Category Archives: Conferences

The Emerging Writers’ Festival…(& podcasts, interviews, and reviews…)

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The Emerging Writers’ Festival just launched their program, so it’s time for the obligatory spruiking blog-post.

I’m running a 2-hour writing for games workshop with Express Media on May 22nd from 2-4.  Details here.  I’m going to cover the key similarities and differences between games & more traditional media and how to approach the process of games writing.

I’ll also be on the panel ‘Never Surrender’ on May 29th at 1:45.

Never surrender
Writing isn’t all about success stories! Join our writers as they speak candidly about rejection, creative risk-taking and projects that took ten years from creation to publication. Why do they stick with it, and is it all worth it in the end?
With — Paul Callaghan, Elizabeth Campbell, Sean Condon and Dee White. Hosted by Simonne Michelle-Wells.

And 20 minutes before the program launch, I was interviewed for the Arts Alive program about my experiences with the festival and why I think it’s a Good Thing(tm).  (Summary: Writers > Readers for inspiration!)

Thanks to Lisa Dempster, I was at last month’s Format Festival in Adelaide talking about writing & technology on the Non-Paper Publishing panel.  One of the other speakers, Estelle Tang, recently interviewed me about games writing for the Kill Your Darlings podcast.  You can listen to it here.

And lastly, I reviewed The Pleasures of Computer Gaming for RMIT‘s Second Nature Journal.  You can read that review here.

Writing for games workshop…

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I’m running a writing for games workshop with Express Media and the Emerging Writers’ Festival on May 22nd.

Details from the Express Media site are:

Express Media in partnership with the Emerging Writers’ Festival presents:

How To Write Computer Games with Paul Callaghan, 2-4pm. The Wheeler Centre, 176 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.

$10

Games, like all mediums, have their own strengths and weaknesses as a storytelling medium. This workshop takes a look at what makes games tick, what you can learn from traditional forms, and what you should know about the expressive power of mechanics.

link

And so it begins…

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2010 is shaping up to be a pretty interesting year…

I’ll be at the Format Festival – Academy of Words in Adelaide on March 13th. Definitely talking about non-paper publishing, but might also be chairing something else. Details here.

I’m also taking part in the next Meanland event – Reading in a Time of Technology – on May 19th at the Wheeler Centre.  Details here.

And, lastly,  I’ll once again be talking at the Emerging Writers’ Festival, sometime from May 21st to May 30th.

The season of acronyms…

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As the year scrabbles to a close, the steady stream of conferences and presentations comes to an end.

World Congress of Science and Factual Producers

On Friday December 4th, I took part in a speed-networking event at the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers.  What was interesting about this was being able to step away from the traditional pc/console space and think about new opportunities to use games and games technology.

In talking to the directors and producers, I had the thought that perhaps games were closer to documentary features than to narrative features.  The topics explored – happiness as a contagion that can be tracked using network theory, or a man who built his own 300-million search-and rescue empire – were built on the film-maker exploring the world, creating theories, and constructing the narrative as they go, which is a clear analogue for what players do in games.

Not to say that there isn’t room for narrative in games, but modelling gameplay & the reveal of narrative in more of a documentary style might prove to be a useful template.

Game Connect Asia Pacific

Or GCAP as it’s less mouthfully known, took place at Crown from December 6th – 8th.  I gave two presentations – one on games and games literacy (which was attended by only 5 people due to a last minute room change) and one on the creative process of writing and how that applies to games.  Due to meetings and general schmoozing (and also pulling together my writing presentation), I saw almost none of the conference itself (other than Tim Stellmach’s keynote & the indie games that I was judging), but came away with the overall impression that from an art & design perspective, the content was unfocused and weak – which is reflected in a single stream that contained all of the art, design, and audio talks.  As design is one of our local industry’s challenges, it would be nice to see an increased focus on it next year.

Details on the presentations after the fold.

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