Tag Archives: Language

student blogs

Yardley, PA 1997 & Avenue S

Exploring Yardley, PA 1997 from the collection Hotwriting (2017) was such a fun and creative experience! I loved how each line of the poem was linked to a key on the keyboard, each one playing its own little music clip. It felt like I wasn’t just reading a poem, it felt like I was performing it. I kept pressing different keys to see how the words and sounds would come together, and every time it created something new, almost like remixing poetry into music. To be honest, I also found it a bit hard to keep up since the words would go away so quickly, and I would miss a couple of lines. But that challenge made it even more engaging, it pushed me to stay focused.

What stood out to me most about this piece was how it changed the way I think about poetry and reading in general. Normally poetry feels still and quiet, something you read at your own pace, but this experience was the complete opposite, it was active and unpredictable. I liked that it gave me control as the reader, yet also reminded me how easily that control can slip away when the words disappeared too soon. It perfectly aligns with digital literature, where text and technology work together to create new forms of meaning and interaction.

Jody Zellen’s Avenue S offered a very different, yet equally compelling, experience. It captures the eerie stillness of life during the Covid pandemic, when empty city streets and suspended routines defined daily life. The work features playful doodles of deserted urban spaces alongside references to the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020, grounding it in a moment that was both isolating and socially significant. I was struck by how the minimal interactivity mirrors the experience of a lockdown, there’s little to control, yet the subtle movements and arrangements of words and images draw the viewer in, creating a quiet, reflective space.

Together, these works highlight the wide range of digital literature. Yardley, PA 1997 invites playful interaction, letting readers perform, remix, and create alongside the text, while Avenue S uses minimal interactivity to reflect on a historical moment and evoke deep emotions. Both demonstrate how technology can expand the possibilities of reading, turning poetry and visual works into immersive experiences that are dynamic and deeply connected to the moments they represent.

student blogs

Facade & Welcome Home

Facade

This was such an interesting experience. I’ve never played this game before, and it really surprised me just how long artificial intelligence tech has been around and how much they’ve evolved since then. The game puts you right in the middle of a dramatic evening with Grace and Trip, a married couple whose relationship starts to unravel right in front of you. You play as their longtime friend, using your own name and gender, and as the night unfolds, you get pulled into their arguments, emotions, and decisions that can completely change the course of their story.

Even though I wasn’t able to actually play the game because of the installation issues for mac users, I watched a few additional videos besides the ones Dr. Zamora shared with us for reference. What fascinated me most was how Facade has been described as coming closer than any other digital literature work to achieving the long-held dream of creating an interactive, animated fiction that can understand and respond to any language input from the user. Despite its limitations in graphics and language processing, the creators, Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern, managed to design something that feels deep and emotionally complex. Watching different playthroughs made it clear how every interaction creates new micro-narratives, subtle but meaningful variations in how the evening unfolds. It’s incredible that a game created in 2005 captures such a wide range of human emotion and choice through AI, it truly shows how ahead of its time Facade was and how much AI tech and interactive storytelling has evolved since then.

Welcome Home

Welcome Home is a restorative project website dedicated to reviving a 1970s children’s show. This piece was so cute and fun to explore! I loved the bright, playful colors throughout the site and really enjoyed seeing how different forms of electronic literature can be incorporated, it amazes me how creative and interactive these projects can be. I enjoyed going through the tabs, but my favorite was exploring the neighborhood and getting to know all of the characters. It reminded me of Sesame Street with each character feeling unique and full of personality. It felt like stepping into a small, vibrant world where every detail was carefully crafted. It made the experience feel playful. I also really enjoyed the news tab because it shows just how much progress the creators have made over the years in developing this project. The issue of preservation really hit home for me with this one, because it’s so nice to see a collective group of individuals who truly care about bringing something like this back to life. It takes so much time, effort, and dedication to recreate something that originally existed years ago, and that effort shows in every small detail. 

student blogs

Exploring Interactive Poetry: High Muck a Muck

I enjoyed exploring through the interactive poem, High Muck a Muck: Playing Chinese. Compared to last week’s reading, it wasn’t quite as challenging, but it was still overwhelming. There was so much to click on and explore, and I kept wanting to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I also noticed that the words sometimes disappeared quickly. This made it tricky to keep up. In a way, it pushed me to slow down and I had to really focus on each moment.

That initial sense of disorientation ended up being one of the most powerful parts of the experience. The more I explored, the more I realized that maybe the site was designed this way on purpose. Immigration stories aren’t neat/linear narratives. They’re fragmented and layered. The overwhelming number of choices reflected that reality. Each click felt like a gamble, echoing the risks and uncertainties that shape immigrant lives.

As I clicked around, one of the pieces that stood out to me was the Vancouver section. It focused on the voices of Chinese immigrants. It captured both the energy and the exhaustion of daily life, the constant motion of a community striving to survive and belong. What struck me most was how it balanced hardship with resilience, showing that even in challenging circumstances, moments of connection and care still flourished. It reminded me that history isn’t only made in major events. It’s alive in the ordinary rhythms of life. It exists in the small gestures. It is in the shared routines. It’s also in the ways people carve out a sense of home midst uncertainty.

What makes High Muck a Muck so powerful is how it layers different multimodals elements. Some clicks reveal poetry, others play oral histories or video clips. With the sound on, the voices add another dimension. I found myself listening closely, noticing accents, pauses, hesitations, and laughter. Those voices felt like bridges, connecting me not just to information but to lived experiences.

student blogs

Discovering Electronic Literature

Pressman’s essay Navigating Electronic Literature was such an insightful read, especially in the way it unpacked just how expansive the world of electronic literature can be. What struck me most was her explanation of hypertext, one of the earliest and most influential forms of electronic literature.

Pressman explains:

“In a hypertext the reader navigates a non-linear, branching narrative by clicking on hyperlinks to access new lexias, or chunks of text. For example, clicking on the underlined, hyperlink words ‘the bodies,’ ‘police,’ or ‘window’ in the following screen triggers the appearance of new windows (or lexias) containing different narrative text and yielding new reading paths.”

What fascinates me is how much agency the reader has in navigating the story. The order of reading isn’t fixed; instead, it depends entirely on which links are clicked, which paths are followed, and which connections are made. Every journey through a hypertext feels unique, crafted by both the author’s design and the reader’s choices. Electronic literature like this reminds me that reading isn’t always passive. Sometimes, it’s an act of discovery.

Another idea that stood out in Pressman’s essay is her reference to critic Espen Aarseth, who argues that authors of hypertexts preprogram the paths readers can take, allowing only “trivial” rather than productive engagement. While I can see this point, my experience with Twelve Blue suggests that navigating a hypertext can still be deeply engaging and thought-provoking. Even within the paths the author designed, the act of choosing, pausing, and exploring made me reflect not only on my role as a reader but also on how literature itself can be structured and understood. The experience highlighted how reading can be an active process, one where meaning emerges through both the design of the text and the choices we make as we move through it.

Reading through Twelve Blue by Michael Joyce was fun but also challenging. I found myself clinging to each hypertext before moving on, only to discover that clicking opened yet another page with yet another link, and then another. It felt endless—like having too many tabs open at once or falling down one rabbit hole after another. The experience was equal parts overwhelming and compelling, drawing me into a world that resisted structure and certainty.

Joyce describes Twelve Blue as:

“A drowning, a murder, a friendship, three or four love affairs, a boy and a girl, two girls and their mothers, two mothers and their lovers, a daughter and her father, a father and his lover, seven women, three men, twelve months, twelve threads, eight hours, eight waves, one river, a quilt, a song, twelve interwoven stories, a thousand memories. Twelve Blue explores the way our lives—like the web itself or a year, a day, a memory, or a river—form patterns of interlocking, multiple, and recurrent surfaces.”

That description captures exactly how the reading experience feels: fragmented yet interconnected, chaotic yet carefully designed. It’s not about reaching a neat ending, but about embracing the patterns and overlaps that emerge through exploration. For someone like me, who thrives on structure in reading and writing, Twelve Blue initially felt challenging. It broke away from the predictable order I’m already used to relying on. Yet, as I navigated the nonlinear paths and followed link after link, I began to notice the beauty in learning through exploration. The experience reminded me that there is no single way to approach learning; knowledge and understanding can emerge from multiple paths and perspectives. In this sense, the challenge of the hypertext became part of the lesson, showing me that growth often happens when we step outside familiar patterns or comfort zone as we say.

student blogs

Day 8: Farewell, All

Today’s final class was incredibly meaningful. I had the opportunity to share a small piece of the work I’ve been developing over the past two weeks during this writer’s retreat. I feel a deep sense of accomplishment for having written and completed the foundational draft of Part 1 of the memoir I’ve been working on. It’s been a long time coming, and while there’s still more to refine and expand upon, I now have a strong foundation from which the rest of the story can grow. Ideas are already beginning to overflow, and I’m excited for what’s ahead. Moving forward, I’d like to continue writing for at least an hour a day, just like we did during the retreat, so I can carve out dedicated time to focus and stay accountable.

It was a real pleasure to reconnect with familiar faces from the M.A. program and to meet many of you for the first time. These past two weeks have flown by, but they’ve been deeply enriching, and I’ve truly enjoyed being part of this experience with all of you.

Dr. Zamora, thank you for fostering such a welcoming and safe environment where learning and creativity thrives. Your guidance and care have made this experience truly special, and I am deeply grateful for all the work you’ve done to make this retreat meaningful. I’ll truly miss being in this space with all of you.

With gratitude, I leave you with this:

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is strange with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure comes about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell just how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
John Greenleaf Whittier

student blogs

Day 7: Nearing the End

Today’s class was such a bittersweet moment. We held our first round of Author’s Chair, and I had the privilege of hearing a few of my peers share their stories. They were all raw, honest, and incredibly moving. It hit me that we’re nearing the end of this retreat, and tomorrow, we’ll be wrapping up this course. Time always moves too quickly when surrounded by creative energy and genuine connection.

Everyone did so wonderful today. Watching each person bring their words to life reminded me of how powerful storytelling is and not just in the writing itself, but in the act of sharing, of being witnessed. I truly hope to see all of you continue working on your writing projects beyond this space. The world needs your stories.

What struck me most today was how, by listening to others, new ideas began sparking in my mind suddenly, a phrase, a sentence, even just a tone would ignite something unexpected. It’s one of those magical things about writing: sometimes the best ideas don’t come from sitting alone in front of the page, but from sitting quietly and listening to each other, to the world, to what moves us.

One thing that brings me hope, especially in a world that often feels divided, is this very act of coming together. Whether it’s in a writing class, during a crisis, or while building something from scratch, people show up. Strangers help strangers. Communities rally. Solutions are born from shared struggle and deep care. It’s a reminder that even in hard times, connection and creativity are still possible and that maybe, just maybe, we’re capable of more good than we think.

As for my writing, I continue to work on Part 1 (life-before). It’s a working draft, and I’ve been making steady edits, particularly focusing on character development between my sister and I. This development is essential, as it lays the emotional foundation for the story that unfolds later. Understanding who we were “before” is key to appreciating the transformation and complexities that come in the chapters ahead.

This retreat has offered me the space to slow down and listen to my thoughts, to others, and the silences in between. I’ve realized how much I need that kind of reflective time, not just for writing but for my well-being. Being surrounded by others who are also immersed in creative work has inspired me to push past self-doubt and stay open to discovery. I’m leaving this space feeling both grounded and energized.

See you all tomorrow for our last class!

student blogs

Day 6: Letting it Unfold

Day 6 of the retreat brought a quiet kind of momentum. The morning session moved fast, but left me with a real sense of progress. During our independent writing time, I was finally able to get down a rough draft of Part 1 of the memoir I’ve been slowly building toward. It’s still rough, but it feels good to see the story start to take shape. Dividing the project into parts has helped me stay grounded and intentional, letting each section unfold on its terms, without pressure.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Peter Elbow’s approach to writing, especially his idea of freewriting. Permitting myself to write without judgment, without editing as I go, has changed everything. It’s how I was able to get this first section down. That freedom, to let the words come out messy, unfinished, or even unclear, has brought me closer to clarity.

We also discussed and were assigned the Author’s Chair today. I will be sharing my piece with you all on Thursday. I’m looking forward to it. The thought of reading my work aloud is a little intimidating, but it’s also exciting. It’s not just about being heard, it’s about getting thoughtful, constructive feedback from people who are in the same creative trenches. That kind of exchange feels like an important part of this process.

As I continue to find my voice in this memoir, I keep drawing inspiration from the artists who’ve shaped the way I see language: Maya Angelou, with her strength and soul; E.E. Cummings, with his fearless approach to form; and Elizabeth Acevedo, whose storytelling pulses with energy and emotion. And now, I’d add Peter Elbow to that list, for reminding me that writing doesn’t have to start polished to be powerful.

With each session, each page, each conversation, I’m reminded why I’m here. The work isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. I’m not just writing a memoir. I’m writing my way into something fuller, more honest, and more alive. 

student blogs

Day 5: Trusting the Process

Hi all!

I wish I hadn’t missed class today I’ve been recovering from a cold I caught over the weekend and needed more rest. But I’m feeling better and excited to be back with you all for our last few days together. In such a short time, I truly believe we’ve created something so special, rooted in honesty, connection, and creativity.

Although I tried to get some writing done today, it was tough to focus while not feeling my best. I still had a productive day in other ways. I took time to organize my thoughts, reflect on the overall direction of my thesis, and dove into a memoir I’ve been reading called, Dolores, by Catherine Paiz and Riley J. Ford.

Reading memoirs like this one inspires me and helps spark ideas for my writing. There’s something powerful about immersing yourself in someone else’s story, it reminds me of how layered and meaningful personal storytelling can be. Catherine Paiz’s story is especially compelling. She grew up far from the spotlight in the multicultural city of Montreal, where her dreams first began. Later, her path took her to Los Angeles, where she built what looked like a picture-perfect life: love, children, and a YouTube career that reached millions as part of The ACE Family. But behind that success, she faced heartbreak, betrayal, and the loss of her sense of self.

When it all began to unravel, Catherine chose to go inward. Transforming her pain into strength and reconnecting with the woman she was always meant to be. Her story is a powerful reminder that even a life that looks perfect on the outside can hold deep struggles, and that true courage is in choosing authenticity.

Reading Dolores has made me reflect on elements like how memoirs are structured, the voice and tone of the narrator, and how vulnerability is shared on each page. I started reading it a week before our retreat and I’m now about halfway through.

This ties back to the blog starter I should have opened with: What helps you think? Lo-fi music and a good book help me think. There’s something about that combination that grounds me and gets my creative energy flowing. Reading memoirs like Dolores inspires me and helps spark ideas for my writing. There’s just something about it that flips a switch in my brain. Unlike music with lyrics, it doesn’t compete for my attention it plays softly in the background, rhythmic and mellow, creating the perfect atmosphere to focus and get work done.

Through this retreat, I’ve decided to structure my memoir into three parts. To be honest, it hasn’t been easy. I’ve mostly written part two, which still needs revision. I’ve received a lot of helpful feedback on that section, but I’ve realized I need to build and add more to Part One, the before. This section will focus on my family, the relationship with my sisters, and the closeness we shared. I think it’s an important foundation for the rest of the story, and I’m excited (and a little nervous) to dig into that emotional space.

Thanks for reading, see you all in class!

student blogs

Day 4: One week down, One to go

The light, for me, is knowing that to reach it, I have to move through the darkness. Life isn’t always clear or easy sometimes it feels like walking through a long, winding tunnel with only a faint glow far ahead. There are moments when the shadows seem overwhelming, and the path feels uncertain or frightening. But the light isn’t about skipping those hard moments or avoiding the struggle. It’s about embracing the journey through them. Learning to trust that even when I can’t see the whole way forward, each step through the darkness brings me closer to that glow.

Light is a symbol of hope, growth, and possibility. It reminds me that discomfort and doubt aren’t signs to stop, but are part of the process of becoming. The courage to keep moving, even when the way isn’t clear, is where the true strength lies. That quiet, steady light at the end of the tunnel, whether it’s a goal, a sense of peace, or a deeper understanding is what makes the journey worthwhile.

Knowing this gives me the strength to face hard times, to keep going when the future feels unclear, and to trust that the light is there waiting for me on the other side of the darkness.

It’s wild to think that we’ve already reached the halfway point of the writer’s retreat. In some ways, it feels like we just got here and yet so much has happened in just one week. I’m excited to be heading into the second week, the last week, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous too. Growth always comes with a bit of discomfort, and I’m starting to feel that in the best way. 

Thursday’s writing session felt particularly impactful, especially because I hit a good flow state while writing. After lunch, we had an hour dedicated to working on our writing projects. That uninterrupted time was a gift, I was able to sink deeper into the drafts of my memoir and make some needed revisions.

The afternoon session also brought our first Author’s Chair session, where a few of my peers shared pieces of their current work. Cali, Jason, and Jennifer set the tone beautifully. Each of them brought something unique and heartfelt to the table, and their vulnerability made me even more excited (and yes, a bit anxious) to eventually share my work.

I’m looking forward to hearing more from my peers and sharing a piece of my writing soon. Feedback can be nerve-wracking, but I know it’s exactly what I need to keep building this memoir with purpose and clarity. 

This retreat has already revealed so much to me. It’s shown me how important community is to the creative journey, how feedback can be a gift when given with care, and how sometimes, the story you’re writing ends up teaching you more about yourself.

Week one is officially behind us, and I’m ready to see where week two takes us. See you all next week!

student blogs

Day 3: One step at a time

Blog starter question: if you could represent yourself with any object, what would it be, and why? 

This was a tough question, it’s not easy to pick one thing that fully represents who I am. But if I had to choose, I’d say a sunflower. It’s grounded with strong roots, always reaching toward the light. It shows quiet resilience and a steady determination to grow, even when things aren’t perfect. A sunflower doesn’t need to be the brightest or loudest; it follows the sun by turning its head throughout the day, always moving toward light and positivity. That steady movement and growth feel like the best way to describe me.

Due to the extreme heat, the university has moved all classes online for the remainder of the week, so we’re continuing with remote learning. I didn’t make as much visible progress today as I had hoped—fewer words on the page and fewer boxes checked off. But even so, it didn’t feel like a loss—not at all.

A highlight of the day came during our breakout group session. We paired up to practice client-consult scenarios and share some much-needed peer support. Hearing how my peers approached their projects gave me new insights into my own. One thing on my mind is how to structure my memoir best. Traditional chapters haven’t felt quite right, at least for my memoir, even after reading and exploring different memoirs and their unique formats. Recently, I’ve been leaning toward organizing the book into broader sections — like Part 1, and Part 2 — rather than conventional chapters. While I didn’t produce many pages today, I left with new sparks of insight that feel just as important. Sometimes progress isn’t about quantity, but the quiet moments that deepen the work. 

A big thank you to Ricki and Jason for the meaningful discussions we had earlier about our projects, exploring both strengths and weaknesses and reflecting on everything it takes to be a writer.

Heat or no heat, the journey continues. See you all (virtually) for Day 4! (: