In Media Res
In Media Res is the official newsletter of author Takim Williams (me), as I distill insights from the ongoing research, writing, and eventual publication of my 15-novel pipeline. Here find richer, meatier discussions of topics you may see me hint at on social media. Other than Instagram and LinkedIn, this is the best place to track my pre-meditated “ten-year overnight” success story.
The full novel pipeline can be perused on my website. To give an example of how one work of fiction can provide the inspiration for a set of Substack posts you might actually enjoy reading, peep the abridged description of The Experiment Himself (TEH):
In near-future St. Louis, a Black mother donates her dying newborn, Thomas Brown, to science, hoping to eke meaning from his brief life. Thomas, presumed dead, awakens in a lab as a disembodied brain linked to the internet of things, the centerpiece of a secret AI project led by neuroscientist Dr. Jackal…
The novella version of The Experiment Himself is available now! This newsletter will launch with a series of posts (adapted from a talk I gave through the Henderson Institute, BCG’s internal think tank) on the relationship between storytelling as a human necessity and our current moment in AI. The latter portion of the talk details my plans to subvert tropes in mainstream depictions of AI through the full-length novelization of TEH. And you may have your own open questions or avenues for exploration sparked by the description above, but other relevant topics include:
The medical exploitation of Black folks in America - the “immortal” life of Henrietta Lacks, Tuskegee syphilis trials, experimental surgeries performed on slave women by gynecologist J. Marion Sims; and what new solutions and abuses may be afforded by future technology
Neuroplasticity - what are the ultimate possibilities and limitations of a human brain, unencumbered by a traditional body, to receive, translate, process and synthesize digital information from a variety of sources and devices? What sorts of enhancements might extend this flexibility? How would all of this shape the brain itself?
Consciousness and identity - Yikes! How would the above two bullets, when unleashed upon a young nervous system that has known nothing else, affect the developing person within?
Professor A.M. Homes, now Director of the creative writing program at Princeton, said of the novella:
“Williams beautifully unpacks ideas from the worlds of science, technology, and the environment without losing track of the human element, fantasy, hope, and family.”
Precisely this unpacking of ideas alongside their human implications is the ambition of the newsletter.
And that’s just one book.
Now that we’re rolling, let’s do another, to round things out:
The Hollowbone planet is literally an economy of words. Language itself is the currency, and the poorest citizens are quiet of necessity, saving their letters to feed their children…
That’s from A Tax on the Silent.
Imagine everything that’s fascinating about the two mind-blowing human inventions of language and money. Now imagine their babies. Get excited for those posts.
In addition to content inspired by the subject matter of the pipeline novels, the newsletter will inevitably include:
Reviews - Spoiler-heavy takes on what some particular piece of media (film, TV, books, what have you) did very well (or occasionally very poorly), and how, and why, in the spirit of a practitioner getting to the bottom of how these storytelling arts operate.
“Industry analysis” - For a few years now my LinkedIn about section has said I have a, “special passion for the media/entertainment industries; interested in the use of technology and creative business models to innovate the way that content is produced, distributed, and monetized for sustainable profitability and the good of society.” It may be obvious why I’m interested in those things—for my sustainable profitability and the good of me. These posts will be less frequent—I’m not an expert, still an outsider wondering how to make it—but when I have something to say, about the blocked acquisition of Simon & Schuster or the subsequent purchase by PE firm KKR, for example, I’ll say it here.
But why “In Media Res?”
Oh yeah.
I almost called the newsletter “In Process.”
“In Media Res,” is a literary play on words meant to evoke the same thing.
It’s Latin for in the middle of the thing, but in English classrooms refers to a narrative that begins in the thick of the plot, and trusts the reader to catch up.
Either way, it represents for me a certain humility:
When it comes to exploring the kinds of topics that feature in this newsletter, each of us is always in the middle of their exploration. We begin in the middle—with whatever background knowledge, experiences, pre-conceived notions and patterns of thinking we bring to the table. We end in the middle—always vulnerable to surprises from this complex and ever-evolving world, even in our supposed mastery, capable of re-framing all that we know, understanding at the end of a long academic career that we may have only scratched the surface on our subject matter.
Since we’re always in the middle, there’s no right or wrong time to dive in. Or to stop. Just the joy of discovery along the way, and maybe the chance to contribute something original to someone else’s journey.
This is where the novels come in. For my journey, the pipeline is a kind of backbone to structure and filter my intellectual curiosity. I can’t become a “true” expert on linguistics, not if I also need to become a true expert on economics, neuroscience and Black history. But I will become enough of an expert to write these books well, which in many cases will make me indistinguishable from an expert in everyday life. I will immerse in these topics as much as life allows; I will sit with them, allow them, individually and collectively, to churn through my conscious and subconscious minds, until I feel that I can bear witness to some core part of what makes them beautiful, compelling, or important—worthy of our attention—in my own words, in my own way, through my own lens, even, or especially, when that worthiness is difficult or impossible to articulate. This is my promised contribution to your journey. And this is what a great novel is, to me.
Okay. Now subscribe.
Takim Williams
Takim is an author of literary and speculative fiction, who believes that storytelling and imagination expand our sense of what is possible, and thus make possible a better world.
A native of Atlanta, Takim lives in Stone Mountain, GA with his partner. He holds an MBA from the University of Virginia and a BA in philosophy from Princeton, where he minored in creative writing and founded Figments, the campus publication for speculative fiction. His undergraduate thesis, a novella titled The Experiment Himself, won the 2017 Inkshares/Nerdist contest for best science fiction. In 2022, Takim attended the six-week Clarion West Writers Workshop in Seattle. His short stories can be found in such venues as FIYAH, Fireside Magazine, and Black Warrior Review.
Takim is a recovering management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group and other firms. He turned 30 in April 2024, just after leaving BCG, and though he still needs a day job to pay the bills, he has committed to shaping the 4th decade of his life primarily around his creative vocation.
