Dr. Emily Friedman
@friede
Historian of storytellers. 18th century to today & beyond. J.W.Liles Prof of English Words: Polygon (RIP), LARB, etc Next book: THE ACTUAL HISTORY OF ACTUAL PLAY (#TTRPG digital storytelling performance) (MIT) ecfriedman.com (free)
I have fittingly keel-hauled my most offline friend to @criticalrole.bsky.social live show in Edinburgh. He has been forbidden from doing any research aside from knowing me for half my life.(he did look up @matthewmercer.bsky.social) I reserve the right to live-post his (spoiler-free) reactions.
As spotted in Toppings Edinburgh: Happy UK Book Birthday Roopsi! @roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roost is an app that uses virtual birds to send text. When your message arrives is based on distance between correspondents & bird-speed. It’s deliberate slowdown, provoking a different approach. But my 18th century-pilled brain notes it is still faster than how letters moved for much of history.
Thinking of my friend, I took my niece to Toppings in York and saw familiar names like @jacobgeller.com & @gregjenner.bsky.social and showed her where my own @mitpress.bsky.social book will hopefully be sometime next year…
Do I know someone in the DC area willing to introduce a bright 11.5 year old to Warhammer? (god help me)
My colleague-friend is very like me, and I came back to the UK last summer because I suspected/feared the conference we were scheduled to attend would be her last. She brought her sister & niece along. Today I am spoiling the hell out of my small niece in a city I adore. Tomorrow is not promised.
How long have I known and loved both this city and doofus Laurence Sterne and never seen this plaque until my bestie pointed it out?
My heart is exploding. I literally looked up from dinner with my family & saw two of my brilliant & wonderful PhD classmates (& kickball teammates) Aaron & Darcy who I haven’t seen in years & years. This trip has been a reminder of how much good comes unplanned. Roots grow deep in the dark.
Thanks to the 15ish folks who played @rowanrookanddecard.bsky.social DIE in the format @kierongillen.bsky.social has used for convention panels. For the first time, here at @uofgfantasy.bsky.social I ran it as a meta academic conference panel.
Slightly less pained in at least some of the photos from my experimental reading at Manchester Game Centre alongside my 18/19C colleague @drbeard79.bsky.social & TTRPG thinker-designer @babblegumsam.bsky.social
I spent years building infrastructure for book arts at AU — little grants into modest ones. By the time my baby — a refurb C&P press, painted in AU colors — arrived, my own teaching changed. Thank God, colleagues have built far beyond my dreams. I don’t work in metal & ink as much as people now.
Hello, Scotland. You remain beautiful and with WILD elevation changes.
It’s been a long time — for me, Stoppard, & the West End — but what a time, a moment to be reminded that there’s drama in what we can know — about the world, ourselves, each other. That it’s all science, all humanities — the vital, vital trivialities we take seriously to live fully.
Hey, hey. Today, could you tell someone — anyone — about a tiny thing you remember them doing that meant a lot to you? This isn’t about public displays of gratitude, really: send them a message, or call them, or if you’re lucky, tell them in person. Remind people of their best selves.
Happy birthday, Madame D’Arblay, better known as France Burney. Little mouse slow to talk, hypervigilant for good reason, loved carefully until she found a safe person to be reckless with, helicopter parent of a chess fiend, author of complicated love stories with violence & wit Austen didn’t dare.
Josef’s Book Beetle was then in development, & Auburn was one of the early places the prototype was demonstrated. His prints have pride of place in my home — if you’ve visited me, you’ve seen his work.
What’s one more book? Especially with my name on it (and my baby book’s hopeful name)
Long ago I did an MA in Writing Women in Britain and North America, 1740-1820 at the fledgling @cecs-york.bsky.social then housed in the shadow of York Minster at King’s Manor. Today I got to see CECS’s new spaces on campus. Now its Director is a peer who used to be near me at UGA.
Wild to think someday my book might sit here. (Also hi @brkeogh.bsky.social @mackeza.bsky.social )
I leave @voidspacezine.bsky.social as a Queen of the triumphant Diamonds, final Protector of the Child, as well as a infernal Chronicler, a loyal, loving dark Eagle, the Senior Researcher of Limerence Archeological Survey Task Force, & usual nerd on the road. Many thanks for the welcome.
It’s starting to be almost funny how often larp or TTRPGs end up with me playing nightmare versions of my job. @violetriotgames.bsky.social thinking of you a lot. (That and any time I see a clown nose, which is a lot right now)
It’s somewhat fitting I write this here, in London, where Sarah Fielding set her novel David Simple, a picaresque that wanders through London and Westminster “in search of a REAL FRIEND” Fielding was friends with Sam Richardson, a writer-printer who supported many women writers tangibly.