Daily Archives: September 20, 2025

student blogs

I’m Starting to Get That Feeling…

Writing and posting this on Saturday preceding Wednesday’s class. There were some great things about this week and some not so great things. To start, I landed a tutoring job today! I will be morphing students into SAT and ACT-taking machines. The hours replace what I would have been doing at the dance studio, which I think will make me rediscover a bit of my purpose more. I will still be teaching in some degree, just not dance. Rather, how to answer questions asking you for a synonym for a word, but you have no idea what any of the words mean at all. Yay.

On the not so great side, I had to unfortunately get rid of my beautiful little rose bush. This week I noticed some kind of little bug infestation that was eating away at the plant. I’m no expert, as we know, so I showed my father who told me my best bet was to let the plant go. I’m sad about this because it was doing really well and I really liked having it around. But, I will try again with a new plant. I just didn’t think that plant would be gone so soon.

Moving onto my thesis, I completed my write-up for Remarkably Bright Creatures. I am so torn about whether it is postmodern or not because with this book, it really comes down to the technique in which the story is told and the content of the narrative. The technique is postmodern at its core, but the content is a wholesome, sincere story. So, is it postmodern or New Sincerity? I think it’s similar to that of Good Material, which I studied over the summer, and found that it was sincere with postmodern elements. I believe that whatever literary era we are in now, whatever we end up calling it, will unearth itself in this way: some new overarching developments with postmodern elements on the side. So, I don’t think we are done with postmodernism yet, and we may never be, but the state of things is changing.

I know that it may seem very easy to poke holes through the sheet that is New Sincerity, but two books kind of point this way. I know, two books sounds absolutely ridiculous, and they may even be the only two books that do this today and by chance I have picked them to study. But, I have been wondering if the separation we all feel from each other exacerbated by the current political and economic spheres we find ourselves in may actually be causing some kind of regression (if that is the correct word to use here). My thinking is leaning towards that we have been feeling disengaged from each other for so long that we find solace in connecting with characters from books who want their stories told, and this is why this research matters. Maybe, stories are finding their way to the top again after years of being fed artificial graphics.

I will be thinking more about this because I am totally not sure about any of that at all. In the meantime, I will be starting my next book soon. I have picked This Other Eden by Paul Harding to cover the historical fiction subgenre. In the summertime, I decided to stay away from historical fiction because I did not see usefulness in studying a retelling. Though, looking back at my literature review, none of the pieces of scholarship I read mentioned what postmodern historical fiction looks like and how it could change if we are out of postmodernism. Plus, I realized that I did include an article that studied a fantasy book with a post-postmodern lens, or something or other. So, I felt including fantasy within my scope would not be filling a gap. I love historical fiction so I am excited to see where this takes me.

student blogs

Pressman & “Twelve Blue”


Before reading this article and having a bit more context as to the world of electronic literature, I never considered how navigation impacts our experience. After reading this, I feel like the idea that having a variety of ways to digest someone’s electronic literature is so special and different. I think people sometimes struggle with reading printed text because it may be “boring” or they have a hard time caring but when the literature is interactive, people may be more inclined to participate. I appreciated that Pressman included the critiques of e-lit navigation. Opinions in my perspective are always subject to change but I reject the claim that “the authors of hypertexts program all possible paths through which readers can navigate and thus invite only “trivial” rather than productive (or “ergodic”) action from the reader”. I think any interaction with the work is productive because the very fact that people are interacting with it. Having different approaches to a piece e-literature keeps it fresh and interesting that it could be experienced different ways. The one that really stood out to me was the last one. I tried clicking the link to it but it was a dead-end. Overall this article provoked a lot of thoughts and questions in me around what we consider literature. 

I was glad I read the Pressman article on navigating electronic literature before experiencing “Twelve Blue” by Michael Joyce. I was optimistic going into it. I liked the idea of kind of “choosing my fate” when it came to the story line. A “choose your own adventure” if you will. I felt as though I chose my own insanity. I started off reading about a fifteen year old girl flirting with a carny, then about a family of three where the parents weren’t married anymore, then a side quest story of said father and daughter being in the Blue Ridge Mountains to find a photo of her great-grandmother, then a story about a woman named Delores Peters came into play and lost me. I got out of context pieces about a boy drowning that confused me as well. I was getting repeat sections as I tapped through the hyperlinks and threads on the side of the screen. I can honestly say, I had no idea what was happening 80% of the time as I tapped through this story. The storyline I stayed with most was with Javier, Beth/Tevet, Aurelie, and Lisle(Lee). I didn’t even realize there were section titles until the very end of my hour. I loved the language Joyce wrote with it was challenging yet fit the bill for the way the piece works as far as choosing your own adventure and the storylines it follows. I said above while reading the Pressman article that I thought the idea of letting readers choose how the story goes was a fun/fresh idea but after experiencing “Twelve Blue”, I think it’s fair to say that I am someone who likes order and direction.