PROJECT:OBJECT is an ongoing multimedia experiment in stories about objects, in collaboration with Joshua Glenn.

PROJECT:OBJECT launched in 2017, publishing four “volumes” of 25 nonfiction personal essays each, on the site HILOBROW.

The project has also branched out into the realms of physical objects, audio stories, original illustration, workshops and events, charitable fundraising, and will continue to evolve in other ways we haven’t thought of yet.

“This is definitely one of the remaining examples of the rapidly diminishing ‘good Internet’ ice caps that will some day be spoken of only in legend.” — The Awl

VOL 1: POLITICAL OBJECTS ran from January to March 2017, with nonfiction stories about personal objects with political significance by Virginia Heffernan, Luc Sante, Alexis Madrigal, Lydia Millet, Ben Greenman, Carolina A. Miranda, Stuart Ewen, Rob Baedeker, L.A. Kauffman, Astra Taylor, Stephen Duncombe, Marisa Silver, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Steven Heller, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Gary Dauphin, Tom Frank, Lizzie Skurnick, Alex Kalman and more.

This debut series also featured the first set of Project:Object Objects. Rick Pinchera‘s original designs for the POLITICAL OBJECTS volume, adorned T-shirts, mugs, and other apparel and accessories, available for limited time with proceeds adding to the project’s  $500 contribution to the ACLU.

Coverage & endorsements from BoingBoing, Kottke.org, Design Observer, Paola Antonelli, and The Awl.

VOL. 2: TALISMANIC OBJECTS ran from April to June 2017, with stories about personal talismans from Gary Panter, Jami Attenberg, Amy Fusselman, Mike Watt, Mark Kingwell, Ben Ehrenreich, Jessica Helfand, Shelley Jackson, Amanda Fortini, Wayne Curtis, Jennifer Schuessler, Ben Ehrenreich, Shelley Jackson, Mark Frauenfelder, Ed Skoog, and more.

This series also included the project’s first story contest, with guest judge Annie Nocenti.

Talismanic Object Objects featured the original design of Jacob Covey on T-shirts, mugs, and a pouch perfect for holding your talisman; proceeds donated to the ACLU.

In April 2017, I was honored to run a mini PROJECT:OBJECT-style writing-about-objects workshop with Matt Daniel’s students at Riverdale High School in New Orleans.

Illicit Objects Temporary Tattoos

VOL. 3: ILLICIT OBJECTS ran from July through September, 2017 with 25 new stories about illicit personal objects by Kio Stark, Sari Wilson, Annalee Newitz, Eric Bennett, Catherine Newman, Josh Glenn, Paul Lukas, Douglas Rushkoff, Alison Fensterstock, William Gibson, Katie Notopoulos, Wesley Stace and more.

This series also featured our first-ever audio stories, from Natalie Kestecher, Nicole Pasulka, Shelby El Otmani, Sam Dingman,Ramona Martinez, Andrew Leland, Kalila Holt, and Julia Barton. To hear all our ILLICIT OBJECTS audio stories, check out the special episode of Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything. 

Illicit Object Objects featured the original artwork of Joe Alterio. Proceeds to the ACLU.

Photo by Quinn Miller-Bedell

In September 2017, PROJECT:OBJECT held its first live event, “THE THING IS…,” at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, in collaboration with Bring Your Own (a live storytelling series) and The Stacks bookstore. Participating storytellers included Nathaniel Rich, Anne and Susan Gisleson, Michael Tisserand, Yuri Herrara, Alia Alia, and Juyanne James. Stories from the event are being broadcast individually on WWNO New Orleans.

VOL. 4: LOST OBJECTS ran from October through December 2017. It featured 25 new stories by Seth Mnookin, Laura Lippman, Margaret Wertheim, Seth, Geoff Manaugh, and Debbie Millman, among others, paired with original illustrations from artists including Lisa Congdon, Kate Bingaman-Burt, Kelli Anderson, Oliver Munday, Joe Alterio, and Matt Wuerker.

In 2022, this became the book Lost Objects, described here.

Series logo by Kate Bingaman-Burt

From 2018 to 2021, PROJECT:OBJECT published additional 25-story volumes on the themes:

• Flair (true stories about significant accoutrements, appurtenances, and regalia)
• Fossils (objects that bear witness to a vanished way of life)
• Fetish (objects with which we are obsessed, to which we are devoted, and from the influence of which we cannot escape)
• Objectionable Objects (narratives of offense, outrage, innocent transgression or principled affront, in attire, display, speech or spectacle; guest editor Adam McGovern).
• Movie Objects (significant objects spotted in movies)
• Semio Objects (nonfiction narratives about semioticians’ significant objects)

In 2025, GIVE IT UP, an interactive, place-based experiment in objects and value, launched in Kingston, New York. Follow and participate in the project at giveitupkingston.substack.com.