The Request: 

Write a formally revisionary short story inspired by either Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad or Alan Bigelow’s flash stories. Add a critical reflection in which you explain your creative decisions in relation to the collection that inspired you, providing a reference list for this reflection.

My output: 

The Story – Little Miss Unknown

Due to the multi-modal nature of this piece, it can only be viewed as a pdf you can download here:

The Reflection

I was inspired after reading Hayles (2008, p.132) proposal that “(some of) the purposes of literature are to reveal what we know but know that we know, and to transform what we do know into what we don’t yet know”. My intended audience of women aged 18-30 are faced with disparate inputs from family and broader culture to inform their identity, while their physiological processes also impact their lives. Little Miss Unknown began as some research notes which at one point might have become a Little Miss book, but going down that direction took me too far into graphic design and away from words. Retaining some of my research notes was a nod to Tanggaard’s (2013) sociomateriality, with the tools of my work becoming part of the work.

The 2 main creative recommended readings that inspired the form were Ryan O’Neill’s Weight of A Human Heart (2012) and Jennifer Egan’s Visit From the Goon Squad (2011) in particular Great Rock and Roll Pauses.

O’Neill’s work showed the impact of segments within the small story. I felt that these could contribute to the character’s sense of confusion, overwhelm and dissonance. Typography choices convey my use of the “fish out of water” narrative style, with different times in culture, an attempt at postmodern merging of styles (Ward, 2011).

Egan’s work showed me the way a narrative could work inside a non-prose form. It also gave me the courage to draw on some of my existing skills with Procreate for the birth certificate and even raw data like the Mr Men tables. My background is in marketing communications.

I appreciate the scope that experimental forms gave me to uncover or unrepress certain topics that media or culture might try to repress. Although my topics were not literary specific, I feel that the experimental mindset enabled me to pursue things close to my heart in a brash way, without a concern for reassuring my audience ((Bray, Gibbons & Mchale, 2012).

I feel like I have broken several rules, but I tried to trust my gut and in the words of Lydia Davis (Louisiana Channel, n.d.) “do what I want to do and don’t worry if it’s a little odd”.

Other inspirations include John Cage’s 4’33 (Berliner Philharmonika, 2021). His appreciation for space felt like an opportunity to create a moment for the reader after a barrage of short, sharp segments. It’s also a symbol of the loneliness young women might feel. The work also contains a whole lot of parodic banging, blending and binding (Chambers, 2010), with Little Miss Unknown being the daughter of modern feminism and nice, polite society among others.

I have loved this unit, ALL705. Little Miss Unknown is maybe a little too close to my heart, and possibly needs more work, but she is my attempt to deliver something within the constraints, to retain my sense of play and to impact my intended reader.

Bray, J., Gibbons, A., & Mchale, B. (Eds.). (2012). The Routledge companion to experimental literature. Taylor & Francis Group. ProQuest Ebook Central. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/deakin/detail.action?docID=987993

Berliner Philharmoniker. (2021, January 8). John Cage: 4’33” / Petrenko · Berliner Philharmoniker [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/AWVUp12XPpU

Chambers, R. (2010). Parody : The art that plays with art. Peter Lang Publishing, Incorporated.

Egan, J. (2011). Visit from the goon squad. Constable & Robinson.

Louisiana Channel. (n.d.). Lydia Davis interview: Advice to the young [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/uPMGqYyKnEs?si=kFzogk261we3bYBc

O’Neill, Ryan. The Weight of a Human Heart, Black Inc., 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/deakin/detail.action?docID=1887517

Tanggaard, L. (2013). The sociomateriality of creativity in everyday life. Theory & Psychology, 19(1), 135–406. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X12464987

Ward, G. (2011). Discover postmodernism. Flash, Hodder Education Group. ProQuest Ebook Central. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/deakin/detail.action?docID=982443