New Media Writing Prize Annual Unconference: Create-a-Thon: Creative Writing as a Tool for Game-Based Reading and Socio-Environmental Engagement

This Create-a-Thon invites participants to use playful, game-based textual remixing to creatively engage with fiction and environmentally-focused texts. Through individual and collaborative exercises, participants will deform, combine, and reimagine texts, blending emotion and critical thinking to explore literature’s relationship to the environment. Guided by internationally recognized projects like CoLaboArthon and Poetry Planet, the session fosters collaboration through ad-hoc teams, aiming to democratize literary creation and encourage active socio-environmental engagement. Outputs include co-created "Eco-memes," collective storytelling, and discussions on how writing can bridge creativity, activism, and policymaking, transforming writers into active agents of change.