Instructor: Beth Daniels
Start Date: Monday, October 5, 2026
End Date: Friday, October 30, 2026
Type: Group.io
Duration: 4 Weeks
USD Fee: FF&P Member – $20; Non-Member – $25

NASA is planning to send Earthlings to the Red Planet – Mars – in 2035, though the current president wants to wave them farewell in 2033. Either way, the people who need to pack for the trip are likely to blast off in 2040 for a round trip that will take six to seven months travel time both coming and going. Considering it’s not a paradise sort of place, it seems they’ll be going just because it’s there. Though not exactly hospitable, Mars is a more “welcoming” place than Venus is.

It’s an exploratory expedition rather like those undertaken by Polynesians, Norsemen, Spaniards, the Portuguese, and, of course, the French and English. Well, the Dutch, too. Although they all travelled in ships on the various oceans of Earth.

It won’t take long for immigrants interested in a one-way trip to follow the same stellar road, though no other stars are involved.

That won’t always be the case, though, and as writers, we can go where no one has gone before, as Captain Kirk told us back in the 1960s.

Join me for an exploration of why Earth Immigrants might want or need to leave dear old Gaia, where they’ll be headed, what they expect to find, what’s likely to happen that does or doesn’t mirror the hopes and dreams of all the immigrants that have come before. While we’ll consider Mars, could be we head to Proxima b instead!

About the Instructor:

Beth Daniels’ career as a novelist had a slow start. Life got in the way, but by 1989 she had written and rewritten (several times from scratch) three books. One combination romantic comedy and romantic suspense, one romance with a ghost lending a hand, and a historical that took her characters across the Oregon Trail to the California turn off headed for Gold Rush San Franciso. As summer ended back in 1989, she got her first call from an editor who wanted to go to contract on a book. Within six months, all three manuscripts had sold, and she was on to cranking out further stories.

She’s gone by several pseudonyms in the 35+ years since her first book was released, and she’s jumped genres time and again. She took the leap to writing twisted comedic fairytales then to series with paranormal elements but still mystery and comedy stirred in while teaching dull old English composition at local colleges and being the live-in caregiver to her parents. Currently she writes urban fantasy mystery comedy in both short series form and novel length as J.B. Dane.

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