Hello! I’m Christy Dena!
Christy Dena (she/they, pronunciation Dee-na), is me.
I’m a Narrative Design Activist.
I’m a storymaker, educator, and researcher who is living and making for a more kind, just, and creative world.
I’m about narrative design processes, methods, & techniques that free up the creative, widen what is possible, and produce works that depict and enable a liberated and flourishing world.
A bio:
Christy is a writer-designer-director of multi-artform and interactive projects. She has worked on installations, Apps, live games, tabletop, ARGs, VR, films, theatre, and TV shows.
She runs her own studio, Universe Creation 101, and has won National Writers’ Guild and State Premier’s Prize awards for her interactive writing. Her interactive projects have been exhibited across Australia and in New York and L.A, and featured on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Press includes Wired, ABC, Forbes, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times, Polygon, The Literary Platform, Courier Mail, ARGNet, Cinema Autopsy, Litopia After Dark, and more.
Christy has consulted for Nokia on the Emmy-nominated global alternate reality game Conspiracy for Good, directed by Tim Kring, written, designed, and produced by The company P; as well as ABC’s alternate reality game Bluebird AR; as well as SBS Australia-commissioned VR project The Thin Black Line, directed by Douglas Watkin, with VR direction by Oscar Raby and art by acclaimed Aboriginal artist Vernon Ah Kee. More consulting clients include Les Produits Frais for Michael Beets, Bangarra Dance Company, Guildhouse, Cementa, Australia Council for the Arts, Wieden+Kennedy, and more.
Christy has given keynotes, speeches, and workshops at events around the world, including Transmedia Hollywood (LA), Power to the Pixel, London Film Festival (London), International Women in Digital Media Summit (CAN), Game Developers Conference (San Francisco), Whistler Film Festival (British Columbia), and more. Christy has been a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (Emmys), AWG, ADG, and a board member of Carnegie Mellon’s ETC Press. Christy has mentored at labs such as Power to the Pixel (London Film Festival), Screen Australia’s Indigenous Cross-Over Lab, ABC Laboratory of Advanced Media Production, and designs and runs international and interdisciplinary labs, including Forward/Story, Crafting Intangibles, Telematic Studio, Transmedia Victoria, and the Extended Experiences Lab.
Christy has written for Cordite Literary Review, The Conversation, Meanland, RealTime, ABC, Writing Queensland Magazine, and Queensland Writers Centre Connect, among other publications. She has written non-fiction chapters for books such as The Routledge Companion to Transmedia Studies (2018, Routledge); Copyfight (2015, New South Publishing); The Emerging Writer (2012, Emerging Writers’ Festival); New Perspectives on Narrative and Multimodality (2009, Routledge); Space Time Play (2007, Birkhauser). Christy has been interviewed in books such as A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling (2012, McGraw-Hill), and contributed short pieces for books such as Cross-Media Communications (2010, ETC Press).
Christy has written reviews for publications such as After the Art, British Science Fiction Association’s journal Vector, RealTime, Electronic Book Review, ABC New Media, Australian Book Review (ABR), Cyberculture Studies, and Second Life Arts & Total Entertainment Magazine.
Her background is in theatre as a performer, writer, and director, which included a Director’s Secondment at Playbox Theatre Company, touring the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and further from her Monash Student Theatre roots. She moved to producing digital effects for film & TVCs at digital production studios Planet X and Imagine IF, with clients such as Artist Services; Jonathan M. Shiff Productions; Uncle Toby’s, Omo, Crown Casino, Tattslotto, Telstra, Goodyear, Mars, McCain, Myer, Australian Rugby Union, and Toyota.
Christy holds a Bachelor of Arts (Visual & Performing Arts, Monash Uni), a Post-Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing (Uni of Melb), and a PhD in Media, Narrative, & Game Studies (Uni of Syd).
Christy creates on/with unceded Bunurong Country of the Kulin Nation.
Email christy at this domain.
Connect with me through my LinkedIn.
[Note: I do not do sponsored posts.]