[Air-L] CFP: Unconference submissions close 15 March!

[Lyle Skains]

Call for Proposals: 2026 NMWP Unconference https://newmediawritingprize.co.uk/unconference/

12-13 May 2026 — 100% Virtual (Zoom)

Deadline: EXTENDED to 15 March 2026

You are cordially invited to contribute to our third annual New Media Writing Prize Unconference. This two-day creative and critical participant-directed Unconference is hosted by the New Media Writing Prize in partnership with the Electronic Literature Organization (https://eliterature.org/) and the British Library (https://www.bl.uk/). The Unconference will culminate in the awards evening for the New Media Writing Prize on 13 May 2026. (Register for the free/open to the public awards evening here: https://bournemouth-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/4OgsKI_LTjaCtCBH6EBsoQ)

Please see https://newmediawritingprize.co.uk/unconference/ for the full call for proposals and a link to submit your proposal.

Unconference Theme: Fight the Future
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"Fight the Future" frames interactive digital narrative as a site of resistance, rehearsal, and collective world-building in a time when “the future” is increasingly pre-scripted by corporate algorithms, patriarchal norms, political fascism, and extractive responses to climate crisis. By fighting the future, we do not mean rejecting futurity itself, but refusing inevitability: resisting default, dystopian trajectories and instead playfully, critically, and collectively co-creating alternative futures grounded in care, justice, and solidarity .

We invite playful, participatory, and experimental work and activities that use interaction, liveness, and co-creation to imagine and rehearse worlds otherwise — from small-scale narrative interventions to speculative systems and performative digital practices.

While AI is an unavoidable condition of contemporary digital culture, this Unconference is not an AI-only conference; rather, we welcome work that engages AI as material, constraint, collaborator, antagonist, or object of critique alongside broader explorations of interactive storytelling, social change, and collective imagination.

Examples of activities include:
* Live Co-Creation : Collaborative storytelling, netprovs, or group design challenges.
* Hack-a-Thon / Write-a-Thon : Thematic challenges that result in co-created outputs.
* Peer-Led Clinics : Hands-on sessions using accessible tools like Twine, GitHub, or creative software.
* Creative Networking Sessions : Innovative ways to connect participants (e.g., collaboration speed-dating).
* Dialogues in Digital Practice : Lightning talks based in a panel’s research or practice followed by facilitated discussion and creative responses.
* Thematic Breakouts : Discussions or activities exploring subthemes like accessibility or sustainability.
* Quickfire Interludes : Quick creative exercises (e.g., collaborative poems, brainstorming). Researchers could also use these for data collection — try things out on us!
* …and anything else you can think of!
Please note we’ll be limiting single-presenter presentations to 7 minutes or less. This includes artists’ talks.

Proposal submission deadline: EXTENDED to 15 March 2026, Midnight UTC. Please see https://newmediawritingprize.co.uk/unconference/ for the full call for proposals and a link to submit your proposal.

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The NMWP Opening Up voting is open!

The Opening Up Competition asks YOU to select your favorite from all entries that are eligible that have been submitted to the Main and Student categories of the New Media Writing Prize. Start your viewings and submit your vote!

Vote Now at https://newmediawritingprize.co.uk/opening-up-2025/


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