Adventures in MFA Land

Abstract...for work in progress.  Doing research at Bowling Green State University's Ray & Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies . For decades, the Archie comics have depicted the fictional world of Riverdale and while doing so explicitly and implicitly addressed era-relevant social issues. Two characters have consistently been at the forefront of transgressive interests since their first appearances in 1941 and 1942: Betty Cooper, sweet girl-next-door, and Veronica Lodge, privileged debutante. These characters have been reinvented and freshly envisioned in the CW’s series, Riverdale . The world surrounding Archie Andrews, already dynamic as it has been developed over an extended period of time via multiplatform storytelling, has been updated, intensified, and othered. This multilayered amplification of setting provides an effective backdrop for the revitalized Archie characters but also complicates the understanding of the degree to which Betty and Veron...

Authors dream of social media pages filled with comments and interaction. Likes are lovely, but writers long to stir up the chatter with their clever posts. They want noise, but often experience virtual silence. Interpreting that silence for audience disinterest is a mistake. Fiction readers who consistently comment are more rare than might be expected. Social media is about you—it isn’t actually you. As an author, you want your social media to promote a representation of you and your work. This fragmented version isn’t your true self, but an intentional, crafted version of yourself. You aren’t self-promoting, you’re presenting and interacting in a public space in a consistent and participatory way. You’re providing people with an understanding of who you are, what you do, and what you stand for, but you are also bringing others together. Its your party; you’re the host, so the event is bigger than you and again, its not about you....

There are times when being ‘out there’ isn’t so great. Recently, I’ve been talking with fellow writers about their online experiences and repeatedly heard tales of two online creatures that are at minimum annoying and at worst traumatizing. What are these virtual animals? Trolls and cyberbullies.  These invisible beasts aren’t the same. They’re motivated by different goals and appear in the writer’s virtual life for different reasons. Unchecked, virtual attacks can do more than soak up chunks of time and patience. They can damage an author’s reputation, spirit, and creativity. Troll attacks aren’t personal. The troll seeks to disrupt an online community or ongoing conversation. The more positive or meaningful the troll perceives the online environment to be; the more motivated they are to damage it. Ironically, it’s for this reason that the presence of a troll in an author’s online community is an indicator that the author has created a c...