Libbey Dunham
Webliography for Marjorie Luesebrink (M.D. Coverley)
<califia.hispeed.com>
Coverley's personal website should be the starting point for anyone
looking into her fiction. The site is thorough, providing a comprehensive list of
all of her work, including links to all of her fiction that is currently available on the
web.
Her website is beautiful. Her focus is her new work, which is
a combination of several short pieces. The images she chose to represent the pieces
are wonderfully representative of the individual stories and when placed together create a
stunning visual table of contents. Her biography is very attractive, with black and
white images that make her life seem like a timeless story, and the information she
chooses to put together her life story provides an insight into her fiction. She
uses a great deal of black which creates a sense of consistency, as well as adding a
serious dimension to her work.
Coverley, M.D.
"Califia". Eastgate. 2000 more information available at
<eastgate.com/catalog/califia.html>
(29 Sept 2000)
Califia maximizes the potential of hypertext by allowing
the reader to select an approach to her story. Through her three main
characters she is able to present a variety of information that can be accessed clearly
and effectively. The fictive search for lost gold in California seems to capture the
tone of America over the course of a century through stunning constructions of historical
artifacts.
The depth of Califia's story is astonishing. Given
the amount of information to be processed, Coverley could have allowed more freedom to
skip segments of her journey without necessarily sacrificing control of her story.
The maps were not as helpful as they might have been; hot spots that linked to
segments of her story would aid in putting the search together. The photographs were
beautiful and personalized her story. (10-31-00)
Coverley, M.D.
"Universal Resource Locator". Fingerprints on Digital Glass. Iowa
Review Web. October 2000. <califia.hispeed.com/URL/>
(23 Oct. 2000)
Coverley’s web fiction moves in two directions; through letters
and a photo album it roughly presents the life of
Clara, an American working in the Soviet Union from 1980 to 1999, and then telescopes out
to view the Soviet
financial crisis from a distance, emphasizing the benefit it can have for Americans.
Coverley provides menus in almost every lexia, thus allowing the
reader a great deal of freedom in navigation. The contrast between private life and public
life is very clearly marked through colors and images. Her use of Flash, in particular, is
striking; movement is very subtle in the images because of their almost monochromatic
color scheme, allowing the reader to focus on the message she is trying to convey without
feeling attacked. (10-30-00)
Coverley, M.D. and Stephanie Strickland.
"The Errand Upon Which We Came". Cauldron and Net, Fall 2000. <califia.hispeed.com/Errand/> (30 Oct. 00)
This web poem contains a great deal of movement, both of words and
images, and can be approached in a linear fashion or can be navigated relatively freely.
Though visually stunning, the technology involved makes the poem
move very slowly on many computers. This
causes the poem to lose its graceful momentum. (10-30-00)
Coverley, M.D. "Tumblers". Riding
the Meridian. Fall, 2000. <califia.hispeed.com/tumblers/>
(10-30-00)
Coverley's poem "Tumblers" uses four irregular verbs as a
structure for viewing fairy tales and society.
The images and music ("Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies")
are well suited to her subject matter, but often her text is very difficult to read
through the images. Her use of html code within the poem to demonstrate the social
code beneath the fairy tale is interesting.(10-30-00)
Coverley, M.D. "Fibonacci’s
Daughter". Fingerprints on Digital Glass. New River. #7 April 2000.
<ww.cddc.vt.edu/journals/newriver/7/Fibonacci/one.html>
(09-10-00)
This web fiction presents a character that allows her customers to
place bets on their future according to the odds she calculates through the theories of
Fibonacci. The lack of resolution in the story seems to make the focus not on whether the
bets are corrected but how life is evaluated.
Coverley provides a variety of ways for the reader to approach to
story, revealing to each reader his or her own means of evaluation. The images used are
very flashy and bright, creating an almost carnivalesque atmosphere, and reinforcing her
theme of life as a product of perception.(10-30-00)
Coverley, M.D. "RainFrames".
Aileron. Spring,2000. <califia.hispeed.com/RainFrames/rainfr1.htm>
(10-30-00)
This web fiction presents a woman grappling with establishing order
in chaos, both in nature and in her own psyche.
The images in this work are beautiful; the music, however,
detracts from the experience, and navigation can be a little too complicated. (10-30-00)
Coverley, M.D. "Default
Lives". Fingerprints on Digital Glass. Cauldron and Net. 15 February
2000. <califia.hispeed.com/DL/>
(10-30-00)
This web fiction is presented in the context of a video game where
the viewer clicks on different choices to try
to win in the game of life. The possible characters are "woman",
"man", "other", and "artist", and the choices that are
available for each character represent stereotypes that Coverley sees as associated with
each identity.
The colors used in Default Lives are very bright and
artificial-looking. Bouncing gold balls move around the
screen, reinforcing the arcade-like atmosphere. Navigation is not as easy as one would
suppose, as Coverley
ensures that her views on gender roles in society are clearly expressed. (10-30-00)
Coverley, M.D. "Eclipse
Lousiana". Fingerprints on Digital Glass. Cauldron and Net. October
1999. <califia.hispeed.com/Emoon/eclipse.htm>
(09-18-00)
This web fiction attempts to investigate the many phases and faces
of love by tying her story of a woman’s childhood and adulthood experiences of love
to the phases of the moon.
The story itself seems incomplete, though the idea of Eclipse
Louisiana is interesting. Coverley alternates her black background with a beige one
when the pointer passes over the moon, which illuminates hidden links. The yellow text on
a beige background is painful and difficult to read, so the two backgrounds
representing two distinct phases is wonderful in theory, but it fails miserably in
practice. (10-30-00)
Coverley, M.D. "Romancing Stone Is:
An Account of Dragon Bytes in the Deep". Riding the Meridian,
vol I Issue II. 1999 <www.etext.org/Poetry/Meridian/dragons.html>
(10-31-00)
In this essay Coverley discusses the process that she and Strickland
went through in transforming To Be Here as Stone is into hypertext.
The essay is very short and straightforward, with only a few links,
but offers encouragement to newcomers in detailing the problems she had in the process.
Coverley, M.D. and Stephanie Strickland.
"To Be Here as Stone is". True North. Riding the
Meridian. October 1999. in explorer= <califia.hispeed.com/SI/stone1.htm>
or in netscape = <califia.interspeed.com/SI/stone1.htm>
(10-30-00)
This web poem uses a great deal of technology to create an almost
new-age atmosphere.
The backgrounds were beautiful in the poem and some of the applets
were amazing. There was a defenite lack of continuity between screens, however, and
the technology seemed to become more important than the text.
Coverley, M.D. "Endless Suburbs".
Fingerprints on Digital Glass. Iowa Review Web. October 1999. <califia.hispeed.com/EndSub/> (09-18-00)
This web fiction is told in the style of a Dick and Jane book, and
lacks Coverley’s usual quirkiness. The plot is very linear and though the reader can
select any one of the nine lexias he or she would like to view, the lexias themselves are
presented in order and make no sense if approached differently.
Aside from music and flipping images this story seems to make no use
of the options offered by the media. The images Coverley chooses for her story are
the most interesting aspect of the hypertext; retro illustrations are distorted beyond
recognition following her theme of a copy machine gone awry. (10-30-00)
Coverley, M.D. "Life in the Chocolate
Mountains". Fingerprints on Digital Glass. Salt Hill #7.
Syracuse
University, Spring 1999. <www.hypertxt.com/sh/no7/choc/>
(09-18-00)
This web fiction tells the tale of a woman trying to piece her
identity back together after a divorce that has shattered her emotionally and financially.
In the desert, which can seem as lifeless as she felt, she finds a new perspective and
means of expression, and Coverley mirrors this progress through delving into the
characteristics of the desert.
The story clearly offers the reader a great deal of freedom in
navigation, but also provides a straightforward, guided, linear approach to the story.
Though there is freedom in navigation, the linear nature of the story makes other
approaches confusing. The images are beautiful, and the soft, subtle pastels in the
background produce an atmosphere that is very suited to a gentle, reintegration of
personality. (10-30-00)
Coverley, M.D. "Pao Lien and The
Cave Dragon, Wu". Christy Sheffield Sanford, curator. MY MILLENNIUM Project,
Nottingham Trent University, U.K. trAce. 1999. <califia.hispeed.com/Millennium/milletitle>
(10-31-00)
This web fiction not only changes the context of ancient Chinese
folklore, but also teaches others how to create their own web fiction and allows the
results to be e-mailed in to be included on the site. Coverley offers advice and
images to visitors in an inviting educational format.
Coverley is charming in this fiction. Though it is small and
simple, she maximizes all of its potential. Navigation is clear and easy, with links
providing photographs and information that ties the story to reality as well as allowing
the reader to move around in the story.(10-31-00)
Coverley, M.D. "Egyptian
E-Mail". Enterzone. #14. Spring 1998. <ezone.org/ez/e14/articles/coverley/egypt.html>
(10-24-00)
To describe her trip to Egypt, Coverley chose the format of question
and answer. The questions came from an e-mail from Christy Sheffield Sanford.
The article is very basic. The background is a soothing color
and the format of each page stays fairly consistent. Almost every lexia fit
perfectly on the screen, providing a welcome break from excessive scrolling. (10-24-00)
Coverley, M.D. "Elys, The
Lacemaker". in Christy Sheffield Sanford's The Book of Hours of Madame de
Lafayette. 1997. <gnv.fdt.net/~christys/Coverley/elys_1.html>
(10-31-00)
Coverley wrote the fourth hour in this collaborative web
fiction. Her section is a mix of fairy tale, historical fact, and imagination.
This piece is visually stunning; the backgrounds and images
are so well suited to the text and tone of the work that their is no competition
occurring. Navigation was interesting and easy. The mix of elements was
fascinating. (10-31-00)
Coverley, M.D. "When the Going Gets
Tough--Cybershopping". Orange Coast Magazine, June 1995. <califia.hispeed.com/shop.htm>
(10-31-00)
This essay simply describes an afternoon of shopping online and
points out the negative aspects of the medium.
The background was white with two purple bars set in inconvenient
positions. One of the columns was three-quarters of the way across the screen and I
felt like my eyes tripped over it on every line. The essay itself was unnecessarily
long and required excessive scrolling, though it was amusing to hear someone talk of the
joys of a 28.8 bpm modem. (10-31-00)
Coverley, M.D. "The $500
Rolls Royce". October 1995. <califia.hispeed.com/royce.htm>
(10-31-00)
This short essay discusses how urban legends have changed with our
culture over the last fifty years, including the impact of this genre on the internet.
Nothing stands out on this page. The background color is nice,
but the page is simply text, aside from an introductory image, and although scrolling is
tedious, to break the essay into pages would seem gratuitous. (10-31-00)
Coverley, M.D. "The NeverEnding
Fairy Tale". Orange Coast Magazine. June 1995. <califia.hispeed.com/Fairyend.htm>
(10-24-00)
In this essay Coverley discusses what the Disney version of
different fairy tales represent about American culture.
Breaking down this essay into three pages may have been
beneficial. The background was striking and suited the atmosphere of the essay,
though images may have been helpful to her theme.(10-24-00)
Coverley, M.D. "The Man From
Aladdin". Fingerprints on Digital Glass. Work in progress. <califia.hispeed.com/aladdin/>
This web fiction is presented as a game that takes place in the
domestic sphere in the 1940’s. A rough guess would place the work at only a third of
the way finished.
From what is available now, the game follows one woman’s life
over the course of a week, in which the reader
decides who she will speak to, and navigates her decisions. The backgrounds are simple,
generally block patterns of limited colors, which are well suited to the retro
illustrations.
Coverley, M.D. "Tide-Land". Fingerprints
on Digital Glass. <califia.hispeed.com/TL/>
(10-30-00)
This web fiction tries to establish the relationship between people,
land, and water, and erase the distinctions that separate each into individual identities,
asserting that reality is somewhere in between.
The images used are beautiful; the colors are all generally within
the same color scheme so that no harsh lines are drawn, reinforcing the idea of existing
between definites. The sound added to the site detracted from this atmosphere, and was
very intrusive. Navigation is fairly open to the reader.(10-30-00)
Recent Academic
Publications
"The Moment in Hypertext: A Brief Lexicon of Time." Proceedings
of the Ninth ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia, 1998. (SIGLINK)
"Walk Four Ways." Co-authored with Carolyn Guyer, Peg
Syverson, Michael Joyce. Pre Text, University of Texas, Austin. 1997.
"Code Egyptian Blue: Crossover Platforms in Hypertext
Fiction." Proceedings of the CyberMountain Colloquium--Denver Colorado.
Larsen, D. and Nürnberg, P. J. (eds.) 1999. Technical Report AUE-CS-99-05, Aalborg
University Esbjerg. On line: <http://www.cs.aue.auc.dk/~pnuern/papers/cymt.final/>
"Upward, Beyond the Constant Flow, There was Moondling:
Writers, Rhetoric, and Technology in Hypertext Fiction." The Elephant Ear,
Spring, 1996.
"The Grateful Dead Legendstock." Perspectives on the
Grateful Dead. Robert Weiner, ed. Greenwood Press. Fall, 1999.
Academic Papers
and Presentations:
Cultural Studies Symposium, Kansas State University, Manhattan,
2000. "Othermindedness: Hypertext on the Fringe"
SW/Texas Popular Culture Association, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2000.
"The Singing Novel: Grateful Dead Music as Text in Califia."
Digital Arts and Culture, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta,
1999. "The trAce Experience: Fibonacci's Daughter."
Society for Literature and Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman,
1999."Hypertext as Archaeology: Interaction, Time Strata, and Versions of
History."
Technology Platforms in 21st Century Literature--Brown
University, Providence, RI, 1999: "The End of Books Revisited." On-line:
<http://califia.interspeed.net/CooverC/endofbooks.htm>.
MLA, San Francisco, California, 1998: "The Same River Twice:
Time Representation in Hypertext Literature."
Society for Literature and Science, University
of Florida, Gainesville, 1998: "The Triangle of Perspective: Distributed Memory in
Multimedia Narratives."
Hypertext 98, SIGWEB, ACM, Pittsburgh, PA, 1998: "The Moment in
Hypertext: A Brief Lexicon of Time."
UC Irvine Extension Fifth Annual Creative Writing Conference,
Irvine, California, 1998: "A Survey of Literature on the Web", "Voices on
the Internet", "Marketing and Publishing on the Internet."
PAMLA (Pacific Asian Modern Language Association), U.C. Irvine,
Irvine, California, 1997, "Califia Landscape: Navigational Structures in
Hypertext Narratives."
Society for Literature and Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA,
1997: "Movement as Rhetoric: The Choreography of Hypertext and Other Literary
Multimedia."
Society for Literature and Science, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia,
1996: "Investigating Hypertext Technology: Poetry and Fiction by the Lexia."
Society for Literature and Science, UCLA, Los Angeles, California,
1995: "Structures of Hypertext Navigation."
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