
when i floated the idea of dif late last year someone sent me this curious gift. an empty glass receptacle in bubblewrap - a qr code printed on a slip of paper, and a moist tissue folded a cracked and an about to sprout acorn.
scoffing a little at the gimmicky nature of the gift but touched by the thought i set about introducing 'aka' to their new home. i put the water in and then carefully dropped aka into the neck. but aka being a runt of an acorn almost dropped right through the neck of the vase and into the water - my heart skipped a beat and in that moment i knew we had bonded. every day some tiny growth, some transformation, some clearer definition of purpose.
this week in dif has been a bit like being aka - when the first roots are there but the question of when and where will a shoot appear has loomed large.
i floated the idea of dif to several indie bookshops in the city this week [bristol -uk] and i think we found a friend - from appearances i wasn't sure but when we go talking over a cuppa - then yes!
remember liam? now don't be smutty, but he played at being a bot earlier this week – of the ai assistant variety. though it was fun we both decided that it would get in the way of real connections that we need at this point. we're not turning our back on ai – we just want to play and develop it in a different way - further down the line.
and in the middle of the week a big question came out of the fog and consumed our conciousness - what would be the first green shoot? what would dif produce? we decided it needed to be something tangible, something that can bring our writers artists and readers together, a goal for our network. we think we have the answer - it's there in the answer to the second question posed on our homepage. we hope you'll be ready to contribute.
Here is to further blossoming and burgeoning☺️🏳️⚧️🌈🧚♂️