am a writer. I am a productivity coach for authors. I have over 15 books that I’ve published. Romance, non-fiction, memoir, guidebooks on writing craft and publication. I also run the 1 Million Words Club, which is a community membership group on Discord about productivity and goal setting for authors, always a popular one. And if you hear any dog barking in the background, that would be mine, my dear Keely. Protecting us from the dreaded Amazon delivery persons. So that’s who I am. Thank you.
00:03:11
Gina
Thank you, Kimboo. And I’m Gina Hogan Edwards and I’m a retreat leader. I am an editor, a creativity coach, and obviously a podcast co-host. I’m glad to be here with you today. I am working on a historical fiction novel, which my buddy Melody here is, too.
This topic that we’re going to dive into today is something we’ve talked a little bit about offline. I’m incredibly intrigued with it because it’s something that has fascinated me as a reader, and now I’m really exploring it as a writer, and that topic is worldbuilding. This is something that I think a lot of writers think of when they think of science fiction or fantasy maybe, but not so much the other genres. So we’re going to talk about it in terms of all of that, but I’m going to pass it to Kimboo first to kind of give us a little bit of framework for what we’re going to discuss here today and maybe sort of a definition of what you think worldbuilding is.
00:04:15
KimBoo
Well, I think you’re so right that when we talk about worldbuilding, a lot of people think of JRR Tolkien, right? They think of Lord of the Rings. They think of Narnia. They think of Star Wars or Star Trek. They think of these massive creative second worlds is what they’re usually called, where everything is basically designed from the ground up by the author. I think more recently, it’s become more accepted to think of worldbuilding as a—let me see—like a structural tool.
When we thought of the idea for this podcast, Gina and I were talking about both my books, which are epic fantasy, right? I’m right in that zone. I’m like, wizards and unicorns and flying dragons and mythical worlds and magic systems. And she’s just like, yeah, I’m thinking about a roller disco in 70, whatever. It doesn’t compare.
But then once we got to talking about it does compare, because what Gina’s having to do is reconstruct a world that used to exist and doesn’t anymore. She is having to take actual facts, historical facts, aesthetic facts. Like, what is a disco ball? How do you describe it? Things like that where, if I might have to decide how to describe a dragon—right?—she’s having to figure out how to describe a disco ball. Not because none of her readers have ever seen a disco ball, but because she’s trying to build the world structurally so that her characters can really live inside of it, so that it’s all believable. Oh, Gina. Gina’s ready to say something. Okay.
00:06:07
Gina
You hit on the word believable. We hit on the word believable. And that’s the thing, is that you said it’s not because the readers may never have experienced a disco ball. It is exactly because the readers may have experienced a disco ball that I have to get this right. Melody’s facing the same thing in terms of her novel, which begins with a lot of her characters being on ships that no longer exist in a way that we know these ships to exist today. So she’s challenged with the same thing of this historical accuracy and creating the environment and the atmosphere for her characters to be in that is both plausible and believable.
00:06:51
KimBoo
That’s the same actual hurdle that someone like me has to deal with. People talk about something like Star Trek, for instance, but there’s a lot of plot holes in Star Trek, and you can look at a lot of things that aren’t believable in Star Trek, especially in the original series. It’s get a little questionable there. But when you have a group of people living in a constrained space together, which is what a starship is, right, how do you make that believable for people? What kind of trappings do you put around it so that people will believe, readers will believe that this is something that actually exists for the characters? So we come at it from different directions. But I think that key of believability is really the critical part.
It’s why you see a fantasy author spending so much time on, like, drafting out magic systems and making diagrams and drawing maps. It’s not that it’s any harder for us or any harder for you, but we’re trying to do the same thing, which is create this believability inherent in the story that we’re telling so that our readers can enjoy the story without getting tripped up by, you know, the disco ball being on a stand in the middle of the road. Like, it’s like, what? No, that’s not how disco balls work.
So that is very much a key to worldbuilding. It’s the believability of the structure around the characters so that they can tell the story. That’s kind of how I look at it.
00:08:20
Melody
I have a question for you, Kimboo. Fantasy and science fiction are not my go-to because, not because I don’t like them. It’s because I’m a more visual person. I’m more likely to go back and read a book from one of those genres after I’ve seen the movie or the series from it, because then things make sense to me because I have a visual impression. That’s just my personal defect. But I’m wondering, do you think it’s easier or harder to stretch the believability factor when just by the nature of fantasy and science fiction and, you know, we’re making shit up. So, you know, go with me for a while. Whereas historical fiction is like, you’ve got some parameters you have to work through.
00:09:16
KimBoo
Well, it’s interesting because I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, so I’m coming at it from exactly the opposite angle. If I read historical fiction, it’s because somebody like you or Gina recommended it to me. It’s like, no, no, you need to read this one. This is a good one. I think it’s up to the readers is kind of where I’m leaning with that one. Gina may have a different perspective on it, but some readers really want that complete otherworld experience. Gina and I are talking about the Hands of the Emperor, which I’ve commanded her to read for reasons which we’ll get into this one, but it is very, it’s not quite high fantasy, but it’s very fantastic in its fantasy setting. So there’s entry into that world where not a lot of stuff is explained at the beginning. You don’t know what these things are. You don’t know what people are talking about. To me, that’s fun. Gina not having any references for what these people are talking about is—I’m not sure what you would call it. You’re not struggling like. It’s not like you can’t figure it out, but it’s just not as enjoyable for you, is my impression.
00:10:29
Gina
I think some readers are willing to wait out the figuring-out of what all the things are. Some readers are more willing to hang in there longer than others are. And I think for the writer, what our job is, no matter what we’re writing, whether it’s historical fiction or fantasy, science fiction, whatever, it’s a difference between— It’s not so much that we need to focus on believability as it is plausibility, especially when you’re thinking about fantasy and scifi, because those don’t exist. And so as long as it’s plausible, I think your readers will go along with you, even if it’s something that’s never been a part of their world.
00:11:25
KimBoo
I’m thinking right now, timely, of Jeff Vandermeer’s latest or, well, his whole series of books. The recent book is Absolution that just came out as we’re recording this and he really walks that line, I think, if you’ve ever read his work. There’s the element of the fantastical, there’s an element of science fiction, but there’s also the very down to earth, plau— As fantastic and as amazing as his stories go in that direction, it’s so plausible. We live in the area that he talks about because Jeff Vandermeer is a local to Tallahassee, and so we know what he’s talking about when he’s making things up. But yet, but yet, we’ve all been in the swamp. We know what he’s talking about. Like, yeah, yeah, that could live in the swamp. I totally believe that. So it’s a plausibility factor, which I think is a very interesting way of looking at that rather than believability. It’s important. Plausibility, more important.
00:12:31
Melody
Well, and I would suspect that fantasy and science fiction fans are more generous with not having to know, perhaps, upfront.
KimBoo
They’re more used to it, I think.
Melody
Used to it. Because it’s me, I want to orient myself to everything in the room, right? So, and then how my brain works, I’ll have to be paging back and forth a bunch of times. Okay, who did what and where did they do that and what did that look like? So that to me kind of distracts from the story, but that’s how my brain works. So what were you going to say, Gina?
00:13:11
Gina
Well, I was just thinking about this idea of worldbuilding and other genres beyond fantasy and science fiction. And I think that it’s not so much that people are doing it more or thinking about it more. I think maybe we just had different language around it, because there’s always been, especially in Southern fiction, there’s always been this discussion of how important sense of place is. And so, place is only one part of worldbuilding, in my mind at least, because I consider worldbuilding to be the complete environment that the characters are in, not just like maybe the town or the spaceship or whatever. It’s also got to do with what they’re wearing and the cultural aspects of the time. It’s the whole, it’s every dimension of whatever is involved in that world.
The other thing that I wanted to say is that I think in those genres, beyond scifi and fantasy, specifically in historical fiction, for me, we have the enjoyment of being able to do the worldbuilding in terms of making sure our historical facts about particular places and events are correct. And we can also make stuff up. Like the town that I’m creating is completely fictional. So I get to create this world just like a science fiction writer would of, you know, where is the roller skating rink in this town? And you know, where are the lakes and the rivers and all of those things.
00:14:54
KimBoo
What does the high school look like and all those other things.
00:14:58
Gina
Yeah. So to me, I get the benefit of both the imaginary and the real when it comes to the worldbuilding aspect.
00:15:08
KimBoo
Do you think that with historical fiction, one of the attractions for readers to that worldbuilding is the fact that it is—I’m trying to parse out this thought here as I make it, which my co-hosts are very used to me doing. So just what is she trying to say? Nobody knows. Not quite nostalgia. That’s not what I’m really going for. But the idea of this actually did exist. This actually was something that happened or that people went through. as historical fiction readers and authors, how do you think that fits into your worldbuilding as writers? Because, you know, that’s part of what historical fiction readers are looking for.
00:15:59
Gina
Yeah, I definitely think that that’s the expectation of the reader that there are going to be certain touchpoints in history and that might be— And there are subgenres within historical fiction, and so some are going to be more heavily interwoven with the character, fictional characters who are in this real historical world where things happen that we know about. Where other writers, particularly maybe historical romance, they may not have as many historical touchpoints as some other historical fiction writers. There are exceptions, of course. So I don’t want to generalize, but I do think that the historical fiction reader goes in expecting that there are going to be historical touchpoints of some variety, whether it’s place, event, a cultural aspect. It can vary by writer and by story. But I definitely believe that that’s an expectation of the historical fiction reader.
00:17:10
KimBoo
I’m thinking of, right now, because you were saying modern touchpoints is, I know that a subgenre of historical fiction is actually historical fiction about ancient Rome. Right? And that might as well be a different planet for how different the culture and the society was. But yet, they’re still human. And yet, there still are so many cultural touchpoints to ancient Rome that a lot of us, in Western society anyway, have that I think readers, like, if you write about ancient Rome, set in Rome, then you’re gonna have to have the Colosseum. I’m sorry. You just, unless it’s pre-Coliseum and they’re currently building it, you gotta have that. So it does make sense to me that no matter which era you’re writing about, those types of touchstones of expectations is what would ground the reader into the story.
00:17:59
Melody
For sure, I agree. And I, you know, in my current novel.
00:18:04
KimBoo
So what is your current novel set? Yeah, like we’re talking about it.
00:18:08
Melody
It’s in the early 1900s. I was inspired by my grandmother’s story when she immigrated over from Prussia, which is now the Ukraine. The very challenging thing, they were Germans from Russia. There’s actually a whole organization called Germans from Russia, and they settled a lot in the Midwest, in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. There’s both aspects of what was going on in the Russia at that time. The stirrings of the revolution were coming in. It was getting to be very severe, and Germans were considered inferior race of people back when communism was coming into power. So it was very brutal. And so people, the Germans began to immigrate again, and homesteads were promised.
So there’s that world, but then there’s also the world of what was happening in the US at the time that they came over. Railroads are newly built and what that meant and what that progress and development meant to people on the plains in the West. So there’s like almost two worlds there that the character is straddling and so working within those parameters. I knew a little bit about that history, but I really need to deep delve deeper into it and see exactly. I have very little written history from my family when they came and settled in the Dakotas. Now I’m researching that part deeper, and to create this space where there’s plenty of us alive that can remember, or at least remember from our history, what was going on back in that time. But younger generations may be totally unfamiliar with that level of the history and what people went through to just actually come and build a home.
00:20:27
KimBoo
I mean, I gotta admit, as a science fiction and fantasy author, I think I have it easy. If I want to create a history of boats, then I’m just like, well, I can pick what kind of boats they have. You guys got so much research to do. It’s like homework. Why would you do that to yourself?
00:20:47
Gina
That’s funny you say that, because as I’m listening to Melody, I’m thinking, so the difference really between someone like science fiction, fantasy author versus historical fiction is the— So you use, you entirely use your imagination to create your world because it is all made up. I mean, granted, you may pull from reality, but it’s imagination. Whereas the historical fiction writer is heavily reliant on the research skills.
00:21:28
KimBoo
That’s a huge difference. That’s a huge difference.
00:21:29
Gina
Yeah. And sure, we get to use our imagination when it comes to the characters. And like I said, I’m creating this completely fictional town to set my stories in. But the worldbuilding aspects that have to be plausible, no matter the genre, in some arenas, some genres it’s going to take your imagination, and in others, it’s going to take lots of research.
00:22:00
KimBoo
I think one of the things that all of this brings together for me is the strategies that we use for integrating worldbuilding. I don’t want to say seamlessly, but how we integrate it into a narrative without overwhelming the reader, which I think is something that we were talking about when talking about fantasy books such as Hands of the Emperor, which I do love, but it is such an immersive experience that it can be very overwhelming and put some readers off. I know that one of the reasons that I don’t like a lot of historical fiction is because there’s so much info-dumping. Right?
00:22:34
Melody
oooh.
00:22:34
KimBoo
It’s like, I just, I don’t. So, okay, the hilarious part, and everybody is now going to call me a major hypocrite, is that one of my favorite authors is Patrick O’Brian, who is notorious. Right, right. Notorious. He writes in the Napoleonic era. It’s historical fiction, Napoleonic era tall ship stories. Right? If you’ve seen Master and Commander, the movie, that was based on one of his books, and he is notorious for info-dumping. Pages and pages of info-dumping. And yet there’s an element of it that’s just so fantastical to me that I can, even if I have no idea what a forecastle is, I can still just suspend disbelief, you know, and read through it, because the characters, I love the characters. I want to see what happens next, and I know that this worldbuilding affects their lives. As someone who’s writing in a world that is one step removed from ours—you are writing in the ’60s and the early ’70s; I know most of your work is in the late ’60s—how do you just not info-dump? Because you know, a lot of your readers, even if they know, like the hippies in the ’60s and the politics, they weren’t alive for that. That’s something that they’re not familiar with. How are you integrating that into your story without just doing a Wikipedia entry?
00:24:01
Gina
Well, you know, as an editor, I always discourage info-dumping. However, bringing up the example of Patrick O’Brian, it really, I think, is in the author’s best interest to know what really captivates them as a writer and the kind of reader that they want to attract. Because, obviously, from Patrick O’Brian’s readership, there are people out there who love that kind of info-dump. For me, as a writer, that would be excruciatingly painful to write. And so, thinking about what kind of book is it that you do want to write and who, what kind of readers that you want to attract is going to affect how much of that sort of info-dumping that you do.
But I think that what you said about knowing that the info-dumps that he does, that all of those things affect the character, is really the ultimate key. You don’t want to throw in a bunch of stuff about a historical era when it has nothing to do with what’s happening with your characters or what they have to do or the decisions that they have to make, because then it does become a true info-dump. What differentiates for me those kinds of details from being an info-dump is how relevant they are to the story and the characters.
I’m reading a novel now who, the author Glenn Taylor, who was my instructor at the Appalachian Writers Workshop back in July, he does a masterful job in The Marrowbone Marble Company of interweaving historical with his story and characters. There are very subtle touches of historical events, historical elements that he introduces early in the story. I didn’t really think of it so much, even as a historical fiction novel, even though it starts back in ’41 and he talks about the war and those kinds of things, but I was so involved in the characters that I wasn’t really thinking of it as historical fiction until I got to about the last one quarter, where the characters really are involved in the events of the time.
I think from a writer standpoint, you have to decide how much research you want to do, how the historical elements are really relevant to your characters, so that when you do your worldbuilding, whether it’s place or clothing and fashion or the fads of the time or whatever, that you’re not just throwing stuff in there to be able to throw stuff in, that it’s got to be relevant to your world.
00:27:04
KimBoo
I think that’s so true with some of the science fiction and fantasy authors that I’ve bailed on in the past is that they become so enamored of the worldbuilding that they forget to tell the story.
00:27:14
Gina
Yes.
00:27:17
KimBoo
I think that could happen to all of us. Yeah, so that’s such a good point to make is how relevant it is to the characters because, yeah, I hadn’t really thought of that that way with Master and Commander. But the men are basically trapped on these boats, right? It’s kind of like the Starship Enterprise. They’re trapped on these boats for such extended periods of times that understanding how the boats work and how they’re put together and how they’re taken apart is really critical to understanding their concerns and their worries and the things that they do along the way. I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but that’s why I care. That’s why things are put together on a boat in 1810. Otherwise it has no effect on my life. But I do care.
00:28:06
Gina
Well, and I think there’s the, and this is all related to the relevancy, of course, but I think too there’s the consideration of what is it that you need to convey to the reader to help them understand the context of this world that they may not be familiar with, whether it’s imaginary or real. What is it that they have to have in order to really put all the puzzle pieces together to kind of get what’s happening?
00:28:35
KimBoo
And what do you think that would be in Dancing at The Orange Peel? What would you consider to be one of the critical worldbuilding elements that you’ve used in that story?
00:28:47
Gina
Well, for me, and I think it’s one of the things that I’m struggling with still, is conveying the difference, conveying what the thinking was at the time around race and there was such a—I mean there still is today, of course—but there was such a division of—gosh, and I hate to say ‘of course’—but there’s such a division in the way people think about race and their attitudes around it and really making sure that I’m staying true to that time. We’ve mentioned this to some degree before. Not overlaying today’s values and beliefs on those historical events, even down to the words that you use. I recently read a historical fiction that was set in a very particular place in a very particular time and by well-known writers, two writers, and it put me off because they used terms that were not used back in those days to convey concepts. The concept was there, but the words that they used to describe it were words we use today, not words that were used back then. And so that’s something that historical fiction writers, when they’re doing worldbuilding, have to consider that as well.
00:30:14
KimBoo
You know what, it’s also true for fantasy and science fiction worldbuilding, and what I thought of while you were talking is the word ‘laser.’ Because we use the word, “He had a laser focus.” Laser doesn’t exist in fantasy. It could exist in a science fiction world. But if you’re building a Tolkienesque fantasy second-world place, how does the laser come in? I recently wrote one and set it, one of my second-world fantasy series with very low tech, 1800s, “put the pedal to the metal.” No, there’s no metal to put the pedal to. That’s not how wagons work.
I think these are the similarities that we’re talking about when we’re talking about worldbuilding. No matter what your genre is, you may not think of it as worldbuilding, or you may be very invested in it as worldbuilding, but we have to understand that it really comes back down to the story and the characters and the world that they’re living in. That’s my takeaway anyway.
00:31:23
Gina
You can use those things as placeholders when you’re doing your draft until you can go back and refine it to make it more appropriate for the world that you’re creating. But you’ve got to be consciously aware of that. I did that in Dancing. I used the phrase, was it separation anxiety? Yeah, I think that was.
00:31:45
KimBoo
Oh, yeah.
00:31:45
Gina
They would not have used that back in the late ’60s, but it’s a placeholder for me until I can really entrench myself into the language of the time and make sure that I’m describing it in the way that they would have.
00:31:58
KimBoo
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s exactly the type of thing that I’m talking about. I could use ‘pedal to the metal’ in the draft, but all I’m saying is that they went very fast.
00:32:06
Gina
Yeah.
00:32:09
KimBoo
You might have noticed, listeners, that Melody has not been participating. She had some technical difficulties and had to drop off while Gina and I were busy yawing at each other. So I think we were going to wrap it up here. We invite your questions. I think we’ve hit most of the points that we wanted to hit. Gina, is there anything else that we need to wrap up?
00:32:29
Gina
Oh, you know, as with most topics that we pick, we could probably do three or four episodes on this. But to just kind of give the reader, give the listeners sort of an overview of the topic of worldbuilding. Yes. And we would love to have any kind of input or questions that listeners have, which they can do on our website.
00:32:48
KimBoo
Absolutely. Every episode has its own page on our website. You can submit questions there. We have a contact form. Also have transcripts, hand-done by Miss Gina herself, who painstakingly—she’s not so excited about it. We try to make it easy, but it’s not. That’s not a fun part of the process, but we do have that available for listeners. We’re very proud of that fact.
If you’re listening to this or watching this on YouTube, please leave a thumbs up and subscribe. If you’re listening to this on any of your other podcast distribution channels, please subscribe and give us a favorable review if possible. We will be coming back. We’ve got some interviews on deck. I will be interviewing Melody. Melody will be interviewing Trish McNulty. No, I said that wrong.
00:33:38
Gina
McEnulty.
00:33:39
KimBoo
McEnulty. Thank you. Trish McEnulty who is also a historical fiction writer, is she not?
00:33:44
Gina
She is.
00:33:46
KimBoo
Then we’ll also be doing some catching up. And believe it or not, it is. I know, I hate to break the news to you, Gina. It is October and the end of the year is coming soon.
00:33:59
Gina
Which means 2025 is right around the corner.
00:34:03
KimBoo
Exactly. So we will be having a recap episode sometime in December. So look forward to that. We are still going strong with this podcast and we love talking with each other and we love having you listeners, inviting you listeners in to join us on these discussions. So thank you for being here and we will be back. All three of us will be back at some point, but we will always be back soon. Thank you so much.
00:34:28
Gina
Bye, listeners.
00:34:32
Gina’s Pop
Thanks for joining us around the writer’s table. Please feel free to suggest a topic or a guest by emailing info@aroundthewriterstable.com. Music provided with gracious permission by Langtry. A link to their music is on our homepage at AroundTheWritersTable.com. Everyone here around the writer’s table wishes you joy in your writing and everyday grace in your living. Take care, until next time.
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