Hi, I'm Craig Mod. Join the 1,000+ other SPECIAL PROJECTS members and together we'll produce books, newsletters, longform essays, podcasts, walks, & more.
Memberships support my vast collection of public-facing, freely accessible work.
But members also get access to exclusive discounts, members-only newsletters and podcasts, lectures, board meeting calls, and other goodies.
You can support as a …
… or even a …
… member.
Illustration by Luis Mendo
Hello potential member!
As of March 2023, we're entering year five of this program, and the perks and goodies have only gotten perkier and goodier.
Discounts are the main difference between YEARLY/LIFETIME and MONTHLY membership:
YEARLY/LIFETIME members
YEARLY/LIFETIME + MONTHLY members
Yearly/LIFETIME members will get future discounts codes on any other physical books or photographic prints I offer in 2023. Most Yearly members easily received the cost of membership back through discounts.
The plan for 2023 is to produce and release at least one book and several photographic prints. SPECIAL PROJECTS members will be notified first of these releases, and Yearly and Lifetime members will get big discounts. Plus I plan on holding additional guest lectures, livestreams, and more. It's a great time to join.
All that said: This membership program is, at its core, like a mini NPR — of course, there are perks, but the main reason to become a member should be:
Craig, ya weird bird, I want to see more of your work in the world.
I thank you for that.
Outside of the members-only perks outlined above, the membership program supports the production of the following newsletters, podcasts, and projects, all of which are freely available for members and non-members alike. Sustainable funding of these projects was the initial impetus for Special Projects in 2019.
With four full years under our belt, I can say unequivocally that Special Projects works. With the help of members' subscriptions and feedback, together we've produced an impressive body of work during 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. Thank you thank you thank you thank you.
I surveyed members at the start of 2022, asking how their experience with SPECIAL PROJECTS has been. Here are some of their responses:
Your candor in bringing us into your work and process has really helped me in my own non-“job job” work (ie the work is really like to be doing) and I find that super valuable. Also very happy to be able to help, in whatever small way :)
I’m partial to artists who lead their lives as a Gesamtkunstwerk, and let folks into many different layers of their creative process (the business parts, the raw materials & idea generating, the edit, etc.). You do that super effectively and it’s probably the biggest perk for me.
Thank you for sharing with us. It’s great to be along for the ride and glad you are able to sustain your art in this way. Please don’t stop. If we need to pay more we will!
Thanks for being a thoughtful, measured voice in a loud and immediate world!
I love the work you’re doing, but I’m more inspired by the way you’re doing that work than the specifics of any given project and I truly find your (public) worldview extremely invigorating. I consider you a mentor-from-afar.
Thanks Craig for sharing so much about your process and being thoughtful about your members. Love your work and using it as an archetype for my own. One of my favorite things about your membership is feeling like I'm part of a community without investing a ton of energy into socializing with people.
My nephew is 18 yrs old and I want to someday show him yr life and say, dream of things that might seem impossible, but you can do whatever you want if you work at it.
I’m so glad you exist in the world and do what you love. It’s such an inspirational bright spot for me. I get so much joy from what you do because of how you do it.
I love the sense of inclusion in your work, that my participation means something. I also love enabling you to do whatever you fancy creatively as I appreciate the power of that (and the older I get, the less I can abide the waste of human potential; if I can help someone enrich their own creative life, I will).
One thing I have been relating the concept of Special Projects to, is tenure (in the academic sense). It is as if your crew has granted you creative tenure - the freedom to explore, create and fail.
There are approximately 380 other responses of similar tenor. I'm confident in saying: It seems like members are getting value out of the program, and that makes me tremendously happy.
Each January, I do a huge look-back on the previous year. You can read my notes on running the program in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 here (together, over 22,000 words on running SP):
As for what we made in 2022:
In 2022, with the support of Special Projects, I published well-over 100,000 words between my many newsletters.
Of particular newsletter note were my "pop-up" MIBAW, TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO and KIIIIIIIIIIIII newsletters.
MIBAW documented getting Covid-19 in England as I walked the Cotswolds (thanks, England). TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO chronicled a seven-day walk around Tokyo, reflecting on my 23-year history with the city. And KIIIIIIIIIII documented a few weeks along the Kumano Kodō, doing book research.
All members get access to the archives of those pop-ups newsletters.
As I cap this section each year: My newsletters continue to be my public sketchbook. They act as a forcing function to edit batches of images or take a thin wisp of an idea and see it through to — at least — a darker outline. They are also proving to be nutrient-rich grist for future books. Inadvertently, these newsletters have become something of a homespun encyclopedia, and I find the value of their archives only increases over time. They’ve become a place to point back to, and I find it nearly impossible to publish anything without referencing this public-facing back catalog of ideas.
2022 was the year of formally mixing "big media" with memberships. In April, I published an essay with photos about the Kii Peninsula in The New York Times' “Through a Lens” series, and the response was overwhelming.
This generated a whole new set of SPECIAL PROJECTS members and supporters. On top of that Times piece I also published two more (Yokosuka, Kōzushima) electric bike articles with Papersky Magazine. I also wrote about electric bikes on craigmod.com: "Electric Bike, Stupid Love of my Life.
The third edition of Kissa by Kissa sold out, and we were able to further refine the book in the fourth edition. Thus continued our collaborations with illustrator Luis Mendo and Fujiwara Printing.
2022 was also the year that I remembered I had spent a huge chunk of my life drumming. After a ten+ year hiatus I bought some drums and wrote: "Drumming."
In May / June I co-lead a "Walk-n-Talk" with Kevin Kelly in the Cotswolds. We all sort of got Covid, but otherwise it was fun!
In August I walked TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO — which turned out to be my most popular newsletter ever.
In October I walked the Kii peninsula with my buddy / mentor John for two weeks, then co-lead another "Walk-n-Talk" with Kevin (it had been years since we had been able to do these and wanted to catch up!), along the Ise-ji portion of the Kumano Kodō.
2022 was the year things sort of kind of got back to "normal." Flights were (and still are) absurdly expensive, and Covid is not a "beaten" thing. But, mostly, we're back in the swing of things (for better or worse).
In the end, 2022 was in some ways tough (Covid, breakups) but also affirming. I feel more confident about the power of membership programs than ever, and am more confident in my skills as a writer and photographer. This feels good — the refinement through ascetic practice of craft and output.
My gratitude for the opportunity to do the work that I'm doing is larger than an html file can hold.
With four years under our belt, SPECIAL PROJECTS is a crew, no longer entirely rag-tag (though I will always think of it that way), with a history — a history! — and I look forward to living up to the standard we've set thus far.
Man, this page is long! It's wild to me that the above output, production, work, motivation, encouragement, and downright permission was 100% undeniably, explicitly, and unequivocally kindled and stoked and gasoline-doused by the support of SPECIAL PROJECTS members — both financially and spiritually. My members are amazing cheerleaders, and give me just the right amount of shit when I hem and haw.
So thank you for that and I look forwarding to continuing this relationship in 2023, with members new and old alike.
Craig (memberships@specialprojects.jp)
Super easy, barely an inconvenience. Login at here to view your account, upgrade, cancel, check on your membership. If you have any problems, email memberships@specialprojects.jp directly and I'll get it fixed / sorted. You’ll get an email reminder a week or two before any yearly recurring payment fires off; if you choose to cancel you can do so with just a couple clicks. I don’t want anyone paying a single cent accidentally. If you're accidentally charged, email me and I'll get a refund out.
Even though this membership page is on my (secure) site, memberships are processed and managed securely through Memberful. Credit cards (and Apple Pay) go through Stripe. Everything is secure. (This is the exact same system used by, for example Kottke.org and The New Consumer.) I don’t see your payment information. It’s all locked away in high-security digital vaults on billion-dollar company servers.
Best thing to do is subscribe to my Roden, and Ridgeline newsletters. Anything happening outside of those newsletter is announced in the newsletters. If you feel like you get enough value from them, join Special Projects sometime in the future.
I have a free tier for students. Email memberships@specialprojects.jp and we'll sort you out. (You don't have to do anything in particular to "prove" you're a student; I trust you. Why students?)
Yep. In July 2020 we switched over to Special Projects.
Years later, and I still live and die by Mitsubishi's elegantly named MJ-P180NX-W. It features 24 hour continuous drainage-via-hose, and I have kept a few of these puppies running for months without hiccup. They are beastly dehumidifiers, able to save a room from the most soggy of Japan summers.
Still enamored with the Sharp HX-H120-W Plasma Cluster ceramic heater / humidifier. The heater / humidifier combo produces a vapor that is soft and warm and can best be described as life giving, the tree of life itself, the breath of a gentle god in the frigid winter months.
