2020

The New CZUR Shine Ultra Overhead Scanner It's here. It's finally here! My book scanner has arrived.

2019

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.

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.

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

Poetry 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.

Aleatory Writing Experiment This is an account of an experiment, replicating one of Bernadette Mayer’s writing experiments, 'Systematically eliminate the use of certain kinds of words or phrases from a piece of writing.'

2015

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?

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!

Composing with Words the Way John Cage Composes with Sounds 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?

Submission Strategy Review

A recent post by Becky Tuch on the Review Review has some good advice for writers.

2014

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Useful Features of Version Control Software

This is a follow-up to my earlier post entitled Version Control for Writers.

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

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.

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

There are No Categories for Music Genre

I know it’s becoming unfashionable to actually own a digital copy of music anymore, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have several thousand songs that I have collected over the years. Lately I’ve become interested in cleaning up the information about my music library, the metadata tags that describe the music’s genre, in particular. I’d like to be able to kick back with my iphone or whatever and quickly scroll through a list of genres. I’d like for that list to help me easily answer the question “what kind of music do I want to listen to right now”. Sadly, nearly all the music in my collection has a genre tag that is way too general “alternative” or way too specific “pre-punk indie rock” to be very good.

Generative Writing Cut-Up Tools: DadaDodo and Dadadodomax 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.

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.

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.

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.

Delurking My Life

The blog has been on hiatus. My life, for the most part, has been on hiatus because of work.

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.

The Death of Hypertext? If the world doesn't yet have a strong, ongoing body of hypertext literature, could it be because the idea predates web standards? Will hypertext literature, like books, require conservation to survive? Will it be transcribed or upgraded?

2011

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.

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

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?

Essential Space Age Pop Albums I want to figure out this crazy look. These aren't the ten best album covers, but here's a start. My source for this list was an article called "Ten Basic Space Age Pop Albums".

Space is the Place

Sun Ra had registered as a conscientious objector when drafted to fight in the Second World War, citing the absence of African-Americans on the draft board as his reason. After witnessing endless post-war civil rights abuses from his vantage in Birmingham, Alabama, Sun Ra came to the conclusion that Earth was a no-win situation for Black people, and that the future would inevitably see a new African diaspora—in outer space.

Forbidden Planet

Forbidden Planet Movie Poster shows a giant robot carrying a damsel in distress

2010

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.

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

A Piano Made of Telephones

This is a Fluxus score. Fluxus is a type of performance art. A Fluxus score, like a musical score, is a sort of recipe for a performance. For more information, read The Fluxus Performance Workbook.

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

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.

Algorithmic Avant-Garde There's a new, controversial anthology of nearly 4,000 poems, entitled Issue 1. It is large enough to defy the limits of traditional bookbinding, with its 3,785 pages. It defies another assumption about books, too.

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.

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.

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.

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

Welcome to Baltimore, 'Charm City' A Charm Bracelet of Half-Baked Delicacies

Note: This text was written by Michael Martone and published with the Creative Commons License.

Book Companion Websites

Everybody knows that the internet is a powerful tool for marketing and for distributing information. It should be no surprise then, that amazon.com, a bookseller, is top on the list of internet moneymakers. Amazon markets books, which distribute information, so Amazon naturally has some ideal internet content. Still, there isn’t much difference between a listing on Amazon and a space on a bookstore shelf. There are other ways for online content to supplement the publication of a book, in addition to marketing.

2006

Spoken Word

Here is a colelction of information about the literature of spoken word, from oral traditions to slam poetry, and beyond. Know something that should be here? Please share it in the comments.

Building a Writing Studio

I’ve written this entry to outline the ideas I have for a new writing studio. Along the way I found photos of famous writing studios, some feng shui tips for a workspace, and some ideas for how to organize a writing studio.

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

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

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

The Legend of Alexandre The Savage Gnome

Step this way folks, into a carnival atmosphere of human oddity and depravity, inexplicable beauty in the strangest places, ironic affections, and betrayal. Thrill to to sight of some of the world’s most exquisite dolls. Chills to the very bone!

Evaluating Hypertexts

A site whose author is “teaching a small course in media aesthetics next term, “Jerz’s Literacy Weblog has posted a link to an article by George Landow,, a key thinker in the field of hypertext theory.

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

Street Preacher I wrote a play called "Street Preacher"

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.

I'm going to be on TV!

It was one week, to the hour, since my arrival in boston. I had just completed a poetry reading. It was the third reading I have attended this week. You wouldn’t believe the lunacy I’ve seen, passed off as poetry, or maybe you would, in which case you have my sympathy. This reading was not so fraught with lunacy, and so I decided to read some poems.

2003

Meaning and Being-in-the-(Modern)-World a Response to Heidegger