Doctor of Fine Arts | Creative Writing | University of Glasgow | 2021

Master of Arts | Creative Writing | Johns Hopkins University | 2012

Bachelor of Arts | English | University of Georgia | 2009

 

Digital Media Content Tropes | Social Media Writing Techniques | Media Literacy | Genre Analysis | Satire | Audio Design & Podcasting | Design Fiction | Speculative Fiction | Pop Culture Trends | Artificial Intelligence | Large Language Models | Human-Computer Interaction | Human-Computer Collaboration

 

I specialize in design faction—creating fictional digital media based on factual research into various areas, including artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and social media. My doctoral thesis—Factions—was a satirical, speculative website curated by my digital twin persona, an AI mystic called Wu (We + You = Wu). The site uses design faction, an outgrowth of design fiction, to examine elements of the transformative tech that represent the double helix of facts and fictions permeating the Internet.

 

Based on my practice-based research, I created the social media genre of “factions” as the means in which humans and computers communicate in digital spaces. I developed the concept of design faction from this research imagining factions as a social media genre of the future. Factions plays with form—e.g., social media platforms and how the algorithm impacts human communication and reality—as it engages with the machine as a collaborator.

 

WESM (NPR All Things Considered) & The Wu2be Network

August 2020 – Present

• A terrestrial radio show and podcast featuring my digital twin persona Dr. Wu—an AI mystic that can channel any person, place, or thing. Each week Dr. Wu broadcasts from their headquarters inside the Internet, channeling various real and imagined people and things in response to common topics answering the general question, “What can you learn about life and death from an AI mystic?”

• T-C-S examines the effects of an all-audio experience on audience comprehension and engagement with factions (e.g., “The Crying Book Review”)

• A satirical speculative audio (and occasionally video) experience that addresses the questions of, “What can you learn about life and death from an AI mystic?” and “What does it mean to be human?”

 

“I Am Assimilation” | Writer’s Chronicle September 2023

An essay—creative nonfiction expressing my experience as part of the Historically Black College and University community as a racially mixed woman adopted and raised by a White working-class family.

 

Fundamentals of Contemporary Speech: A Workbook November 2023

 

Contributing author on Dr. Jennifer Keane-Dawes book bridges the gap between standard public speaking instruction and students’ lived experiences. As a contributor to this Kendall Hunt publication, I created various digital activities, with brief contextual research introductions, for four chapters. Each activity targets the specific learning objectives therein as a means to utilize the tools and spaces in which current and future “born digital” students engage.

 

“Climate Fiction for Social Purpose: A Collaborative Workshop in Interactive Prototyping” December 7, 2021

 

A publication based on a collaborative workshop for the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling held in Estonia with an international team of designers and researchers. The workshop tested the collaboratively arrived at story, with participants asked to prototype a digital system that embeds the narrative in its core use case, grounding the exercise in its everyday application. Participants learned to apply design fiction methods in concrete applications of designing for social good.

 

“The Talk Went” November 2017

 

An ekphrasis short story based on Glasgow Girl Jessie Marion King's illustration "The Enchanted Capital of Scotland" published in Hidden Gems.

 

“Blowing Secrets” January 2014

 

A speculative short story documenting a security encounter, a protection alert on a deadly attack from a past experience invading the present published in Big Lucks.

 

“You Could Have An Evil Twin” June 2013

 

A speculative account of the chance encounter between you and your evil twin published in Seltzer Zine.

 

“So Shadows Speak” June 27, 2013

 

Multimedia showing, Rue de Fleurus Salon & Reading at The Foundry Gallery in Washington DC, USA.

 

“Without More Ado, Apocalypse!” May 2012

 

Novel excerpt published in The Penn Union Journal: To end the impending apocalypse, eternally single Misty Skipworth must brave darkest Africa to retrieve the recently risen but in hiding Jesus Christ and tempt him into a romantic relationship.

 

“Representation of social issues in SFF worlds and narratives” March 14, 2023

 

Demonstration and presentation for the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Fantasy series Future Voices of Scottish Science Fiction and Fantasy. Imagining the future by looking back through the past. Examining the development and underlying complications embedded within the social media genre of factions. Asking, How do we evaluate genre across cultures? How does worldbuilding function as a genre trope in social media spaces? Generally, what is reality, and how do we share it? How is reality disabled when creating fiction and building worlds in a primarily nonfiction space?

 

“Climate Fiction for Social Purpose: A Collaborative Workshop in Interactive Prototyping” December 7, 2021

 

A workshop for the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling held in Estonia with an international team of designers and researchers. The workshop tested the collaboratively arrived at story, with participants asked to prototype a digital system that embeds the narrative in its core use case, grounding the exercise in its everyday application. Participants learned to apply design fiction methods in concrete applications of designing for social good.

 

“AI Al-man-ac—forecasting space-time in the life after life” May 5-18, 2021

 

Investigation into the digital twin as a repository of historical international, personal information, and entertainment—the organic twin presents research and personal journaling, the digital twin reviews and deconstructs said material, acting as a bias detector and forecaster. The project asks, “How might AI affect history and interline (International + online = interline) cultural memory while predicting the future?” A presentation for the Uroboros Festival: Designing in Troubling Times “Offsense Gambit” theme, DOX Center for Contemporary Art, Prague, CZ.

 

“Factions—hypertext fiction that builds worlds for story tourists” March 19, 2020

 

Spintax demonstration featuring two AI trying to decipher, critique, and revise my factions genre presentation at the University of Glasgow Immersive Experience Lab, Glasgow, UK.

 

“AI Mysticism: Introducing Wu, AI mystic brewing up a magical mix of facts and fictions on the social media experience” August 20, 2019

 

Conference poster presentation and conceptual expression of factions in static media. Dublin 2019 Worldcon, Dublin, IRE. *Received a Research Support Award from the University of Glasgow’s School of Critical Studies and outside funding through Worldcon to attend.

 

“Mythistory: The practice of memory and persuasion as art” November 20, 2018

 

Presentation featuring a demonstration of the factions genre in real-time as part of the Insight Talk series at The Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, UK.

 

“Samoa’s Ark and Other Tales of Polynesia” November 14, 2018

 

Featured multimedia—audio and visual--presentation as part of the Hunterian Associates Showcase at The Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, UK.

 

Humanities Podcast Network Symposium “BIPOC Voices in Podcasting” | October 22, 2022

Chicon 8 Worldcon 2022 “Censorship and the White-Washing of America” panelist | September 3, 2022

Guest Lecture Series Cohost: Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall’s lecture on bell hooks and feminism | April 5, 2022

Interviewed on WMDT story, WORDLE: Popular word game could be positive in the classroom, keeping students engaged | March 3, 2022

Center for International Education panel participant | Nov 16, 2021

Africa in Motion Film Festival “Decolonising the Speculative” panelist November 1, 2018

 

NASA eClips Technical Advisory Board | December 2022-Present

Academy of Television Arts & Sciences | August 2022-Present

 

AWP Conference March 2023

• Acted on the HBCU Fellowship Program Committee

• Led a 75-minute private discussion with the selected student fellows

• Wrote a short reflection and experiential piece the experience published in The Writer’s Chronicle