Deena Larsen (born 1964) is a

new media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

and

hypertext fiction Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links that provide a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text ...

author involved in the creative electronic writing community since the 1980s. Her work has been published in online journals such as the ''Iowa Review Web'', ''Cauldron and Net'', ''frAme'', ''inFLECT'', and ''Blue Moon Review''. Since May 2007, the Deena Larsen Collection of early

electronic literature Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature encompassing works created exclusively on and for digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. A work of electronic literature can be defined as "a constr ...

has been housed at the

Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities The Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) is an international research center that works with humanities in the 21st century. A collaboration among the University of Maryland College of Arts and Humanities, Libraries, and O ...

Education

In 1986, Larsen received her BA in English and Logic from the

University of Northern Colorado The University of Northern Colorado (UNC) is a public university in Greeley, Colorado. The university was founded in 1889 as the State Normal School of Colorado and has a long history in teacher education. The institution has officially changed ...

. Her undergraduate thesis, ''Nansense Ya Snorsted: A logical look at nonsense,'' received the university's 1986 Best Thesis Award. In 1991, after spending time in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and Japan, she returned to

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

and earned her MA in English from the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...

where she wrote one of the first MA thesis on hypertext titled ''Hypertext and Hyperpossibilities''. Deena Larsen y María

Career and influence

Larsen has been noted by the

Electronic Literature Organization The Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) is a nonprofit organization "established in 1999 to promote and facilitate the writing, publishing, and reading of electronic literature". It hosts annual conferences, awards annual prizes for works of ...

as "a pioneering influence in the electronic literature field." She is described as a "new media visionary who has been active in the creative electronic writing community since its inception in the 1980s" by the Maryland Institute of Technology in the Humanities, which hosts a collection of her papers and software. Larsen's experimentation with literary possibilities in new digital media has led to her work being frequently analysed and cited by scholars and critics, with works like "Carving in Possibilities" (2001) being called "canonical". Larsen has led numerous writers workshops—either online, at conferences, or universities— on the subject of hypertext, and has played a vital role in organising the electronic literature community. She hosted Hypertext Writers' Workshops at ACM Hypertext conferences in the 1990s and hosted the

online chats on electronic literature from 2000 to 2005. In 2012, Larsen wrote a free textbook called ''Fun da mentals'' which serves as an introduction to the field of electronic literature. She currently works as a technical writer at the

Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

, where she was an investigator for research granted by the Science and Technology Program in the 2015 fiscal year. As of 2022, Larsen serves on the Literary Advisory Board for the

. She has also been a board member fo
trAce
and is a past member of the board of directors for the ELO.

Works

Deena Larsen's first work, ''Marble Springs'' (1993), Eastgate Systems Inc., was one of the first interactive hypertext poetry collections. The work explores the lives of women in a Colorado mountain town in the 19th century. Larsen's admiration for Edgar Lee Master's ''

Spoon River Anthology ''Spoon River Anthology'' (1915), by Edgar Lee Masters, is a collection of short free verse poems that collectively narrates the epitaphs of the residents of Spoon River, a fictional small town named after the Spoon River, which ran near Masters' ...

'' inspired her to create her own world that followed connections similar to those experienced by readers of Master's book experienced. Written in

Hypercard HyperCard is a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard combines a flat-file database with a graphical, fl ...

, ''Marble Springs'' includes a collection of poems for the reader to explore and discover the identity of the author behind each poem. Writing in ''Poetics Today,'' narratologist Marie-Laure Ryan describes ''Marble Springs'' as a "narrative of place", which is not constructed around an overarching plot or "grand narrative", but "in the 'little stories' that the user discovers in all the nooks and crannies of the fictional world." This means that closure is built in, enabling "readers to pause in their reading or leave it completely". Her second work, ''Samplers'', Eastgate Systems (1997), is a series of short stories done in

Storyspace Storyspace is a software program for creating, editing, and reading hypertext fiction. It can also be used for writing and organizing fiction and non-fiction intended for print. Maintained and distributed by Eastgate Systems, the software is availa ...

and used the design of a quilt pattern to tell various stories. ''Samplers'' explores allows the reader to explore different narratives and stories through hypertext. Eastgate Systems Inc. noted Larsen's work as "Finely written and intricately structured, ''Samplers'' breaks new ground for short hypertext fiction." Regarding Larsen's work, scholar Jessica Laccetti observed that, "In Larsen’s case, as in Caitlin Fisher’s ''

These Waves of Girls These Waves of Girls is a hypermedia novella by Caitlin Fisher that won the Electronic Literature Organization's Award for Fiction in 2001. The work is frequently taught in undergraduate literature courses and is referenced in the field of elec ...

'', a default path is built into the narrative, suggesting both chronological sequence and plot development. While 'scholars and analysts' can travel more flexible paths through the stories, first time-readers are advised to follow thematic or character links."Laccetti, Jessica. “Where to Begin? Multiple Narrative Paths in Web Fiction.” Narrative Beginnings: Theories and Practices. Ed. Brian Richardson. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. 182.

Selected works

References

External links