eLit Camp

December 15, 2009
Stacey Mason

eLit Camp 2009 this past weekend was a great success. We had a very interesting mix of people, ranging from well-known hypertext scholars to writers to board game developers.

Bill Bly gave an excellent presentation of We Descend Volume 2, sharing some interesting passages as well as giving terrific insight into the writing and brainstorming processes.

J. Nathan Matias previewed his work-in-progress, Emberlight, an online system for sharing Tinderbox files in their various views.

George Landow gave a fascinating talk on model railroads and their relation to virtual worlds. Why, for example, do rust and dust feature so prominently in the best virtual worlds?

The weekend reached an emotional peak when Steve Ersinghaus and John Timmons discussed The 100 Days Project . And, on top of all of that, we got to preview Aaron Chase's fun (and literate) new board game about drunken adventurers.

Big topics for discussion included ☙ the formal properties of IF and their relation to hypertext fiction, argumentation, and stretchext ☙ hypertext in the classroom ☙ the mark of time in new media. We wrapped up the weekend with a fascinating performance of Punchdrunk’s brilliant hyperdrama, Sleep No More.

The weekend was a great experience. I went in looking for new ideas and left with vexing questions that I’m very excited about trying to answer. That alone makes the weekend a success in my book.

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