There’s a new website in town for those of you interested in imaginary worlds and worldplay. Especially for those of you who would like to share your imaginary world with others like you–no matter what age. Check out mysecretcountry.org, the brainchild of Marlo McKenzie, a filmmaker right now working on a documentary about paracosm play. […]
Last month I had the great good fun of talking with cognitive psychologist, blogger and podcaster Scott Barry Kaufmann about my book, Inventing Imaginary Worlds: From Childhood Play to Adult Creativity Across the Arts and Sciences. Scott is currently Scientific Director of The Imagination Institute in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, […]
My book, Inventing Imaginary Worlds, includes a “Childhood Worldplay List” of sixty or so individuals, ranging from Charlotte Brontë to MacArthur Fellow Laura Otis. As I indicate there, “I fully expect additional examples to come to light.” Here I suggest that Tomas Tranströmer, Nobel laureate in Literature (2011), also engaged in complex imaginative play that […]
As some of you may know, I’m keeping a “Childhood Worldplay List.” Sixty-six individuals or so, ranging from Mozart to Gregory Benford, may already be found on the list included in my book, Inventing Imaginary Worlds. As I indicate there, however, “I fully expect additional examples to come to light.” Well, here’s my first one—a […]
Some things are planned; some fall into your lap. Getting ready to cross-post my secret country interview with Galway Kinnell to my Psychology Today blog, I came across a link of Kinnell reading a poem called Oatmeal. I was intrigued. I bit. And the taste was inspired coincidence. Here’s what I wrote in response: Many […]
The poet Galway Kinnell died this month. Among other honors and recognitions, Kinnell received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1984. As a MacArthur Fellow he responded to my query concerning the invention of imaginary worlds. He also granted me a phone interview, during which we talked at length about his childhood worldplay: “I had three […]
A review of Keri Smith. The Imaginary World of _____ (Your Name Here). A Perigee Book/Penguin Group, New York: 2014. I never thought I would pull a Lady Catherine de Bourgh. In Pride and Prejudice Mr. Darcy’s imperious aunt declares her love of music with the words: “If I had ever learnt, I should have […]
Imagine my surprise the other day when I opened the weekly newletter from the Center for Childhood Creativity. Inventing Imaginary Worlds gets a great review from Helen Hadani, Ph.D., Associate Director of Research at CCC, a program of the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, California.
Just about the time I handed Inventing Imaginary Worlds over to my publishers, I happened to walk past a store display that stopped me in my tracks. I was in Oxford, England, visiting my daughter Meredith. My book had taken its first inspiration from Meredith’s worldplay in childhood; now she worked as a postdoc on […]
When I began my research into worldplay (aka paracosm play) over ten years ago there was very little current research to draw on. But things have begun to change. I like to think my early articles on the subject had something to do with that. Certainly I found some early interest and support among academic […]
Inventing Imaginary Worlds 