Ad Astra Courses
- to the stars through stories -

Speculative fiction has long captured the public imagination, offering perspectives extending into the deep past and far future, across alternate timelines or universes, beyond Earth, and into lived experiences of The Other. Expanding horizons across cultures or species, time, and distance enables audiences to explore and imagine concepts, hopes, fears, and wonders otherwise out of reach. By embodying the unknown in human narratives, SF helps audiences overcome fear of change and drives innovative thinking. Stories move hearts and souls, building empathy for The Other, even as it draws attention to real-world problems, dramatizing important issues and hypothesizing "if this goes on..." Because of this, we believe that no art holds greater potential for changing civilization for the better than speculative fiction.

Faculty and staff of the Ad Astra Institute for Science Fiction & the Speculative Imagination offer many courses, workshops, talks, seminars, and other educational offerings in speculative fiction literature, culture, scholarship, and creative writing. Most are available in-person or hybrid live/online in Lawrence, Kansas, and abroad. And of course we continue to offer our residential Science Fiction Summer program established in 1985 - back in-person in 2023 for the first time since the start of the pandemic!

We're so excited to launch our year-round AdAstranaut program. It's designed to provide the deepest, broadest, most comprehensive education for folks who want to learn how to write, understand, and teach spec-fic - essentially, we've designed the optimal program we would have wanted for ourselves when we first began our journey into the SF universe. And now tech allows us to offer most of these courses globally, live and asynchronously. So unless you require an MFA to teach writing at a university, save yourself the time, stress, and ever-growing expense of attending a college program and consider enrolling in our offerings. Also, unlike graduate university programs, we'll help you build the create skills and understanding needed to publish rather than just land a teaching job in an ever-shrinking college market. And of course all our offerings are useful as continuing education for teachers - that's where many of our courses started.

Where available, you can find linked syllabi, as we see it as our duty to open-source our educational opportunities - after all, we're working to "Save the world through science fiction!"

"I firmly believe that the speculative-fiction mode of enquiry offers our best hope for understanding the diversity of human experience and helping build a better shared future. If you don't need an MFA (and good luck finding one that specializes in speculative fiction - or even allows or understands it), consider taking our workshops and becoming an AdAstranaut!"
- Ad Astra director McKitterick

Diversity, Inclusivity, & Commitment to Equity

At Ad Astra, everyone enjoys equal access to our offerings, and we actively encourage students and scholars from diverse backgrounds to study, especially those from marginalized or disadvantaged communities. Many of our other courses are available to be taken in hybrid format (if space is available) to help enable those who might not be able to attend in person to participate, and we happily make accommodations to enable everyone to enjoy the fullest experience. We also believe that earning an education should not depend on financial privilege, so we offer scholarships to enable everyone to participate - we especially encourage people from historically under-represented groups to apply for our courses and scholarships.

Degree status is irrelevant; we only require a drive to better understand and create great speculative fiction. Autodidacts welcome!

Click here to read our thoughts on diversity and inclusivity, and our commitment to equity.

Scholarships

Many of the most promising writers, scholars, and educators don't enjoy the same privileges as others. We strive to level the playing field so everyone - regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, income, nationality or immigrant status, physical ability, neurodiversity or mental-health status, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or marital, parental, and veteran status - has equal opportunity for admission to our educational programs, and equal access to our activities.

By making our offerings affordable to those who might not otherwise be able to attend, we hope to increase accessiblity for all while offering a broad, diverse set of writing instruction for attendees dedicated to growing their creative skills and STEM knowledge. We offer a safe space for the diversity of people who attend our events and educational programs.

Learn more about our scholarships here.

Donate to Ad Astra

The Ad Astra Institute is a registered not-for-profit 501(c)3 educational, arts, and research organization chartered in Kansas. You can support our scholarships and activities by making a charitable donation to help others attend the workshops who might otherwise not be able to - your donation is fully tax-deductible! Thank you so much to our donors and supporters. You make all this possible.

updated 12/29/2024