E-Lit Book Club Meeting

Last month the DHC held the first Electronic Literature Book Club meeting, hosted by Digital Humanities Initiative intern, Rachel Noe! 

I attended this meeting both to support my friend Rachel and to discuss this extraordinary twine work with fellow students! While it's important to teach and discuss E-lit in the classroom, it is also crucial to create spaces where E-lit can be explored freely without the pressures of a scholarly setting. This book club provides that space and allows students who do not have any expertise or extensive background with E-Lit to dip their toes in. The goal is to demonstrate that engaging with E-lit is as easy as picking up a book!

Fish and Dagger is a 2021 Interactive Fiction (IF) work and it was a perfect first reading choice as it is not very time consuming or difficult to navigate. While the work may not take long to complete, it is jam packed with different elements for users to explore as they are prompted to make their own choices and customize the narrative of the game and find different endings, making each play through unique! 

It was interesting to hear the different experiences that each attendee had while playing, especially those who got different endings than I did! There was plenty to discuss from the artwork, to the background sounds, to the mechanics of the game, the different narratives that can be followed, etc., it was a riveting conversation and I'm grateful to Rachel for facilitating.  

I met Rachel during the Fall 2024 semester when we had both Professor Pressman's "Book History" class and the Poetry International internship class together. At the time, I didn't realize she was only an undergraduate student, and she's not even an English major, she's a stem major! But we've secretly adopted her into our ranks...

Rachel is so incredibly intelligent and talented in both creative and analytical fields, and she is so tall! Since meeting we've been friends and I've been lucky enough to witness Rachel take on multiple projects, including hosting digital tools workshops, starting the E-lit Book Club, and participating in Crisis Carnival, just to name a few! 

Keep an eye out for whatever projects Rachel gets up to next, they are sure to be amazing! And be sure to sign up for the next E-Lit Book Club Meeting!