week 02 / 2025
The winter is deep and dark, and the forest is frightening—but we've fire on which to cook the quarry, and light by which to write the WEEKNOTES. This week, the hunt is begun once more, and the optimal forsworn.
Latest
dimensions of experience: a (very) preliminary theory of futuring
By considering futures as narratives, we open up the possibility of a comparative analysis of the many different modes (and media) of the practice of futuring. This unlocks in turn the further possibilities of collaboration, remix and critique, across and between those modes.
week 01 / 2025
I did not spend this week sat in a bosky grove, reading aloud a saucy missive to my BFF and a nosy goat... but, truth be told, it might have been better if I had?
This week in WEEKNOTES, a well-known lesson is relearned the hard way, and darkness descends upon the academy.
week 52 / 2024
Wandering around the city graveyard, gloved hands deep in the pockets of your long, dark coat—old goths never die, they just start writing WEEKNOTES. This week, biology is hacked (and punked), and a gold-rush refused.
week 51 / 2024
Snoozing on a tree-branch, dreaming of tasty, crunchy mice—OK, so maybe the owl is not the shoo-in candidate for WEEKNOTES spirit-animal that I thought it might be. (That said, NO REGRETS!)
This week, pods have been casted and loose ends tidied, and interiority is explored.
week 50 / 2024
Slaughtering a pig in the village high-street, making barbed asides about "AI" filler images—looks like WEEKNOTES are dealing with the shortest days of the year with the usual cheery bonhomie! This week, a psychopomp is performed, and the commons turn out to be less tragic than you've been told.
deliberate oxymorons: an interview with Bruce Sterling (part 1)
In the first part of this two-part interview, OG cyberpunk Bruce Sterling discusses the pursuit of deliberate oxymorons as a creative strategy, worldbuilding in the context of history and futurity, Berlusconi on the moon, and much, much more.
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 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.
week 11 / 2025
No ornate ironies and allusions this week—just a pared-down back-to-basics WEEKNOTES, because I am sick as a dog and it's all I can manage.
week 10 / 2025
There and back again, running the risk and riding the rails—WEEKNOTES takes a trip to That London.
This week, the Chronoberg Chronicle meets its moment, and Discworld trumps Middle Earth in almost every way.
week 09 / 2025
From dead giraffes to post-apocalyptic monastics—WEEKNOTES lays it all out on the sidewalk, and lets the kids watch, too.
This week, the world is (so much) more-then-human, and fiction is (so much) more than a signal of its author's morality.
week 08 / 2025
Be it the guitar music of the post-Millenial moment, or the market shenanigans of the same period—WEEKNOTES dare look back as a way of looking forward!
This week, economics is sacred, and fixes are virtual rather than spatial.
week 07 / 2025
Old oak bears weight across a sea of years, its splits like lines in a face that's really seen some stuff—but what would it know of WEEKNOTES?
This week, wands are threefold bold and bright, a trilogy comes to an end, and Ted lays down the law.