…and yet, across the gulf of space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded our planet with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.
War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells 1898
A war is coming. A war of intellect and talking and stuff, and everyone’s invited to pick up a premise and start shooting. On the 8th of December, 12 people all aged under 30 will gather at the British Library, where they’ll have a scant 15 minutes each to talk about how to save advertising. I’m gonna speak there, and I’ve already got little butterflies hatching in my stomach.
But that’s not the point. Skip everything else and read this bit.
On the day, there will be an open mic section for people aged 25 and under. In this, you’ll have just three minutes to speak on the theme “I believe”. In front of lots of incredibly smart people. It would be no exaggeration to say that doing exactly this sort of thing was how I got into advertising in 2009. If you’re up to it, this could be your break. If you’re not, do it anyway and learn something.
How to get in: entrants are asked to send a 300 word (max! I think your idea should be powerful enough to get into 150) essay on what you’d talk about, to wotw@huffingtonpost.com. Here’s the catch: the deadline is end of tomorrow. Just sit down with a cup of tea and bust it out, I know you can.
Well! I never expected such a response. Thanks! People found different things to like in different stories, and some seemed to crystallize both people’s love of the festival and their contempt for it, at the same time. Which is cool, because it’s a complicated beast to understand.
Anyway, here’s the point: a few people have asked me to write more, but they’re not mine to write. Many people were there, with many viewpoints. And many of us weren’t there and have equally valid takes on the subject.
So here’s what I want you to do: the Twelfth Story is yours. Yes, you. You get the gist of what I’ve been doing below but really, let’s throw it open. Any kind of short piece, a description, dialogue, whatever helps put across a sense of how you saw it, let’s have it. At the top of the page is a link called Your Twelfth Story. Click that, write your story, and let’s see if we can make a time capsule of SXSW - as fiction.
(We’ll leave it open across the weekend, and the winner - if such a thing exists - will get something nice from me)
