Announcing The Second Virtual Symposium: Let's Pick A Topic!  

Our first virtual symposium Participants List For The First Virtual Symposium Age And Amorousness was an incredible success! We had more than two dozen participants, all of whom posted (at more or less the same time) on a single concept. Takes included personal essays, fantasies, poetry, images collages, and even a statistical review.

More than that – and this really was the main success of the activity – a group of damned creative bloggers was exposed to each others’ work.

Let’s do it again! I’ve listed five topics, below: Voting is open to anyone, and once a single topic is chosen, all interested should post their interpretations on the morning of Saturday, Sept. 27. No matter which topic we ultimately choose, I hope folks will interpret it as broadly as befits their personalities.

On the morning of Sept. 27, I’ll start a placeholder post, and as participants put their contributions up, I’ll look for their notifications and incorporate links into that central post. Participants are encouraged to note in their posts that they’re part of a communal effort: Doing so allows someone who stumbles on one such blog item to enjoy as many of our pieces as he/she wants… and further strengthens a sense of virtual community.

The only two rules are: A ) Please post as early on the chosen day as possible, to allow for maximum exposure (and, quite frankly, so I’m not glued to my desk all day), and B ) the posts should be entirely original, as opposed to commenting on other posts from the topic. Ideally, posts should be created beforehand, and put on the site on the designated day. (The comments sections, of course, would be fair game!)

A suggestion: Participants may want to refer to either the virtual symposium or the topic itself in their headline. Not a requirement – there are no requirements, save for originality and participation – but a suggestion which will let the wide blog community know what we’re doing.

And… this is not a contest. No souvenir mugs will be sent, nor ribbons or bling awarded. The idea here is for those interested to, on a single day, offer an interpretation of a single topic for the sheer fun of it.

By all means, encourage other bloggers to participate – and to let me know they’re doing so, either through this post or via email, so on Sept. 27 I can link to their posts.

So what topic will we use for the second virtual symposium? I’ve listed five, below – I think they’re general enough that, whichever one we end up choosing, most folks should be comfortable offering reactions. Feel free to electioneer in the comments, below, for any you find particularly compelling.

Voting for the topic will close at end-day on Saturday, Sept. 20.

Thank you in advance for your participation! And yes, reading and enjoying counts as participation. Pick that topic!

Voting is now closed... the topic of the next virtual symposium, which will be held on Sept. 27, is "Difficult Discussions"!