Clown, Conferences, and Complicité
Would you study tabletop game design with a nascent drag clown?
I am weird, and my life is weird. In this Substack roundup, I’ll be less essayistic than usual—but I want to tell you what I’ve been up to lately.
In summary, I’ve been clowning around NYC, running my mouth at conferences, and generally being a chaos goblin. Plus I’m teaching some cool indie classes and I hope you’ll come out to learn!
I Am A Clown
In my ongoing effort to excavate my ridiculousness for Art, in January and February, I took Clown I at Brooklyn Comedy Collective. The picture above is from our class show, in which I taught a “fitness class” and lived the research™ for the new novel I’m writing about cosplay and drag and queer performance.
God damn, I’m always writing a new novel.
Actually, though, I’m excited about this book in real and new ways. Since beginning to study clown and drag as a hobby, it’s transformed my writing, my teaching, my roleplaying, and the occasional scholarship I do on game design and play.
I don’t know if this is personal bias or a real trend, but I’ve noticed that clown seems popular as an aesthetic and practice lately. I wonder if it’s resonating because everything around us is failing so spectacularly. One squalid disappointment after another descends, making any joy feel comically absurd.
Maybe, then, we lean into it? In my life, this reasoning goes: Well, if you can’t be a professor, I guess you might as well get up there and show people what a bossy little shit you are, then exult in how much it makes them laugh!
To be honest, I am still a professor—of sorts. My spring Columbia class on Interactive Memoir is actually spectacular, one of those rare classes where the entire group is aligned, each student leveraging the unfolding discourse in their own miraculous ways.
Little do they know they’re studying Twine and creative nonfiction under the tutelage of a nascent drag clown.
Actually I think maybe they sort of know.
I Like to Talk
This could literally only be a clown talking. But also, this is me at the AWP Conference & Bookfair in Baltimore, MD in early March, attending for the first time in years and moderating a panel.
I had a great experience there, better than I’ve ever had—I think due to resilience acquired at endurance-fests like PAX Unplugged and Metatopia, plus accepting that I am, in fact, a bossy little shit. Why hide it? As a bonus, my co-designer / crush said I looked cool in this “power suit.” Nice!
A generous games journalist named Amanda Tien did a wonderful writeup of my AWP panel Poetry, Prose, and Play: Game Design as a Literary Practice, featuring Brigitte Winter, Sharang Biswas, Erin Roberts, and Dave Ring. The conversation was dynamic, intense, and inspiring.
Also, Scryptid Games tabled in the book fair, and we were slammed, ultimately breaking our record for direct sales at a trade show. It turns out there’s an appetite for nerdiness in the literary world. Who knew?
I did. I knew.
But I didn’t know, not really, how big that appetite was. So many people approached our booth with passionate interest—not just to buy games, but to talk game design, writing, and teaching. It felt incredible to be at the center of that creative storm!
In the coming months, I want to create more of that good, weird nerd energy. We’re clowning: seeking vulnerability, unpredictability, and collaboration—what my teacher at BCC, Tallie Medel, calls complicité.
For me, these values feel like new grounds for the radical pedagogy that I’ve been developing over the last 15 years: playfulness, yes, but with different emphases and embodiments. I’m looking forward to unfolding those more in my upcoming indie classes.
More Classes! More Classes!
I’m teaching two different indie classes this spring, and you’re warmly invited to attend both of them. Both are all-levels game design classes, welcoming for first-timers and for experienced game designers who want to work on something new.
New York City
March 22, April 19, May 17
1-3 PM EST
Twenty Sided Store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
In this three-session in-person workshop, we'll take inspiration from "weird" story games and other innovative indie titles to playstorm new game concepts, systems, and mechanics for narrative tabletop games.
You can attend the sessions individually, or join for all three.
Each class will involve an expansive game-studies discussion that investigates one or more contemporary TTRPGs. We'll delve into zines, pass around tactile components, and identify key pillars of design.
Then, either solo or in small groups, participants will be invited to hack or otherwise play with elements of the game(s) we've discussed—developing a piece of a larger tabletop game, or inventing an entirely new one. You will leave each session with a new design.
Online
March 29
3-5:30PM EST
On Zoom
In this one-session Zoom workshop, we’ll take inspiration from short TTRPGs written for anthologies, legendary one-pagers, and even business cards to playstorm game concepts and mechanics for new short games.
Writing a 1000-word (or less) TTRPG is the perfect challenge for a new tabletop game designer. For experienced designers, it’s an invitation to create something fresh. Together, we’ll investigate three short games, revealing mechanics, systems, and narrative tools aligned with elegance and brevity.
Then participants will be invited to hack or otherwise play with elements of the game(s) we’ve discussed—developing a promising concept for a new short TTRPG. By the end of this session, you’ll be well on your way to designing a submission for a future TTRPG anthology project, such as Tales from the Cryptids from Scryptid Games.