bite the dog days that bit you
Low humour in high summer... or is it the other way around? Anyway, here's what happened at Worldbuilding Agency this week.
Latest
week 30 / 2024
This week: in defense of theory, by way of Daoism... and against the imperatives of branding one's work and oneself.
a requiem for "The Future"
What is the object of the verb "to future"? What is its subject? And what are the implications of the answers to those two questions?
feeling out the format
Less a round-up of the last week on Worldbuilding Agency, and more an exploration of what such round-ups will likely look like, on weeks when things have actually happened.
week 29 / 2024
This week: ethnography-in-reverse as an analogy for narrative prototyping... and the infrastructurality of the scroll-wheel?
Week 28 / 2024
This week: the power of moving from mere analogy to full metaphor... and why sometimes one needs to simply start.
Week 27 / 2024
This week: why it's good to end a workshop when there's still energy in the room... and why it's good (for me, at least) to act the fool somewhat.
News
schedule adjustment notice
Hello, worldbuilders!
Just a quick note to let you know: it occurred to me this morning that my spending a bunch of time compiling weeknotes which don't get emailed to you, only to then spend a shorter amount of time two days later writing a short note alerting
hot in the city 2nite
Hello worldbuilders! It's 28°C in Malmö this afternoon, and it's reliably been around that temperature in the afternoon for close to a week now.
I quite like hot weather, really, but a lot of other folk are less keen—and I dare say I'
call it in, take it off
Hello, worldbuilders! It's been quiet here this last week, because around this time on the Sunday previous I started thinking "hmm, I don't feel so great", and by the evening I was feeling (as we Brits say) like death warmed over.
Hell knows what
less magic, more traffic
Hello, worldbuilders! It feels a lot like the roundabout just hasn't stopped spinning over the week just gone—and next week it's The Conference, which means the metaphorical carny will be reaching out his hairy hand to give it another good shove... which means there'
pass the vol-au-vents
Hello, worldbuilders! And welcome to those of you who've signed up in the last few days. Glad you could come—take a chair, get yourself a drink. How are things?
We've got no Actual Announcement this week; I would announce again that I've giving
the circus comes to town
Hello, worldbuilders! This is your weekly newsthingy... and we're gonna start with An Actual Announcement.
Talk and workshop: The Conference, Malmö, Mon 26th August 2024
I will be giving a talk entitled Wisdom for worldbuilders: fictions, futures, fandoms on the morning of Mon 26th August.
Said talk is
null but not void
Hello, worldbuilders! What's been happening at Worldbuilding Agency this week?
No essay or interview
Um, yeah—bit of an absence at the middle of the week, wasn't there? Sorry about that.
There's an interview in the pipe, but it's awaiting approval from
Weeknotes
week 18 / 2025
Dodging drunk kids, spurning pagan conflagrations—WEEKNOTES marches into May with flags unfurled!
This week, the grid goes down, but the work goes on.
week 17 / 2025
Looping the loops and riding the curves—a white-knuckle WEEKNOTES that only just came in to land.
This week, a wall is hit (albeit slowly), and "AI" is treated as normal.
week 16 / 2025
Hunching over the desk, hanging out with the wise animals—WEEKNOTES rocks out with the cherubs for a change.
This week, the social and the technical are inseparable, and ol' man Burroughs plays with scissors and celluloid.
week 15 / 2025
Paddling away from Calypso's island, claiming false identities in every encounter—the genre of WEEKNOTES is never merely a tale, but also its telling!
This week, it all adds up in the end, and Emily Wilson sets sail on the wine-dark sea.
week 14 / 2025
Organic patterns emerge from deterministic rules, causal connections go unnoticed—WEEKNOTES start the simulation and sees what happens.
This week, ecosystems get their freak on, and Solarists reach the edge of the rational.
week 13 / 2025
Dusty with fragments of citation and punctuation, blinking in the sudden light—WEEKNOTES emerge briefly from the word-mines!
This week, the nose goes the grindstone, and Toffler goes to China.
week 12 / 2025
Up and down the west coast with a head full of viral fog, over the bridge and back to a melancholy melody—WEEKNOTES keeps moving, even when they don't feel like it.
This week, the fort is held, and Scandinavian history is scattershot.