Podcast #31 is now available for download here.
In her lecture at Odyssey 2009, Patricia Bray explored the role of a sidekick in fiction. In this podcast, the first of two parts, Patricia defines a sidekick and explains the inherently unequal nature of the hero/sidekick relationship. Giving examples that illuminate the long literary tradition of sidekicks, Patricia identifies the genres that tend to have sidekicks and the differences between a protagonist’s sidekick and an antagonist’s sidekick. She explains why sidekicks are necessary in some stories and novels and the specific ways in which they can be used.
Patricia Bray is the author of a dozen novels, including Devlin’s Luck, which won the 2003 Compton Crook Award for the best first novel in the field of science fiction or fantasy. A multi-genre author whose career spans both Regency romance and epic fantasy, Patricia has had her books translated into Russian, German, Hebrew and Portuguese. She is a two-time co-chair of the Southern Tier Writer’s conference, and her articles on the writer’s craft have appeared in numerous publications, including Broadsheet, Nink, STARbytes, and RWA’s Keys to Success: A Professional Writer’s Career Handbook.
Patricia lives in upstate New York, where she combines her writing with a full-time career as an I/T professional, ensuring that she is never more than a few feet away from a keyboard. Her latest novel is The Final Sacrifice, the concluding volume in The Chronicles of Josan, which was released by Bantam Spectra in July 2008.
For more information about Odyssey, its graduates and instructors, please visit our website at http://www.odysseyworkshop.org.
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