Starting Locations For Sci-Fi Novels

Today, I'll be leading you toward a Google Maps essay that I made for Digital Magazine Production last semester (you should be seeing a pattern in my posts of the last few months, haha). It takes you around the globe for small blurbs on various science fiction novels from the past two hundred years or so.

A Meditation On the Night Sky

"A Meditation On the Night Sky" is a creative nonfiction essay that I wrote this winter for my Digital Magazine Production class.

Around the Galaxy in 450 Sol Days

Today I'm direct-linking to my story "Around the Galaxy in 450 Sol Days" from my Planetside Literary solo magazine project of the last semester. You can listen to me reading the story here. You can read the text here.

Planetside Literary

First, I will point out that I finally updated my Blogger photo. Yes, I know that Blogger crunched it and it's blurry, but I kind of like it like that, so it'll stay that way for at least a little while, haha. I was a senior in high school when my old photo was taken, and I just finished my junior year of undergrad the day before this photo was taken (which also happens to be today!).

It's probably a questionable decision to release so much of my unpublished work at once, through the link which will be following soon, but I feel good about it. I'm willing to give up on the chance of publishing these pieces elsewhere in order to have some excellent content on here.

Without further ado, I present to you my solo magazine that I created for my Digital Magazine Production class this semester: Planetside Literary. The only previously-published written content in the "magazine" is my story "The Last Photo of Humanity," which can be read a few different places on the web, both in its original contest entry form and in its revised Digital Portfolio form.

Since I don't expect anyone to read everything I've published here all at once, I'll be suggesting certain pieces to read every once in a while over the next month or two. The first piece up is my sci-fi flash fiction piece "As Tar and Soot." I don't know that this story ever found its full potential, but it's one of my personal favorites, and I'd love to know what y'all think about it. And by "y'all," of course, I mean the two or so people who currently read my blog, haha. Anyway, peace out, good friends. More suggestions from my web magazine to come. (Though you can read ahead if you really want to.)

The Cultivation of Relationships

Here's an article I wrote the last week of 2017 about building better relationships with people.

Undergraduate Major Blindness

Ultimately, we can only speak for what we ourselves have studied (and, though I didn't mention this in the article, even within a major, we may not know how certain choices within the major affect the situation).

Attention to College Students: How to Keep Track of Your College Grades

I'm not sure if anyone currently in college will stop by for this one, but I hope someone will.  Anyway, here's my recent article about how I keep track of my grades in college.

Disclaimers For Anyone Considering Triple-Majoring

Some people seem to think it's crazy to triple-major in college.  I think that, in most cases, it isn't too crazy.  However, I do have some disclaimers for anyone thinking about going with three.  You can read about that here.


(Note: My three majors are: Creative Writing, Multimedia and Digital Culture, and French.)

Major In Focus: French

This article details my third and final major.  It's in French, sort of.

Major in Focus: Multimedia and Digital Culture

My second undergrad major (after Creative Writing) is Multimedia and Digital Culture.  Not too many schools have a program like this one.  So what does the program even look like?  Well, you can read about it, in an article I wrote for The Odyssey Online, right here.

Major In Focus: Creative Writing

As you may know, one of my majors in college is Creative Writing.  But what does a Creative Writing major even look like?  It's not a major that every school has, at least as such.  You can read about my program in an article I wrote for The Odyssey Online here.

A Poem and Two Stories

Just a few days ago I was published in my Uni's literary magazine Backroads.  In the past, all but a few poems printed in Backroads volumes have existed only in hard-copy, but this issue has been published digitally as well.  You can read it here.

My poem "Parlor Games" is an itty-bitty thing that brushes against several philosophical concepts, including concepts of social class.

"Unification" is a work of Alternate History taking place in the late 18th-century in America.

My story "Up to the Brim" was influenced by Anton Chekhov, though it is set in England (well, it's technically unspecified, but it's supposed to be inferred that the story is set in London) rather than Russia.

While I'd love to hear any thoughts on these pieces of mine, I heartily recommend reading everything in the volume.  It shouldn't be a laborious task, and the visual design is stellar.

Essay Exhibit for Intro to Digital Humanities

My final essay for Intro to Digital Humanities is written on the subject of low-tech digital poetry and fringe art.  To be clearer, my essay discusses the use of basic computer programs and digital documents to produce digital poems or other forms of artwork that, while not precisely poems, contain some poetic values.

Some of the digital poems produced for the Digital Poetry course in which I am enrolled fall into my definition of low-tech digital poetry.  In the following Jing video (screencast), I will be briefly highlighting some of my work for the class and some of the work of my classmates.  I had to rush through the poems to keep the video short, and some are not shown in their entirety.  Unfortunately, there isn't much time to delve into these poems during the live exhibit, but I have hyperlinked to them below so that you can look at them later.  As you watch this Jing video, notice the different ways in which digital poems may be produced using methods as simple as .txt files or Prezi.

Essay Exhibit Jing (Note: You may want to hold Ctrl/Command and scroll to fit the whole video on your screen.)

Digital Poems Included in Jing (in order of appearance):

"Pain Changes" by Montana Mang

"Don't Worry" by Emily Moore

"Oh, What Are You Doing, And Where Are You Going?" by Patrick Stahl

"Save Changes" by Jonas Kiefer

"Lightly Worn" by Patrick Stahl

Now, quickly explore these two digital poems yourself:

"Dashed" by Patrick Stahl

"Seeking a release from the monotony" by Sean T. Jackson

The Jing video you just watched contains poetry made with Prezi, Jing, HTML, Excel, Notepad, and a few other basic computer applications (in the case of "Don't Worry"). Consider how each of these basic technologies affords the ability to create digital poems without very much technical training. The final two poems I asked you to explore yourself use .pdf files ("Dashed") or blog posts+videos+an audio recording ("Seeking..."). What impact is there on poems that require users to interact with documents that may not be so sleek as Flash or HTML?

If you have a moment (though you probably don't), check out my latest, tiny digital poem. It uses basic HTML and CSS coding and consists of just three pages.