New Session

“New Session is run on the Dial-A-Zine open-source telnet CMS, written by Cara Esten.”

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“We’re starting over. Or, we want to. The world in 2021 is vastly different from what the idealists who used this software when it was originally written imagined it would be, or at least that’s what I tell myself. It’s hard to feel sure about anything these days; the world seems by its very nature to destroy those small bits of certainty we hold onto. So, if we can’t be sure, let’s at least be optimistic.”

@cara.city: “after a 4 year hiatus, New Session, the telnet literary magazine, is returning for a third issue, this summer. this will be the first issue of New Session to present interactive stories; the theme is Adaptations and the stories themselves will adapt”

YouTube: “In 2021, myself and my co-editor Lo Ferris published two issues of New Session, a literary magazine designed to be accessed over Telnet. In the 80s and 90s, Telnet was a technology that became synonymous with BBSs and MUDs, but has since largely been forgotten by the average computer user. The core of the motivation for New Session was to revisit the past using a specifically queer and trans lens, recasting this system outside of pure nostalgia and instead as a tool to be used for telling new stories. Between this and the release of ‘Body Out Of Time’, an erotic Hypercard stack, I’ve found old technology to be a poignant tool for reimagining the past. This talk will focus on avoiding the allure of nostalgia-for-nostalgia’s sake, and how the constraints of outdated systems and aesthetics can be used as a springboard for something new.”