The 2022 festival is wrapped up, and I have some maybe unexpected news. Checking my email archive, it’s now been almost exactly a decade since Greg Boettcher announced he was looking for a successor to take over the festival in a future season. The Thing was near and dear to my heart (I’d released some of my first games in it) and I started talking with Greg about the possibility of becoming the new organizer.
In the years since I have loved keeping the Spring Thing going, seeing it grow, and getting a chance to meet so many great authors and help shepherd over a hundred wonderful new interactive stories into the world. But ten years is a long time, and this might be a good off-season to start thinking about passing this baton.
So: long-running interactive fiction festival seeks reasonably bright-eyed and passably bushy-tailed new organizer to manage annual event. Some more details about what you’d be signing up for:
-
I’d estimate running the Thing requires a committment of about 80-100 hours of work each year (a bit more on a year you’re adding any new features), most of it in Nothern Hemisphere spring (March through May).
-
Expenses are fairly low (mostly just web hosting), and I’d be happy to leave a successor with some runway of pre-paid domain registration etc.
-
The Thing may now be big enough that having multiple organizers would be helpful (although I think it’s most likely to survive and thrive with a single person at the head of the ship). To that end, I’m definitely open to the option of being co-organizer with someone for a transition year.
-
The candidate would need some familiarity with both the front-end and back-end of running a website. The current tech stack is straightforward but aging, with static HTML/CSS pages, server-side Python and SQL, and local Python and NodeJS scripts that help with generating game listings, prize assignment, and other admin tasks. Other useful skills: familiarity managing mailing lists, light graphic design skills (festival logos, resizing cover art etc.), light Excel/CSV data wrangling, attention to detail.
-
I’d prefer candidates who’ve been around in an IF community for at least a couple years, plan to be around for at least a couple more, and are willing to commit to being the regular organizer for a time (i.e. for more than just one season).
I see the Thing’s core mission as creating a welcoming place for emerging interactive fiction writers to show their work, and to be a less stressful venue to show new work than IF Comp. The next organizer will doubtless bring their own vision for the festival to the table, but I’d love to see that core mission continue to thrive.
Folks are welcome to comment here, but please PM me or email aaron at springthing dot net if you’re interested in chatting about possibilities. Here’s hoping together we can keep this Thing going!
– Aaron