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.
Latest
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.
nowhere to go but further in: a hypothesis of fandom intensity
The differences in dynamic between the fandoms of primary- and secondary-world media can tell us a lot about the micropolitics of future imaginaries.
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.
the scenario doesn’t know it’s a scenario: an interview with Madeline Ashby
Few folk are better equipped to understand the art of worldbuilding from both sides of the futures/fiction border than Madeline Ashby, who has a fully justified reputation for excellence in both aspects. Find out how she does it!
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 28 / 2025: the concretisation of metaphor
The tools of science fiction can be put to use in the storying of scenarios, but in such cases, they are means to a somewhat different end. How might we usefully describe that distinction?
week 27 / 2025: on models and literacies
"All models are wrong, but some models are useful"—so the saying goes. But how are they wrong, and how are they useful? And what does that mean for thinking about futures?
week 26 / 2025
The hollyhocks stretch toward the sun, and WEEKNOTES wanders the backstreets to bask in their colours...
This week, a fictional bishop transmigrates, and the Green Revolution is reassessed.
week 25 / 2025
The sun sinks behind the prow-stone, and WEEKNOTES sail on toward the summerland...
This week, a solstice is observed, both figuratively and literally, and the up/down axis gets an airing.
week 24 / 2025
WEEKNOTES is on something like a holiday—so not much to see here for anyone but the serious completists!
week 23 / 2025
Making stories while the sun shines, enjoying the music of the muezzin—WEEKNOTES aspires to feline reincarnation!
This week, Eid is celebrated vicariously, and the philosophy of cats is revealed as a contradiction in terms...
week 22 / 2025
Trekking through the wilderness of story, traversing the desert of the Real—WEEKNOTES wander where they will.
This week, warfare is conducted through comics, and Canada goes its own way...