Submit your proposal now!

Deadline: 25 Feb 2025

2025 NMWP Annual Unconference

13-14 May 2025 – 100% Virtual (Zoom)

You are cordially invited to our third annual New Media Writing Prize Unconference. This two-day creative and critical participant-directed Unconference is hosted by Bournemouth University (UK) in partnership with the Electronic Literature Organization and the British Library. The Unconference will culminate in the awards evening for the New Media Writing Prize on 14 May 2025.

Unconference Theme: Collaboration

This year’s theme explores the intersections of digital collaboration, inclusivity, and creative innovation. How can we work together across disciplines and geographies to shape the future of digital media? We encourage proposals that address these questions through practical, hands-on activities and engaging discussions.

We encourage submissions that align with the collaborative, hands-on spirit of the Unconference. We are particularly interested in proposals for activities that emphasize participation, creativity, and discussion.

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: 25 February 2025, Midnight UTC.

How It'll Work

The Unconference will focus not on standard conference presentations, but on an “unconferencing” approach in which all attendees/participants discuss and agree on the agenda leading up to the event. We have only one hard and fast rule based on preceding unconference experiences: no single-presenter presentations longer than 7 minutes (the length of a pecha kucha). This includes artists’ talks.

The Unconference will have two types of participants:

  • Contributors who will contribute work, workshops, activities, events, or other elements to the Unconference. Contributors will be selected from submissions (more below), and will be named in the Unconference documentation. Think of Contributors as the equivalent of "presenting a paper" at a conference.
  • Participants who will take part in the activities and events. There is no need to submit a proposal to be a Participant. Think of Participants as conference-goers who attend talks and panels, but do not give their own.

We are seeking proposal submissions from Contributors: leading sessions, events, and/or activities at the unconference. These elements might include (but are not limited to):

  • Sharing works and projects in this area
  • Panel discussions of good practice and research-informed approaches
  • Creative panels and workshops generating new works and new approaches
  • Hack-a-thons to code activism bots for social media
  • Create-a-thon sessions for dedicated creation of works
  • Virtual galleries of digital literature for good
  • Virtual activist events

We acknowledge that some Contributors may need to “present a paper” to have the support (for fees and time) of their employing institutions. The Unconference will include sessions for titled paper presentations as needed, but in creative formats such as pecha kuchas (short presentations with timed slides); presentations as the basis for workshops; lightning talks; and other formats as suggested and agreed upon by the Contributors.

Contributors will determine the documentation for the symposium by submitting their academic requirements for publication and by voting. A section of the NMWP website is devoted to the Unconference, where works and schedules can be accessed. Where possible and permissible, sessions will be recorded, and the recordings made available on NMWP’s YouTube channel; this applies to elements like panel or roundtable discussions of good practice and presentations of works. Recordings will follow all privacy and accessibility best management practices.

Participants will not be merely attendees! The Unconference elements are intended to be workshops, roundtables, hack-a-thons, activist events, and other participatory sessions. We aim to have Participants create works and contribute to discussions; you just won’t have the responsibility of designing/hosting/managing elements. This is a great option for students new to digital literature, or folks who just want to play!

As this is not the main ELO conference, participants will not be limited in the amount of activities they can participate or present in. Our aim is to have all Contributors and Participants participate in every session. If a particular session is larger in attendance than anticipated, we will use breakout rooms to run activities in smaller groups in parallel.

How to Propose an Unconference Element

You tell us what you want to do. Not sure what you want to do? Send us what you’re passionate about, and some options we can throw out to the group to discuss. Your proposal doesn’t have to be perfectly formed and outlined—in fact, for the Unconference to work, it needs to remain flexible and open to others’ contributions and ideas.

Tell us what would inspire you to contribute and participate in this Unconference. What have you been yearning to do in a combined artistic-academic atmosphere that traditional structures prevent?

To propose an Unconference Element, go to our Proposal Form. You will need to provide:

  • Your name
  • Email
  • Requirements (if any) for institutional support
  • Description of your proposed element (2500 characters max). Please be sure to include any technical requirements to host and/or participate in your proposed element.
  • Accessibility requirements/requests
  • The time zone in which you will be working during the Unconference dates (13-14 May 2025)

Fees

We are aiming to keep costs low, since the event is fully digital and supported by institutions with relevant structures (e.g., Zoom). Fees are intended to contribute to maintenance of the NMWP website, hosting video archives of the event, creating a web gallery of works, as well as accessibility technology expenses (primarily live captioning and extended functionalities on Zoom). As an ELO-sponsored event, membership fees will also be required for participants and attendees (good for the entire year!)

  • ELO membership fee at approved membership levels (all participants): US$50 for faculty; US$25 for students/artists/precarious

PLUS:

  • Contributor (named and listed in program): US$90/GBP£75 for salaried academics and professionals; US$60/GBP£50 for students/precariously employed professionals; OR
  • Participant: US$30/GBP£25

Any fees collected in excess of Unconference costs will contribute to the New Media Writing Prize: Social Good category.

Unconference fee bursaries are available in exchange for assistance with unconference tasks.

Unconference Noncommittee

The following folks came up with these shenanigans, and will be at least partially responsible for the chaos that ensues:

  • Symposium/Academic Chair: R. Lyle Skains
  • Artistic Chair and Accessibility Coordinator: Deena Larsen
  • Tech Chair: Ken Alba

The Unconference Noncommittee are committed to the ELO Code of Conduct, and will conduct all activities in alignment with these values.