Writer. I am a writer, that species of storyteller reliant on written words to plan and compose works that others read, hear, and view. What begins as words on a page or screen might come to life as a short story, a novel, spoken poem, a play, a film, a painting, or a sculpture. Ideally, my stories entertain audiences because persuasion begins with capturing the attention of readers and viewers.
Stories teach us and attempt to influence us. As children, the fairy tales we hear convey morality and reinforce ethical systems. As adults, anecdotes persuade us more effectively than data. Narrative and literary techniques make science and technology understandable to general audiences. To educate and persuade, learn the art of effective storytelling.
My creative works reflect a fondness for the writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Industrial Revolution, the quickening pace of scientific discoveries, and two World Wars led to a paradoxical period of hope and doubt writers captured for future generations. The writers I admire offered needed social critiques through brilliantly crafted stories. Calls to science justified racism, sexism, and eugenics. Technology does not improve human nature; it amplifies the best and worst of humanity.
Digital content creation removes barriers to the circulation of content. Technology now allows an artist to write, publish, film, record, distribute… all with minimal effort. As the essayists of the past relied on newspapers, I embrace blogs, podcasts, and video streaming technology to reach an audience. Media arts overlap and intertwine, with a handful of writers embracing transmedia productions. Plays feature video, and performances live-stream. Instead of fixed on a page, writing changes in real-time to reflect the moment. Social media make performances interactive events.
The future marks a return to the past. Storytelling was once an oral event, with people gathered around and interacting with the artist. Technology brings us full circle, but without the limitations of the past.
Digital Media Artist-Scholar
Type Matters book cover. All my published academic research has addressed digital content creation and visual design, frequently emphasizing typography. Two thesis papers, a dissertation, and a thesis film — and each of these has emphasized the role of type on screens. The shape of words influences how readers process meaning. Typeface choices, leading, tracking, and kerning can reinforce the intent of a text or detract from the intended meaning. To separate design from meaning is to ignore human nature.
The book chapters and papers I have authored examine online spaces and their designs, too. From online classes to interactive fiction, these digital media rely on text to convey information and meaning. The sameness of wiki pages or social media feeds reflects a typographical tyranny of sorts, removing self-expressive typography. However, we also know that sameness is effective in usability studies. After a colleague mentioned type and tone, I explored the concept of “audio typography” and the ability to text-to-speech applications to read italicized and emphasized types. Software still fails to match the meaning conveyed by human readers speaking the same text.
In 2017, I completed a master of fine arts in film and digital technology. With the knowledge and skills gained through the MFA, I will create transmedia and multimedia works that tell stories using live performance, real-time digital interactions, print elements, and cinematic techniques. When some argue that theatrical productions are interactive while cinema and television are not, they conveniently overlook that most theater is viewed from seats, without meaningful participation. I seek to create a few of the interactive works playwrights and filmmakers have envisioned.
My journey as a storyteller began long ago, when I was six years old. Even then, I was writing plays and making small books. I dreamed of crafting something special. I still have that dream. Digital media enable me to engage audiences in ways a static text might not, because I want people to be a part of the stories.
Rhetoric Scholar
I began writing long before I understood the power of words and stories in society. Few first graders realize that a story about forest animals at Christmas represents cultural values. By fifth grade, though, I recognized that my stories embodied a value system. Then, I discovered the ancient Greeks and Romans in a set of hardcover secondhand books. The concept of “rhetoric” entered my consciousness.
In 2010, I completed my doctoral studies in rhetoric, complementing a master’s degree in composition theory and rhetoric. Despite assumptions that rhetoric focuses on speech and public policy debates, the discipline offers ways to analyze all communication including creative writing, alongside all the arts and humanities.
As a scholar drawing on the traditions of classical rhetoric, I search for the shared characteristics of works that persuaded their intended audiences. This search for patterns combines qualitative and quantitative research methods. What I discover through analyses of creative works might help other writers seeking social change. The Rhetoric of Fiction by Wayne C. Booth inspired me to pursue these questions. Later, I discovered The Rhetoric of Economics by Deirdre McCloskey, a text exploring the power of literary techniques in academic writing and public policy debates.
Because I write stage plays and screenplays, the rhetoric of stage and screen offers a natural specialty for my research interests. In these arts, definitions of success change based on the desired outcome of the creative team. Success might mean reaching the largest possible audience. Success might mean impressing award committees. Research should determine the patterns associated with the desired result for a creative work. The question that I find compelling is: does a work intended to promote social change achieve that result?
Economics Explorer
I came close to studying economics in graduate school. Designers employ techniques studied within behavioral economics to persuade audiences.
I am interested in both the economics of media (how to produce and create media efficiently) and the presentation of economics within media (how groups use media to debate economic models and theories). These aspects connect because the media industries operate within one set of assumptions, yet they often portray those assumptions negatively. Even non-profit theatrical organizations seek ways to increase their audiences, which is an optimization problem. They use market research and advertising techniques to attract specific, targeted, audience members. Artists might decry “commercialization” but filling seats is a problem that dates back to ancient Greece. If you have no audience, the message is lost.
Publishers and producers hire individuals specializing in data analysis to help refine creative works based on the outcomes desired. The desire might be critical success, social influence, or revenue. The definition of success determines content and marketing strategies. Could this reduce books, plays, and screen productions to models? When you strictly adhere to statistical models, new works resemble past works. Quantitative analyses alone, without testing new options, lead to bland predictability. Qualitative analyses also lead to models in rhetoric. Yet, rhetorical scholars understand moments of evolutionary and revolutionary change exist. That’s the art of rhetoric, informed by modern research methods. Deciding on the purpose of a creative work shapes the allocation of resources.
Creators cannot ignore economics or philosophy. Modern economics concerns itself with the optimization of transactions based on the scarcity of one or more variables. Capital might be money, time, people, space, or skills. Even sunny days represent capital (a limited resource) for plays performed outdoors in a park or movies being filmed. Capital is many things, and there are always constraints on the available capital to create art.
I love printed works. Books and periodicals are capital intensive — requiring natural resources, human knowledge, time for production, and financial support. Printing was created for the efficient mass production and the selling of intellectual property. Books, a “non-essential” product class driven by profit-seeking, became a medium for criticizing the very systems that encouraged the rapid development and dissemination of printing technologies.
Code Writer
Technology and creativity coexist. I began programming computers during elementary school as my desire to write continued increasing. I recognized computers were going to change writing as significantly as previous technologies had revolutionized communications. At the time, eight-bit home computers seemed like little more than glorified office equipment, but the revolution was coming.
Programming is a form of creative writing. Computer languages feature words, phrases, and precise syntaxes. Coding requires learning to express complex ideas as a series of simple steps. As some scholars suggest, elegant computer code resembles poetry, sometimes by coincidence and sometimes by intent.
During junior high, I developed a word processor for Commodore computers. In high school, I created TextRite, a word processor with more capabilities than the software available in our computer labs. I learned to override the built-in fonts of the IBM PC and the dot-matrix printers. I could write and edit more efficiently, plus the output looked better than standard Epson FX printing.
My interest in programming began with a desire to write more efficiently and generate aesthetically pleasing output. In college, I helped code a PostScript interpreter and became fascinated by digital typography. The appearance of words shapes their meaning effects their engagement with readers.
I continue to develop code to assist with writing. Humans are predictable; we develop and follow patterns when we speak and write. Technology helps detect those patterns. To improve my writing, I use code to identify and revise my weaker habits. Applying those tools to the works of others, I bridge rhetorical analysis and technology.
Educational Technologist
Certain that transformation of communication continues as technology advances, I wish to mentor students from marginalized communities who seek to promote social change. Teaching these students to use technology means appreciating the need for appropriate pedagogies.
How can we best use technology to help students? Too often, politicians, administrators, and educators rushed new technologies into classrooms without clear pedagogical purposes. Often, well-intentioned technologists promised unrealistic improvements in student learning outcomes. Sometimes, companies sought profits without concern for educational outcomes. Experts and researchers failed to identify the lasting value of teaching fleeting, temporary technologies. My graduate research explored how and why to use technology in classrooms. Though I love computing technology, that passion fails as justification for using new technologies in our courses.
We should teach students to critically analyze new media, as we have taught students to be critical readers of the printed word. This includes demystifying technology. Programming is writing. We should teach introductory programming skills to all students, which improves analytical skills. Learning the effective use of technology improves math, science, and reasoning skills.
Disabilities Advocate
Among the marginalized groups I seek to assist are those with physical and cognitive differences. I did not intend to research special needs when I entered graduate school. However, I discovered that the science and technology fields I love attract many people with cognitive differences, including autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).
When gifted people, including some savants and geniuses, cannot explain their ideas to others, we risk losing the benefits of their insights. Helping these people approach writing and other forms of communication as they might solve pattern-based problems, offers these individuals a path towards intellectual and financial independence. Meeting brilliant men and women who struggle to communicate socially and professionally forced me to consider what personal traits society values.
At This Moment…
I continue to write poetry and fiction in longhand on legal pads. I enjoy putting pen or pencil to paper. I recognize the digital future, the digital present. I am there, together with my students and clients. As writer, I embrace the latest technologies, appreciating their power through one of the original academic disciplines.