We Build Writers Who Build Worlds
Our Mission
To give every speculative storyteller the craft, the community, and the courage to finish the story only they can tell.
The Brainery began with a simple, slightly ridiculous idea: that the best way to learn science fiction is to write it, share it, and rebuild it — surrounded by people who love impossible things as much as you do.
Today we run cohort-based online workshops led by working sci-fi authors. Our classes are clear, practical, and just weird enough to keep your imagination honest. Wherever you are, whatever your trajectory, there’s a launchpad here for you.
The Team
Jilly Dreadful, Ph.D.
Jilly Dreadful writes feminist science fiction about cyborgs, mermaids, and the strange places where bodies and technology collide. Her first book, Cosmobiological: Stories, a hopepunk collection of short fiction, won the Sundress Publications Prose Manuscript Contest in 2020. Her work has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine and She Walks in Shadows, the first all-female Lovecraft anthology that won the World Fantasy Award. Her short stories have been longlisted by Ellen Datlow for Best Horror of the Year, received honorable mentions for Best Science Fiction of the Year, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She’s written the libretto for the chamber opera, Light & Power: A Tesla/Edison Story, which was performed in Boston. Her hypertext dissertation, The Spectral Dollhouse, was published by The New River and subsequently archived by The Library of Congress as an important digital work. She has a Ph.D. from University of Southern California (you could call her Dr. Dreadful, but she’s not that kind of doctor) and is a member of SFWA.
Founder, Instructor
Kira Lees is a writer and lifelong story-lover who has spent most of her life surrounded by books, one way or another. She holds a BA in English from William Smith College and has had short fiction published in two anthologies, Rough Magick and Swords & Sonnets.
After a stint in the ordinary world of paper-pushing and data entry, Kira found her way back to what she actually loves: using her wide-ranging knowledge of narrative structure and storytelling, across traditional and non-traditional forms alike, to help other writers find and tell the tales already living inside them.
Instructor, Cohort #000