While I was in Finland, I had the pleasure of participating in the Nordic Larp Talks, a yearly series of short talks on larp and larp design modeled on the TED talks and hosted by famed journalist, author and larper Johanna Koljonen. I chose to tell a story that I didn’t have room for in Leaving Mundania, a tale of how the September 11 attacks on New York City impacted the local vampire community:

Check out the other fascinating talks:

• Johanna MacDonald talked about the distinctions between larp and traditional theater.
• Drawing on their work on video games such as Eve Online and Alan Wake, Mikko Rautalahti and Andie Nordgren talked Johanna Koljonen about the parallels between larp and digital game design.
• Claus Raasted talked about why people should just call it larp, a sentiment with which I heartily agree.
• Mike Pohjola linked larp to ancient ritual and told us how to become gods.
• Jesper Bruun, who created the tango larp I write about in the book, discussed the process of creating that game.
• JP Koljonen took us inside a larp about asylum seekers.