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As of the time of writing this- the interview that Manon and I collaborated on for The Rosebush is entering the final pass of editor's comments and examination from Mike. Life hit us all like a sledgehammer after our last check in with each other on the work, but it's been super exciting to see it all come together now that we've had a collective moment to breathe.

Working with Mike has been a very pleasant process, and I'm happy that he was the editor we got to work more closely with on polishing and buffing up our interview for publication. It's really thrilling to be able to share a space with some of the authors I've long admired in the scene, like Chandler. (I have an especial soft spot for all of the fellow horror creatives sharing our corner of the internet.)

There are so many articles that I'd love to see on The Rosebush- as a long time fan of blogs, and someone who devoured every longform article or thinkpiece I could find from some of the IF Greats like Emily Short while first diving into the scene, I think it's fantastic for there to be a place where longer form, more theory minded pieces can be collected for everyone to read.

I do love the informality of spaces like my own blog, where I natter on about whatever floats to mind in a freeform, unstructured sort of way: but there is something delicious about assembling something more formal, something with a little more structure. And they make for fantastic openers while speaking to people about the IF community: check out some highlight reels!

Some ideas fired off from the hip:

• A piece on the art of translation from an author who has to straddle the linguistic divide and how to get across the feeling of a piece, even if it's not an exact one-to-one translation, because something is always inherently lost or modified in that exchange.
• Something on the role of player agency, or the lack thereof, when it comes to romancing characters who are distant to the protagonist- remotely alienated by either sociocultural norms constricting the boundaries of their relationship (client-provider) or their bodies (robots and humans) ala Computerfriend.
• The role that improv theatre and TTRPGs playing things by the ear, and collaborative exploration shapes characterization and IF works based off of synthesizing multiple authorial voices and the role that an ultimate canon plays, if at all.
• The shift from the AFGNCAAPC to either more customizable or generally fleshed out, pre-set characters and the cultural norms that influenced that move in different IF communities.
• The popularity of horror with LGBT authors- particularly body horror- (how monstrous desire and identity is reclaimed and sublimated into terrific sensuality,) and how that permeated the early Twine scene with trailblazers like Porpentine and modern authors following in that tradition, and so on...

In any case, I'll be gladly continuing to keep an eye on that space, and merrily reading through articles that bubble up onto their front page.