Deena Larsen

Help Wanted

Hey I’m always working on waaaay too many projects, and I'd love some collaboration:

Self Care and World Care Under Deep Uncertainty Is a huge planning guide for you and your community to plan for uncertain changes (like climate change). I need communities and individuals to try it out!

Fundamentals: Help locate materials to update my textbook on reading, Fundamentals

Chronic: I have a secret language that needs code so you can play it on a phone

New stuff

a pixelated and dark image of a girl with tousled hair staring at a computer screen

Stone Moons

June 2025. A major stillborn work, originally in Storyspace. In 1999, Sarah struggles to keep her preverbal, autistic daughter safe from both the schools and Social Services as well as the moon. Washington State University at Vancouver students, Evan Leyden, Jenn Nguyen, and Quinn Carrick brought this work back to life.

two hands, one of fire and one of water, reaching toward each other

Within Against Against Within

June 2025, with Mehul Desai. A take on Nick Monfort's Taroko Gorge, in both Gujarti and English.

a complex geometric figure with 14 circles

An intricate geometry

March 2025. This is a quick but complex little sonnet with hidden color readings with Robert Lavett Smith, sonnetteer extraordinaire and Quinn Carrick, programmer.

a black and white cartoon of people around a globe

Self Care and World Care in Uncertain Times

November 2024. An entire planning system based on my 30+ years as a technical writer and decision process facilitator. Figure out how your life and your community can be resilient and thrive no matter what happens! Self Care is for planning for your life, and World Care for your community.
Buy the workbooks on Amazon.

a woman in a colorful sari staring at a computer which shows a colorful tye dye pattern

Are you there?

August 2024, with Prakruti Bhat. When you are faced with life decisions, does it matter if you are talking to a God or to a machine?

Couple holding hands going down a road, surrounded by diamond yellow road signs with different sign language characters

Signals with Love

March 2024. This is a non-fiction guide for communicating with love for neurodiverse/neurotypical relationships. Or any relationship, really. I first published in Autism Digest December 2010 and revived for Dr. Michael Rabby's course on social media and relationships at Washington State University at Vancouver (WSUV) for my artist in residency at the Electronic Literature Lab.

Embodying My Mother's Bones

2024. This work in progress is about my mother and my own experiences with Multiple Hereditary Exostoses. My mother passed away in 2018 and donated her body to FIRS at Colorado Mesa University. This cultural osteobiography can help doctors and patients understand living with this rare, incurable disease.

Odd AI image showing a woman with a long neck kissing a shadow

A Typical Love Story

March 2024. For Dr.Fordyces' Text and language class. This is a very short 8 node Twine that showcases different types of semantic and connotative linking strategies.

black and white text showing yellow semicolon between game and social

The Secret Relationships of semicolons

February 2024. This is a very small work dedicated to Dr. Michael Rabby, WSUV who hates semicolons. Semicolons have their place; you can not persuade me otherwise.

Entanglements

Jan 2024, with Bill Bly (Twine). Two students at WSUV encounter a chilling image and one leaves a message: I don't think I'll be returning to class any more...Physical archives can be seen at the WSUV Electronic Literature Lab

A boy half in and half out of a ship's wheel, in heavy waves. Lines are Heaven expects, heaven waits, heavy woods, heavy rails

Consider the Sea

Jan 2024, with Rob Swigart (Twine). A rollicking tale of Finley who searches for purpose amoung sporting porpoises, rollicking pirates, drunk captains, and over the seemingly endless seas and deserts between Budapest and Cleveland.

The ELL2 Archive

2024, Digital Storytelling Class 354, WSUV (Twine). Our class story where students encounter an alien and future students encounter the work.

Nigerian woman and baby with words The future she hopes for, The love she shares, The voice she uses, she asks.

The Water Seller

2023, with Faith Bassey (Twine). In New River, Spring 2023 centers around Aiwa, a woman yearning to understand and to love.

Alive and Kicking

Cold Calling

2019, with Jon Saklofske (Twine and Raspberry pi/physical installation) is a mystery heard over the phone. Who dunnit and who heard it?

black and white drawings of an ouroboros and Tenniel's jabberwocky

Ouroboros vs Jabberwocky

2017, with Stuart Moulthrop is on one side random whispers and on the other formalized nonsense using grammatical structures and far too many stable allusions

pixelated image of a woman chained to a rock

Andromeda and Eliza

2017 (Twine), with Anastasia Salter. This twine work pre-dates AI, but has a (c)rude little bot just waiting for you to write. And don't you dare insult the Ruler.

Triptych

2012, pdf. Uses a straight word doc as a hypertext--adding links, playing with the multiple layers in the comments, etc.

A victorian pixelated drawing of a steam engine train

Marble Springs 3.0

2012, wikidot. When I was a child, I loved Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology, following connections. So then, I just had to create my own world, Marble Springs, a Colorado mining town where it could be ferreted out who the town whore's daughter's father really was. In my town, the links tell what cannot be put into words. Marble Springs 1.0 and 2.0 were hypercards from Eastgate Systems, and 3.0 is a wiki you can join in on.

A chinese line drawing of a fisherman overlooking a cliff, sepia, faint

Modern Moral Fairy Tales

2010, HTML. is a very tight but complex interweaving of four separate story threads--from a sentient internet cafe to dissidents to salmon reading their newspapers.

Fundamentals

2008, HTML. I really need to update this textbook on basic rhetorical moves in hypertext. The concepts and exercises are good, but the examples need to be updated.

Shandean Ambles

2003. In Drunken Boat. I wrote this work with Laurence Sterne's ghost in his study. The work is stamped with his humor and proto-hypertext patterning (note: Titles were in Flash and no longer work).

Datafeeds

2003. Shows the same event in three social worlds (the blind, the sighted, and the heartbeat-sensors).

The Pines at Walden Pond

explores the woods around Walden Pond metaphorically and hypertextually. , 2001. Trellix to HTML.

Disappearing Rain

2000. Is a mystery novel: Anna has disappeared and the only clue she leaves is an open internet connection. This is a complex layered work where several levels of kanji-kus serve as structure and framework. Come on in, the water's fine!

A spiral decision process: Needs, Objectives, resources and constraints, options, criteria and screening, alternatives, evaluation, decision, implementation, follow up.

Decision Process Guide

1997-2003. HTML from Storyspace. Bureau of Reclamation planning concepts that still work.

A pixelated Ferris wheel on a blue background.

Ferris Wheels

1997. In Iowa Review Web. Is a ride where links can imply very different fates for our narrator. Will her ride end in marriage or suicide? (This was the first hypertext in the Iowa Review).

Resurrected from the Dead

Firefly (Flash/Ruffle)

In Poems that Go 2002. Firefly: a tale told in 180 degrees of separation is a lyrical yet formal structure comprised of 6 stanzas, each five lines long and six lines deep.

David's eye from Michaelangelo--is one way to look at this.

Carving In Possibilities

Version 2.0. (Flash/Ruffle) In Frame 6, 2001.

Princess Murderers

with Geniwaite, 2003 (Flash). In Iowa Review Web, is a game based narrative with sex and violence.

Kanji-Kus

(View them in The NEXT as the Electronic Literature Lab resurrected them),
Holly's Legends, 2024 (Revived as a thank you to Holly Slocum) Dreams of Cobras, in Tattoo Highway, 2002
Children's Time, in Snakeskin, 2001
Sea Whispers, in Currents, 2001
In the Sun, in Project Hope, 2001
Bubbles, in Electronic Poetry Center, 2000
What Women Say, 2000
breathing at the Galaxy's Edges, in Planet Magazine, 1999
Mountain Rumbles, in New River, 1999
The Language of the Void, in Riding the Meridian, 1999
Spiritual Comfort, in PIF, 1999
Dream Mergin, in Aileron, 1999
Sand Loves, in Eastgate's Reading Room, 1999
Stained Word Windows, 1999
Father Figures, 1999
Power Moves, in Cauldron and Net, 2000 and Ghost Moons part of Akenatondocks published cd, 2000 have disappeared.

Mostly Dead: Contact me for the .swf files

Intruder

2000 (Flash). In New River, holds most of its secrets in an intimate place. Violate her sanctity, if you truly must.The NEXT archive has a downloadable copy of the .swf file.

Portion of the poem, in gold and blue text. Words changed develop out I can't find.

I'm Simply Saying

(Flash/Ruffle) Inflect 2002 The NEXT archive

Cut to the Flesh

with Jody Zellen, 2004 (Flash). In Page Space.In The NEXT archive.

Peace Roses

2001 (Flash). In The Muse Apprentice Guild. Is a poem that has haunted me for a long time. It is one I write and rewrite.The NEXT archive

green text Woman Mention on a tree background

Tree Woman

2001 (Flash) The NEXT archive

E:Electron

2000 (Flash) with Geoffrey Gatza. In Riding the Meridian, Jumping at the Diner. A love poem using the periodic table of elementsThe NEXT archive has an unavailable copy.

Samplers: Nine vicious little hypertexts

is a foray into structural storytelling using Storyspace., Eastgate Systems, 1996.

Century Cross

in the Eastgate Quarterly, Volume 2 number 2, Eastgate Systems, 1995.

Marble Springs 1.0

in Hypercard, Eastgate Systems, 1993.