Why do you write hypertext?

    I write hypertext because I am fascinated with the possibilities. I love the 
media--as I say on my website, I am addicted. Where else can you even think of 
so many layers of complexity and connection? Every work is a totally new 
creation, a new genre. Its as if there were only one marble sculpture, one iron one, 
and so many thousands of billions of possibilities for sculptures that no one 
could repeat a work.

Why did you decide to write Marble Springs and how long did you use
to write it?

  I grew up in Colorado and love our mountains. We have a rough and tumble 
history, not always a pretty one. When I was a child, I used to love to go to our 
Colorado History Museum and spend hours poring over old photographs, newspapers, 
diaries. It always amazed me that the history said the MEN did everything, when 
really when you read the diaries, the women did most of the work. Yet they 
were never mentioned.

        Then I moved to Japan for 3 years, and I was terribly homesick. I started to 
write the stories of women in a fictional Colorado town. I started with Quilts, 
and wondered who Zandra was. Then I wrote Zandra and wondered who Emmy was, and 
so forth. I put all the poems on plastic cards and stuck the cards into houses 
in a model railway. Then I strung all the cards together with embrodery thread. 
People could walk around the railway table and pick up a card, and follow the 
thread to the next card. This was idiotic. STUPID. Way too many threads. Someone 
said, "computers." I said "AHA!!" and spent the next 3 years programming and 
reprogramming. So from beginning to end, maybe 6 years. A little more.

Who can read your hypertext? Can all the people read your work?

  I try to write for everyone--to make sure that everyone can at least have a 
good time with the writing. In Samplers, you can hit the return button and get a 
story, or you can click on links and get connections, or you can get really 
advanced and find all the hidden stuff or read the stories in the links. In Marble 
Springs, you can go to the directory and just read the poems (Like Spoon River 
Anthology) or you can follow links, or you can click on random elements. So many 
different types of readers can explore in many different ways.

What are hypertext characteristics?
What hypertext characteristics do you see in Marble Springs?

If the first, there is a very famous article from Vannevar Bush that started
the whole hypertext thing in the 1930s. It is at http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm.
Ted Nelson picked up on this idea. Hypertext means different things to different people,
 and people have gotten into shouting
matches about it.
I wrote my masters thesis on Hypertext and Hyperpossibilities in 1991, and I
think the definitions have changed since then.

 
My favorite definition has always been "hypertext is writing that you just 
can't do in a linear page 1, page 2, page 3 format." What do you think you can do
in hypertext that you can't do in print?

This may help answer the other question, too. What does Larsen do in Marble
Springs do that she could not have done in print? This is a very serious
question for me, because at the time my friends were all telling me, you IDIOT!!! WHY
are you killing yourself, spending so much time on this when you could just print
it out???? But for you, it is an academic question and one that is good for a
paper. So...What is in Marble Springs that would not show up in a pring book?
Why can't you just print all the screens to Marble Springs and have the same
book?

 
As to your second question, When you started to write hypertext you would have some knowledge about
it, what were they? What did you think when you heart the word Hypertext the first time?

What did I know about hypertext when I started to write it? Nothing. Nada. 
Zilch. Zip. I first started to write a poem and I wanted to see if I could squeeze 
a life into a description of quilts sewn. That was Laura Keeperly. But in 
Laura's poem/story, a person named Zandra appeared. So I had to ask, Who is Zandra? 
and in Zandra's story, Doc Nancy shows up. So now, who is Doc Nancy?? and so 
forth. I wrote these in Japan, when I was homesick for my mountains. I had done 
a lot of research on Colorado history beforehand, and I did a lot during the 
re-writing process. So, now I have a bunch of poems with connected characters. (
This is very much like my favorite print book, Spoon River Anthology --HINT: What 
does Marble Springs does that Spoon River Anthology does not--then you will know 
what hypertext characteristics Marble Springs has). 

Then I put all of these poems together and tied them with embrodiery thread. 
And no one could read it. So I used HyperCard and put the whole thing on the 
computer. And then I had to write a thesis to justify my use of the computer (in 
those days, only authorized students could touch a computer. They were very rare. 
I had to teach my advisors how to use one!) So I interviewed all 7 of the 
hypertext writers at the time (Stuart Moulthrop, Michael Joyce, Carolyn Guyer, 
William Dickey, Jay David Bolter, Mark Bernstien, Sarah Smith, Martha Petry) for my 
thesis.

 
 
Lastly,  what differences are between the firts hypertext you have written andthe last? 
what kind of evolution have they suffered?

I love the idea of suffering evolution. I have to use that somewhere! Boy,
this one is tough. HyperCard is no more. So now I use Flash and HTML. Sometimes
I use Storyspace. But each of these environments is very different--it is like
comparing a painting in water colors or oils or even embossed leather. I have
my sight now, so now I use a lot of photography (like firefly). I haven't gone
back and told so many stories--maybe it is a lack of time, or maybe since I live
in Colorado I don't need to create that kind of world for myself. I do a LOT
more with structure and complexity. MS was the only work I've done which did not
have a VERY rigid structure. Firefly stanzas, for example are 6 lines long,
each line has 5 lines. even I'm simply saying (just out in InFlect this month) has
a structure. I'm working on an Exercise in Formality, which will have a 10n
dimensional grid.

 

 
 
Copyright issues are complex. The problem is that writers and artists like to 
eat. Now, we usually pay people for their labor. But what if their labor results 
in a book or a hypertext or a  piece of art? How can we pay them?  Who should 
pay them?
 
Also, writers and artists want to be able to make sure that people do not 
change the work without permission. How would you feel if someone took your paper or 
your poem, changed some words, and spread it around as your   poem?