It’s right impossible for me to explain the wonderful day that I had today in Liverpool but I’ll try my best. It’s been weird roaming around the tech halls without recognizing any faces; a feeling that I’ve not had in years.
But it’s a good reminder that my little neck of the tech woods is actually much bigger now. It’s also a reminder that I’m not crazy as Alex Fleetwood, one of the members of my panel with whom I just shared a cab ride, said: “It’s brilliant that you as a Wired writer, lecturer who lives in Kentucky has the exact same perspective on this as a guy who does theater and video and lives in London. It reassuring.”
Exactly.
Despite the strange surroundings and unsure footing, my day was filled with absolutely brilliant conversations about the future of storytelling. I’ll never do it justice — my words are not up to par for that — but I’ve never felt better and more assured of the future of my craft than I do right now.
Our Telling Tales panel about the future of narrative was, by all accounts, a success. I never quite trust the praise, but several folks tracked me down throughout the evening to discuss stories. (And as Nina, my new favorite theater person and my train buddy back to London, said: “I love the juxtaposition of your accent and your saying really high class things.” She meant that as a compliment.)
The best conversation, which lasted all day and is being scheduled to continue in London, was with Mark Earls, the conference keynote. I’m actively recruiting him to write for Making Digital, the book I’m working on editing with Carnegie Mellon’s ETC Press.
And there were several brilliant book interviews, including Jeremey from Penguin and Dan from Six to Start, each who have built amazing distributed storytelling platforms that I’m convinced will alter — in some small manner — the ways we can tell stories.
Katz, the coordinator, was kind enough to let me tag along to the Egg Cafe, a vegetarian restaurant a few blocks from the conference. Also along for the ride was Fiddian, a fascinating digital artist who works in the education space.
Post dinner, we all convened to Chayla, a little bar next door. There I hung out with Alfie (another panelist), Alex, Katz and the gang. I also had a lovely chat with the aforementioned Nina, Rebecca from LoveTV, and Rhiannon from Milkytea.
We even had a chance to watch the finals of The Go Game, moderated my Mai.
I’m exhausted now and I’m not sure how much I’ll get to post tomorrow. I have some interviews lined up and then Nina and I are off to the train (with Katz and Fiddian, I think). There’s no Internet in my room in London so we’ll see how the postings go.
I’m already sad that the conference ends tomorrow and equally sad that I only have 5 days in London. I’ve met so many wonderful people from this part of the world this year (don’t worry parents, I don’t think that move will happen anytime soon). So many plans for the upcoming travels to London.
