Hi there.
I’m Allison Arth, and here are a few things I do.
I make games.
My writing-forward tabletop roleplaying games (RPGs), including the Western Cantos Poetry RPG Cycle, featuring the acclaimed solo RPG Gentleman Bandit.
This suite of connected games guides players in telling solo and collaborative stories, and walks them through writing across poetic forms to generate tangible, shareable artifacts of play. In this way, players can flex their writing muscles while exploring the intersections of creativity and control in a low-stakes setting, whether on their own, or around a table with friends.
I chat about creativity.
My podcast, Little Oracles, considers creative theory and thought, and creative practice and process in a variety of formats, from chats with working, cross-disciplinary creators, to thinkpiece-style audio-essays, to reflections on what I’ve been reading. (Because I write, I read a lot.)
Before the podcast, Little Oracles saw two incarnations: a personal poetry project designed to excavate and revive mundane words, followed by a multimedia digital installation that combines 17 of those original lexical fractals with my own Polaroid photography and correlating miniature soundscapes.
I write.
I love cats, and though my two sweet boys have passed, their photos have long been a source of inspiration for a series of work-in-progress poems (which aren’t about cats, mostly) that I’ve chronicled on Instagram.
I also love food, and thus devised the Tiny House Supper Club, a food blog featuring original recipes, plus essays about food-adjacent things, like cake plates and estate sales. Feel free to browse the archive.
Current projects include a poetry collection about embodiment, object permanence, and grief; a cycle of microfiction inspired by Catholic symbology, rites, and practices (e.g., reliquaries and indulgences); and textural, tablesetting writing for my upcoming game projects, all set in the American West of the late-19th Century — or thereabouts.
@arthograph
additional details | I’m a career creative director and content creator, and I’ve collaborated and strategized with all manner of orgs, from nonprofits, to big brands, to small startups. I really love helping folks tell the world who they are.
DMs open for freelance project proposals and/or your top 5 Golden Girls eps / IG and Bluesky