THESE
ARE SOME
QUESTIONS I THOUGHT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO KNOW THEIR ANSWERS
1.- First
of all, where do you take the inspiration to write hypertext?
From the many stories
of life, from observation and from a vision I have had
since the late 1970's of creating a literature that is experienced
differently from the traditional
front to back book.
2.- Why did you
decided to write 'Afterwards' following the story of
'Party
at Silver beach' ?
I was feeling
depressed, and I wanted to create a story that suggested
many happy endings. Afterwards is kind of an "encore" in the spirit of
musical
comedy.
3.- Which
is the program you use to create your stories?
My stories are all
created using structures I created myself using HTML . The structure
for Afterwards is a version of a Narrative Data Structure which I
originally created in 1992 for
Wasting Time. (originally in MS BASIC) It uses both parallel columns of
text and slowly appearing text to simulate thought patterns and
conversation.
4.- Do you
think 'Afterwards' is different from your other works?
Most of my works are
longer works which evolve in a series of connected parts. Afterwards is
one of my few
short works. Another is Interlude - Dorothy and Sid -- http://www.judymalloy.net/dorothy/intertop.html
These short works are enjoyable to compose and provide a relaxing
interlude for
both the writer and the
reader.
5.- Which
is your vision of the hypertext world nowadays?
This is from a talk I
gave at the ELO (Electronic Literature Organization)
Conference in 2003:
As we look to the future -- expanding the boundaries of
literature, exploring new narrative structures, combining words
(as well as for instance, words and images, words and sound) in
new ways -- there is one thing I particularly want to emphasize
and that is that issues of definition, of what kind of literature
we are creating, are not as important as encouraging an openness
to many approaches; as validating the many diverse individual and
collaborative approaches which expand the body of electronic
literature which we in this field are shaping.
That's
all, thank you very much.