Overview

Space provides a unique opportunity to imagine different futures not driven by the extractive paradigm that has fueled humanity’s expansion across the planet. Economists are already thinking about sustainable, non-exploitative economic models for space. The question is how do we get these thoughts into the broader consciousness so that they can shape policy and conversation.

When we look at the stories told, they often model futures based on what has historically worked on Earth. However, space is not populated and has no ownership setup. By empowering storytellers to imagine worlds and futures with new economic models, we can use the power of narrative to bring sustainable, non-exploitative economic models for space into the public consciousness and into the conversations about policy. Such thinking could, of course, also inform novel approaches to economic paradigms for Earth.

Thus we offer the Space Economics Camp of writers.

The purpose of this camp is to equip storytellers with a solid foundation of heterodox economic theory that can drive new and expansive world-building based on sustainable, non-exploitative economic models for space. The facilitators of the camp will be experienced writers with a demonstrated talent for world-building. Through a combination of economics lectures from creative economic thinkers with world-building sessions, facilitators will guide the participants through exercises incorporating economic themes from lectures to create shared worlds demonstrating new economic models.

These themes will focus on heterodox economic thought in the areas of property ownership regimes, money, production, consumption, and managing commons. The workshop will culminate with group presentations of shared worlds, which can be used as the basis for new fiction, plays, films, or games that would expose the larger world to these sustainable non-exploitative models for space economies.

The camp will run from November 9th at 3 PM until November 12th at 3 PM. We have 20 spots available for writers and we are hoping for a diverse group of short-story, long-form, game writers, screenwriters, content creators, and more! If you are a storyteller who is excited about expanding your knowledge of economics and applying that to your world-building then this camp is for you!

It is also not limited to science fiction writers. Space can mean any sort of speculative world you are creating.

Accepted writers will have their attendance, lodging, and food covered by the camp and will only financially be responsible for travel to and from the hotel and event venue. Please see below for more details.

Your Hosts

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of The Spare Man, The Glamourist Histories series, Ghost Talkers, and the Lady Astronaut Universe. She is part of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses and has received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, four Hugo awards, the Nebula and Locus awards. Her stories appear in Asimov’s, Uncanny, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Mary Robinette, a professional puppeteer, also performs as a voice actor (SAG/AFTRA), recording fiction for authors including Seanan McGuire, Cory Doctorow, and John Scalzi. She lives in Nashville with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters. Visit maryrobinettekowal.com

J M Applegate is an Assistant Research Professor at Arizona State University's School of Complex Adaptive Systems and Co-Lead of the School's Complexity Economics Lab. She has graduate degrees in Nuclear Physics and in Applied Mathematics for Life and Social Sciences. She studies fundamental dynamics of economic systems, especially the inherent contradictions in production and allocation regimes or monetary exchange and debt systems. She mostly employs generative computational modeling techniques, though also data science and machine learning as appropriate. She believes that economies are emergent and adaptive structures arising from the interplay of material realities and social decisions and in the importance of sustainable individual agency and subsidiarity.

Kim Macharia, Executive Director of Space Prize, began her career in the space industry managing community relations for startups. She has worked on a range of projects including space situational awareness and private spaceflight. Kim has also had the privilege of representing companies at international events including the UN World Space Forum. Throughout her career, she has made a concerted effort to advocate for marginalized communities and create pathways for nontraditional actors to engage in the growing space economy.

Kim is also passionate about diversifying and democratizing the space industry. She recently served as Chair of the Space Frontier Foundation and leverage the position to advocate for the development of the space economy. During her tenure, she launched ambitious initiatives centered around Climate Change, Diversity & Inclusion, and STEM.

James Schalkwyk is the program manager at Breakthrough Initiatives

Lecturers

Marco Janssen is a Professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. He studies the conditions of self-governance of shared resources in the field, the lab, cyberspace, and outer space. Using behavioral experiments, computational models, and case study comparison, his work has contributed to methodological diversity in studying the governance of the commons. His work demonstrates the importance of a participatory process to derive sustainable outcomes. Visit marcojanssen.info

Dr. Jason Barr is a Professor at Rutgers University, Newark in the Department of Economics and an affiliated faculty member with the Global Urban Systems Ph.D. program. His research interests include urban economics and agent-based computational economics. Dr. Barr serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, the Eastern Economic Journal, and the Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination. He is the author of Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan’s Skyscrapers (Oxford U. Press, 2016). He writes the Skynomics Blog, a blog about skyscrapers, cities, and economics. Dr. Barr is writing a new book on skyscrapers and skylines around the world. He also writes and teaches about the economics of Star Trek.

Alexander MacDonald is the Chief Economist at NASA. He was previously the Senior Economic Advisor in the Office of the Administrator and was the founding program executive of NASA's Emerging Space Office within the Office of the Chief Technologist. He is the author and editor of a number of NASA reports including Emerging Space: The Evolving Landscape of 21st Century American Spaceflight, Public-Private Partnerships for Space Capability Development, and Economic Development of Low-Earth Orbit. He is also a former executive staff specialist on commercial space at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a former research faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University, and has worked for the Universities Space Research Association while at NASA’s Ames Research Center where he worked on small satellite mission designs and served as the center's first research economist.

Alberto Cottica is an economist and network scientist, expert on online collaboration, collective intelligence, and participatory, networked organization. Worked with governments and IGOs in various capacities; cofounded not-for-profit research and consulting collective Edgeryders and the Science Fiction Economics Lab; dabbled in civic hacking with Spaghetti Open Data. Currently with the Accelerator Lab of the United Nations Development Programme. He has been a reasonably successful rock musician (Wikipedia), but is trying to quit.

World Building Facilitators

Erin Roberts is a speculative fiction writer who tells stories across formats. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Sunday Morning Transport, and The Dark, and has been selected for three Year’s Best collections; she has published interactive fiction in Strange Horizons and Sub-Q Magazine; and her game writing appears in D&D adventure books Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen and Journeys Through The Radiant Citadel (D&D), Hunter: The Reckoning Fifth Edition, Paizo books including Pathfinder: Lost Omens Travel Guide and Starfinder Interstellar Species, and Zombies, Run! Erin is a graduate of the Odyssey Writers Workshop, earned an MFA from the Stonecoast program at the University of Southern Maine, and is currently a Provost’s Early Career Fellow at The University of Texas at Austin. Visit www.writingwonder.com

DongWon Song is an agent at Howard Morhaim Literary Agency representing science fiction and fantasy for adults, young adult, and middle-grade readers as well as select non-fiction. They were formerly an editor at Orbit, a product manager for an ebook startup, and taught at institutions including Portland State University and New York University. DongWon is Korean-American, trans, and nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.

Micaiah Johnson was raised in California’s Mojave Desert surrounded by trees named Joshua and women who told stories. She received her bachelor of arts in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside, and her master of fine arts in fiction from Rutgers University–Camden. She now studies American literature at Vanderbilt University, where she focuses on critical race theory and automatons. Find out about Micaiah's book and more about her here.

Mary Robinette Kowal will be a facilitator along with her duties as a host. Please see above for her bio!

100 Year Starship Partnership

Often, the stories of science fiction begin with the simple question, “What if?” Science fiction challenges us to look beyond the world in front of us, to imagine what could be, and to envision distant worlds and removed realities. These tales have inspired both scientists and engineers towards discovery, invention, and exploration, and in so doing, transformed our very world.

Dr. Mae Jemison, former astronaut, engineer, and physician said, “Imagination, varied perspectives, and a well told story are critical to advancing civilizations. In particular, beginning with the simple question ‘What if?’ pushes us to look beyond the world in front of us and to envision what could be, ought to be and other realities. Both science fiction and exploratory non-fiction have inspired discovery, invention, policy, technology and exploration that has transformed our world.”

To celebrate these perspectives, 100 Year Starship (100YSS) has recently established the Canopus Award, an annual writing prize recognizing the finest fiction and non-fiction works that contribute to the excitement, knowledge, and understanding of interstellar space exploration and travel.

The Canopus Awards are given to authors for outstanding inspirational and educational contributions in order to promote the dream and goal of interstellar exploration. Our purpose is to encourage the artistic expression of interstellar exploration via literature and graphic arts, including fiction, nonfiction, and ultimately, visual storytelling, and interactive storytelling.

100YSS, led by Dr. Mae Jemison, is an independent, long-term global initiative working to ensure that the capabilities for human interstellar travel, beyond our solar system to another star, exist within the next 100. It is dedicated to identifying and pushing the radical leaps in knowledge and technology to achieve interstellar flight, while pioneering and transforming breakthrough applications that enhance the quality of life for all on Earth. We actively seek to include the broadest swath of people and human experience in understanding, shaping and implementing this global aspiration. The 100YSS Canopus Award is given to celebrate fiction which explores these same challenges and goals.

“Storytelling is essential to communicating and concretizing a vision. A story well told—fictional or non-fictional—pushes us to consider how, where, who, and why we advance, stagnate or regress,” said Dr. Jemison.

All writers will be invited to submit in the original fiction category for the 2024 Canopus Award.

Find out more about 100 Year Starship on their website.

Details

Lodging & Meals

A single or double-occupancy hotel room and all meals starting with dinner on the evening of the 9th and ending with breakfast on the 12th will be provided to all accepted writers.

Travel & Transportation

Travel to and from the Camp will need to be arranged and paid for by you. It is being held in Scottsdale, Arizona. We have a hotel picked out within a block of the venue. You will be responsible for getting to and from the hotel.

What to Expect

The schedule will roughly follow the same pattern. You will participate in a lecture by an economist who will be explaining a model to you. After the lecture, you will go into a breakout session led by an experienced writer who will guide you through how to use the information you just learned in your world-building.

At the end of the camp, your group will create a world based on all the economic principles you have learned and present it to the rest of the participants.

Writer Application

**Thank you for all the applications! We are closing applications for the camp this year.**

We will be choosing 20 people to be the writer participants in this camp. We are looking for people who are actively creating work, whether in gaming, TV or movies, speculative fiction, etc. You do not need to be published so please don’t self-select out.

The purpose of this camp is to broaden everyone’s understanding of economics and look outside the standard models. The lofty goal is to introduce more models into the general public’s understanding. We believe that speculative fiction writers can help in this and to that end, we would like to know more about your goals in coming to this camp and how you hope it will influence your writing.

To apply please fill out the form on Airtable (it will require you to sign in or create an Airtable account so you can be emailed a copy of your responses) in the link below. There will be three sections of the application.

1. One will be collecting basic identifying information (name, email, website or social media links, etc).
2. A sample of your writing (fiction, game, screenplay, graphic novel, or whatever medium you work in) of up to 5,000 words as a docx or PDF
3. A series of questions that you should answer within a paragraph or less.

Questions:

• A brief bio of yourself, tell us who you are and what you do
• How are you planning to integrate the new economy ideas you learn at this camp into your writing?
• What is it about economics in space (or your equivalent spec world) that interests you?
• What are your current projects and how would this camp help in your worldbuilding for them?

Once you have collected all this information and have them prepared, please apply through the link below. You will attach the documents as part of the process. If you have any questions or run into any issues, please reach out to Sarah@MaryRobinetteKowal.com

Applications will be open as of July 31st and close on August 31st. We will reach out to everyone who applied in the first week of September to let them know if they have been accepted.

FAQs

The Space Economy Camp for Writers is being held at Arizona State University (ASU), a public university. All policies are in accordance with ASU’s rules and guidelines and relevant state and federal laws.

COVID-19

What is your COVID-19 Policy?

• We value the safety of all attendees and to that end will be implementing the following protocols to mitigate risk while complying with ASU rules and guidelines.
• We ask that all attendees be vaccinated against COVID-19 and strongly encourage everyone to have the most up to date booster as of November 2023.
• We will maintain a mask positive environment and encourage everyone to mask in indoor spaces.
• We will have both indoor and outdoor seating available during meals for attendees to eat where they feel comfortable
• We ask that all attendees test for COVID-19 at home before traveling to the event and request anyone who tests positive to not attend the event.
• Tests will be provided onsite for all participants to use at any time.

We will be monitoring CDC guidelines and ASU's Policies and may adjust our own policy accordingly.

When should I test before the event?

We recommend you test before you travel so if your result is positive then you can stay home to follow the recommended quarantine procedures. We will also have tests onsite if you begin to feel ill and wish to test once at the event.

What kind of test should I take?

Any over the counter at-home COVID-19 test is fine.

For ASU’s full policy and guidelines on COVID-19, click here.

Accessibility

The access policy of the Camp follows the Social Model of Disability. This regards barriers to the full participation of disabled people as the fault of society (and more immediately we as the organizers), not the 'fault' of the person with a disability. We further reject any negative value placed on a person because of their disability, or indeed on their disability. Disability isn't good or bad, it just is. Please respect our disabled members by engaging in neither negative stereotyping (eg 'If I was you I'd kill myself' or 'I'd rather be dead than in a wheelchair) nor pity ("I'll pray for you to be cured') - many disabled people do not want to be cured and regard their disability as a fundamental part of their identity.

Additionally, please note that person-first language ("person with disability") is not the universally preferred form of address for disabled people. Many prefer the Social Model and 'disabled person'. Please treat the appropriate form of address for disabled people as you would treat preferred pronoun usage, by asking for their preferred form of address and using it.

When you fill out the registration form, please let us know about any accommodations you require. The event venue is on the first floor and we can request a wheelchair accessible room at the hotel if you need one.

For ASU’s full policy on and resources for individuals with disabilities, click here.

Harassment Policy

The Space Economy Camp is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Event participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference without a refund at the discretion of the conference organizers.

Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention. Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.

Instructors and staff are also subject to the anti-harassment policy.

If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the conference organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the conference with no refund. If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact any member of conference staff immediately.

We expect participants to follow these rules at all conference venues and conference-related social events.

For ASU’s full policy on discrimination and harassment, click here and reference ACD401: Prohibition Against Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation.

Land Acknowledgement

We are holding our event on Arizona State University’s campus, which is situated on the ancestral lands of Indigenous people past, present, and future. We thank and honor the Native American tribes and sovereign nations of the Salt River Valley—including the Akimel O’odham, Onk Akimel O'odham, and Piipaash nations—whose knowledge and stewardship of the land and waterways allow us to be here now.

To read more about the land that we are hosting the workshop on, visit ASU’s Land Acknowledgment page here.