Marjorie Luesebrink
Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink is an American writer, scholar, and teacher. Writing hypermedia fiction under the pen name M.D. Coverley, she is best known for her epic hypertext novels "Califia" and "Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day". Her works incorporate text, image, animation, sound, and structure to create spatial, visual story worlds. A pioneer born-digital writer, she is part of the first generation of electronic literature authors that arose in the 1987–1997 period. Her career includes novels and short stories, scholarship, curating, editing, teaching, and publishing. She is a founding board member and past president of  the Electronic Literature Organization and the first winner of the Electronic Literature Organization Career Achievement Award, which was named in her honor. Biography. Early life. Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink (born August 4, 1943) is the daughter of Jack Coverley and Alice Wilcox. Her father was an engineer at Lockheed Aircraft in Southern California; her mother was active in several educational and charity organizations. A fourth-generation Californian, Coverley spent much of her youth exploring Southern California history and landscapes. The family spent summers in Balboa, where she raced sailboats and surfed. In winter, they went on trips (to buy "worthless land ) in the deserts. She started writing poetry and short stories at age 8. Education. She received her B.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1965 and her M.F.A. in fiction from the University of California, Irvine, in 1975. Career. After graduating from UC Berkeley, Marjorie married Richard Wayne Luesebrink. They settled in Newport Beach. He practiced law, and they began a family with the birth of Eric in 1967 and Marc in 1969. Coverley began writing articles for local magazines such as Los Angeles Magazine" and "Orange Coast Magazine". She started her first book-length fiction, "Love  and the Dragonfly" – a multivoiced, mixed-text work - in 1973. In the early 70’s she returned to school in the UC Irvine Writing Program. After graduating from the U.C. Irvine M.F.A. program, Coverley began teaching, first at Orange Coast College and then at the new Irvine Valley College in Irvine. She bought her first computer in 1981 and began experimenting with narratives that used the affordances of electronic digital media. Teacher. In 1979 Luesebrink began teaching full-time at Irvine Valley College. She was one of the original 13 faculty members. At IVC, she started exploring the intersections between  computers and writing – experimenting with computer-generated poetry and initiating a program in CompuEnglish. Later she developed the first online courses in literature and writing for the college. These courses appeared both online and on television. She has taught in the UC Irvine writing program, UC Irvine Extension, and Orange Coast College and is currently professor emeritus, School of Humanities and Languages, Irvine Valley College. Author. Coverley has published two multimedia hypertext novels, "Califia" (Eastgate Systems, 2000) and "Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day" (Artist’s Book, Horizon Insight, 2006), a collection of short stories, "Fingerprints on Digital  Glass" (2002), as well as other short fiction, poetry, interviews, and articles on electronic literature and born-digital writing. "Califia" is a multimedia, interactive, hypertext fiction for CD-ROM. Califia allows the reader to wander and play in the landscape of historic/magic California. It is a computer-only creation of interactive stories, photos, graphics, maps, music, and movement. It has Three Narrating Characters, Four Directions of the Compass, Star Charts, Map Case, Archives Files, 500 Megabytes, 800 Screens, 2400 Images, 30 Songs, and 500 Words. One scholar has written of "Califia" that it is designed to lead the reader  to discover the lost cache of California through her wanderings within the story space. Another writer calls it "a metaphysical quest rather than a conventional mystery", noting that the central question of the treasure remains unresolved. It has been termed a classic of hypermedia, and literary critic and hypertext scholar Katherine Hayles has cited it as one of the establishing texts for electronic literature. "Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day" is an artist’s book published by Horizon Insight. The “first edition” consists of 100 individualized copies – each one bearing a named “spell” for the owner. Thereafter, “reader ” versions have been available on flash drives. "Egypt" is a story of death and rebirth set in both contemporary and ancient Egypt. It explores the ways in which narrative can be distributed between both text and other media, including images, music, animations, and the navigational structure and interface. Katherine Hayles writes of "Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day" (2006) that its layers "are instrumental in creating a visual/verbal/sonic narrative in which the deep past and the present, modern skepticism and ancient rituals, hieroglyphs and electronic writing merge and blend with one another. "Fingerprints on Digital Glass  is a collection of short web pieces published between 1999 and 2002. It includes Afterimage, Default Lives, Tide-Land, Universal Resource Locator, Eclipse Louisiana, Endless Suburbs, Life in the Chocolate Mountains," and "Fibonacci's Daughter". "Fibonacci's Daughter" is a complexly plotted hypertext centered on protagonist Annabelle Thompson, who runs a business called Bet Your Life out of a California mall. The daughter of gamblers, Thompson sells insurance policies that allow people to bet on their own future prospects. Bet Your Life is both successful and controversial, leading Thompson to be accused of witchcraft (among other things), especially after two  teenage clients disappear and are later found dead. The narrative of "Fibonacci's Daughter" is told through a number of different voices, including excerpts from news stories. Coverley originally created "Fibonacci's Daughter" with the trAce Archive of online writing at Nottingham Trent University in the U.K. Jane Yellowlees Douglas has suggested that "Fibonacci's Daughter" owes a debt to Nathanial Hawthorne's story "Rappaccini's Daughter" in that both are meditations on all the ways that attempting to make the world more orderly can go wrong. Coverley’s recent work includes "Pacific Surfliner: San Juan Capistrano" (2017), "Hours of  the Night." (with Stephanie Strickland, 2016), "The 2015 Fukushima Pinup Calendar" (2014). Editor. Luesebrink has worked as an editor for several publications, including "The Blue Moon Review", "Inflect, Riding the Meridian," and "Word Circuits". Publications/Works. Nonfiction/Critical. Print. “Women’s Contributions to Electronic Literature 1990-2010.” "Women/Tech/Lit". Maria Mencia, Charles Baldwin, eds. West Virginia Press (forthcoming). “The Making and Unmaking of "Califia".” "Women/Tech/Lit". Maria Mencia, Charles Baldwin, eds. West Virginia Press (forthcoming). “The History of the Electronic Literature Organization.” "The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media". Benjamin J. Robertson and Marie-Laure Ryan, eds. Johns  Hopkins University Press (2014). “Creativity and Writing in Digital Media.” (with Stephanie Strickland). "Creativity and Writing Pedagogy: Linking Creative Writers, Researchers and Teachers". Harriet Levin Millan and Martha C. Pennington, eds. Equinox Press (2014). “Code Egyptian Blue: Crossover Platforms in Hypertext Fiction.” "Proceedings of the CyberMountain Colloquium—Denver, Colorado". Larsen, D. and Nürnberg, P.J., eds. (1999). “The Grateful Dead Legendstock.” "Perspectives on the Grateful Dead". Robert Weiner, ed. Greenwood Press, Fall (1999). “The Moment in Hypertext: A Brief Lexicon of Time.” "Proceedings of the Ninth ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia", SIGLINK. (1998). “Walk Four Ways.” Co-authored with Carolyn  Guyer, Peg Syverson, and Michael Joyce. "Pre Text", University of Texas Austin (1997). “Upward, Beyond the Constant Flow, There was Moondling: Writers, Rhetoric, and Technology in Hypertext Fiction.” "The Elephant Ear", Spring (1996). Web. “One + One = Zero – Vanishing Text in Electronic Literature.” Electronic book review (2014) “Futures of Electronic Literature” (with Stephanie Strickland). Electronic book review (2014). “Multi-Modal Coding: Jason Nelson, Donna Leishman, and Electronic Writing.” (Guest edited edition with Stephanie Strickland). "The Iowa Review Web" 9.1 (2007). “The nEARness/t of [IrOny] U’s: An Interview with Talan Memmott on the Occasion of the Publication of  Self Portrait(s) [as Other(s)].” "The Iowa Review Web" (2003). The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls – Web martyrs and other issues of the electronic creative environments. "Currents in Electronic Literacy" (November 2001). The White Wall: Re-Framing the Mirror – making the web-sccessible version of MIrro "Currents in Electronic Literature" (November 2001). The Personalization of Complexity – Our relationship to the complex mind of the computer. "frAme 5". (February 2001). An Interview with Reiner Strasser – Marjorie Luesebrink interviews the noted German artist. "frAme 5". (February 2001). Egyptian E-Mail – Letters to Christy Sheffield Sanford. "Enterzone," episode 14. (Spring 1998) The NeverEnding Fairy  Tale – The Disney fantasy --first published online in "Orange Coast Magazine" (1996) The $500 Rolls Royce – California urban legends -- first published online in "Orange Coast Magazine" (1995). When the Going Gets Tough – Cybershopping – Web shopping in the beginning. First published online in "Orange Coast Magazine" (1995). The Virtual Mausoleum – why have a plaque in the grass when you can have a mausoleum on the WWW? (archives being reconstructed). First published online in "Orange Coast Magazine" (1995) Curated Collections. “Intersections: Explore.” "The Blue Moon Review". November 2001. Ten women working in Web literature. “Jumpin’ at the Diner” (with Jennifer Ley ). "Riding the Meridian" 2.2 (2000). Forty men in hypermedia Web literature. “The Progressive Dinner Party” – Thirty-nine women writers in e-literature with Carolyn Guertin. "Riding the Meridian" (Spring 2000).