Imaginary Maps (iPhone Drawings)

Long time, no blogging. I wish I could say that I've been off on vacation, or doing something interesting and engaging, but I've mostly been preparing for classes, continuing to unpack (at a rate exponentially inverse to July, it seems), catching up on reading, writing, revising, and such.

I am once again riding public transportation regularly, including to and from work, and instead of my usual iPhone/iPad portraits (which I still am working on), I decided to do something different, returning to the sorts of projects I tried when I was much younger, one of which was imaginary maps. I even have a giant one I created when I was about 12 or so and under the spell of J. R. R. Tolkien; it could almost double as a board game, with a few changes. Here then are five imaginary landscapes. As you'll see, each suggests different linguistic principles (though all are transliterated, to the extent possible, into English letter, which is what's available on my ).

If any J's Theater reader wants to write a micro-piece (up to 1,000 words, say) based on one of these maps, do send it to me and I'll consider publishing it here. (Please: no vulgarities, no pornography, and no slurs against any group of people, sexism/racism/homophobia/transphobia etc will be allowed.) If you choose to do so, please try to discern and then maintain the linguistic principles the maps suggest.

MKLBGVRTJMBGZPLMBZLPKTWB

'AEAOUIS

din•ASTE (The Country of Aste)

T€=YE€K

LL"X"

nNdrh-tDhthrt (the Country of tDhthrt)