Table of Contents

Topics

I blog in general about the intersection of culture and technology. Here are some of the main ideas.

Art² Audio¹ Ballyhoo² Blogging¹ Books¹ Design² Hypertext⁸ ideas¹ Imagism¹ Journal³ Music² Noteworthy³⁰ Performance⁶ plays⁴ portfolio⁴¹ Publishing¹ Rant² Scanning³ Software¹⁰ Space Age Pop² Spoken Word⁴ Technology¹ Text-processing¹² video² Writing²⁸ Writing Tools¹ zines¹

Blog

Rants, Raves, and Writings by Dylan Kinnett

2020-12-21 A New Scanner for Books

It’s here. It’s finally here! My book scanner has arrived.

2019-04-13 Text Adventures that Go Beyond

One of these text adventures takes a new approach to the old experience, and another pushes the medium towards a limit that could suggest its future direction.

2019-03-11 Open the Pod Bay Doors: Conversational Interfaces in an Epistolary Literary Style

A look at two hypertexts: one game and one visual novel, that tell their stories in a conversational way.

2019-02-06 Bandersnatch, Hypertext, and the State of Interactive Stories

Interest in non-linear storytelling is rekindling. Two months ago, the Black Mirror studio released an interactive, non-linear movie called Bandersnatch on Netflix. The choices aren’t merely about what should happen next, but also about the mood, style, and even the meaning of the story that unfolds.

2018-11-21 Aleatory Writing Experiment

An experiment, after Bernadette Mayer, to systematically eliminate the use of certain kinds of words or phrases from a piece of writing.

2018-11-21 Chapbooks, Zines, and Rare Books from the Early 2000s

These book reviews describe the works of poets and publishers at a time right before the web became ubiquitous, so they are a useful archive as well as an enjoyable read.

2016-09-29 Spoken Word

2015-10-14 When ‘It Just Works’ Doesn’t Work

Downloads, updates, logins, alerts, updates, logins, downloads… when do we ever get to just do what we came to do?

2015-05-03 How I Made a Repository of my Writings, and Why

If you have a lifetime of writings, it can get difficult to sort through it all. I’d like to describe a the system I use to keep track of what I’ve written. Suggestions for improvement are welcome!

2015-03-27 Composing with Words like John Cage

In about two days, I plan to get on stage to perform a written work in front of a live audience and read, not from a script, but from something more like a score. I’m not the only person engaging in this literary experiment. There are about a dozen of us. What are we doing?

2015-01-08 Submission Strategy Review

If you submit more writings, you get published more often. It’s simple. Here’s how I keep track of it all.

2014-07-22 Authenticity Versus Expectation

There are probably some of you who would say that “clichés are clichés for a reason”, and to you I would say “cry me a river!” and I would add that the clichés may be useful, or comfortable, but cliché has no place in poetry, because it isn’t artful.

2014-05-19 Git and the Writer

Image the power of your editors and beta readers to commit changes for your review through a freely distributed application where each participant can enact changes without the knowledge of others doing the same.

2014-05-05 The Death of the Novel, Again

With books, what is it that’s superior to other forms? If novels are dying, should we mourn? What are we parting with, exactly? How can we make sure not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, if we move on from books?

2014-04-13 Ten Things Not to Do at a Literary Reading

Literary events, like any live performance, are bound to have some glitches here and there. Some of those glitches are easily avoided.

2014-02-15 Index of First Lines

It’s easy to create an index of first lines. If each of your poems is a separate text file, then a handy command line trick will produce an index of first lines. If you have all your poems in a single Microsoft Word document, you can use the index feature.

2014-01-21 Following Silliman’s Blogroll

There’s a treasure trove of vibrant and enjoyable literary blogs on the Internet. You can still subscribe to them all and join the conversation. I’ve created a tool to help.

2013-09-11 Leaving Microsoft Word Behind

I have amassed a collection of files: .doc files, .docx files, .rtf files, .html files, but I set out to convert them all to plain text files.

2013-08-06 Scrivener, Git and Version Control for Writers

Scrivener projects are laid out as application bundles with the .scriv extension, and, as it turns out, are amenable to Git version control.

2013-08-03 Apps For Writers with Version Control

The way I see it, there are two ways to add Version Control abilities to your writing workflow. One would be to use a word processor specifically built for the task. The other would be to use the word processor you already have, and to use a separate app to handle the version control features.

2013-08-02 Useful Features of Version Control Software

Version control for writers, and why it’s useful.

2013-07-30 Version Control for Writers

Authors, editors, literary scholars, archivists: all eventually have to do work with multiple versions of a text.

2013-01-21 My Grandmother’s Writings Part Two: File Cabinets and Beer Boxes

the writings were carefully removed from their original file cabinet and transferred into a set of brown cardboard boxes emblazoned with the irrelevant phrases “Bud Ice” and “Corona” where they remained, stored in the basement, for about 20 years.

2013-01-06 My Grandmother’s Writings Part One: “Look at all this paper!”

In October of 2012, my dad gave me the entire collected writings by my Grandmother, Elizabeth Kinnett. I’m going to catalog, annotate and digitize these writings. Along the way, I’ll blog about the work I do.

2012-12-01 There are No Categories for Music Genre

2012-10-30 Generative Writing Cut-Up Tools

DadaDodo is a program that analyses texts for word probabilities, and then generates random sentences based on that. Sometimes these sentences are nonsense; but sometimes they cut right through to the heart of the matter, and reveal hidden meanings.

2012-08-27 Gearing up for Sound

I’ve decided to tinker with audio some more. I’ve put together a cheap and functional setup over the last few days. Here are some details about what gear I chose.

2012-07-15 How I Do My Word Processing

I am both a “computer person” and a writer. You might be interested to know: how do I combine the two? Here are some thoughts on how I do my word processing, most of the time.

2012-07-07 When to Abandon a Creative Project

My list of ongoing creative projects is too complicated. I’m declaring creative bankruptcy, so to speak. I’ve had too many irons in the fire for too long. Why so many? It seems I have trouble bringing an end to some projects.

2012-07-02 Delurking My Life

2012-03-12 Blogging Changes Quickly

It has been an incredible five years for blogging and the history of the internet. I only hope that the self-hosted website doesn’t lose out to ease-of-use and widespread compatibility.

2012-02-23 The Death of Hypertext?

Does anyone write literary hypertexts anymore? Are the existing tests future-proof?

2011-06-27 My Favorite Notebook

I’m looking to replace my very favorite notebook, which is all filled up now. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to make these anymore. I’m posting this in the hopes that someone can help to point me in the right direction.

2011-05-21 Scriptwriting Software

I sampled the various software apps that are designed to help a writer to produce a stage play

2011-02-26 Writing with Audio

I’m interested in adding audio equipment to my writing toolbox. So, I think I need some gear. I’m posting this to solicit any advice from musicians, technicians and writers: what works and what doesn’t? How can I do these things sufficiently well, on the smallest possible budget?

2011-01-31 Space is the Place

2011-01-31 Forbidden Planet

2010-08-30 Ten Reasons Why I (don’t really) Love Lists.

With a list, you can quickly fill up the page without having to actually write very much. It’s kind of like using a really big typeface to get out of writing a long book report.

2010-07-13 Altered Text

I’ll call it altered text, although for the thing I have in mind there are actually many things, many names, from many times and places. My notion of “destroyed text” is somewhat unique, but not really. I’ll show you some examples of a family ideas I think the idea is descended from. I’ll try to give you explanations, citations and examples for each.

2009-07-01 A Piano Made of Telephones

2009-01-29 Second Land at Pyramid Atlantic

An experimental music performance by Second Land. My musical instrument was a short wave radio, and I performed spoken word through a delay petal at low volume.

2008-12-07 Des Imagistes: Some Imagist Poems

“Des Imagistes” was the first anthology of the Imagism movement. Imagism was conceived by Ezra Pound, H.D. and Richard Aldington in 1912. Finally, this very rare book has been published online for all to read.

2008-11-10 Algorithmic Avant-Garde

2008-09-30 Meaning and Experience

There are two types of sense that a work of art can make. It can have meaning. It can also be experienced. Of course, it has both qualities and they blend. It is important to be aware of both senses, and to be able to tell them apart, because we make these different senses in different ways.

2008-09-30 Learning to Write Art Criticism

Ever since I met with Physicalism, I’ve been curious about what its like to be an art critic. I decided to try being an art critic first hand. I put together a sample of my writing and submitted it so that I could be considered for the 23rd Annual Critics’ Residency Program at the Maryland Art Place.

2008-09-18 Generative Writing Exercises

Generative writing uses a system, such as a set of rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedure, which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy resulting in a completed work of art.

2008-01-14 Submission Tracking for Writers

One of the most important business skills a writer needs is the ability to track the submission process. There’s a maxim out there, variously attributed, which says: “serious writers should keep their work in circulation until it either sells or the ink wears off”.

2007-06-19 The Ed Schrader Show

The new Metro Gallery opened this month, and hosted Baltimore’s favorite talk show: The Ed Schrader Show.

2007-02-27 Book Companion Websites

A survey of websites designed to promote books, authors, and publishers. How are they designed? How do they work?

2006-06-30 Building a Writing Studio

2006-06-26 Gentlemanly Lecturer

Bally excerpted from a 1903 book entitled “On The Road with the Circus”… In the authors words, “It is interesting as a truthful reproduction of a style of unique oratory which prevails nowhere else.”

2005-12-11 Spoken Word, Recorded Poetry, and Hip-Hop

The creative challenge here is to find a way to take my favorite elements of each of these groups, and go my own way with them.

2004-12-22 Street Preacher Flyer

This is the flier that advertised the performance of my play, Street Preacher.

2004-12-10 The Legend of Alexandre The Savage Gnome

a carnival atmosphere of human oddity and depravity, inexplicable beauty in the strangest places

2004-11-30 Evaluating Hypertexts

2004-11-22 An Apocalypse, and Goats

The flow of the river is ceaseless, Its waters never the same. That is, the only constant is change.

2004-09-07 Ergodic Literature

Its odd. there’s a way to mass-produce something like a toy castle, complete with catapult, court and cavelier–but they won’t make books in boxes.

2004-06-08 I’m going to be on TV!

2003-11-20 Meaning and Being-in-the-(Modern)-World: a Response to Heidegger

a Response to Heidegger

0001-01-01 Ephemera

Miscellanea and other Bloggings