A [[Non]] Guardian Age - Chapter One

Originally commissioned by if:book’s Australia, 'A [[Non]] Guardian Age: Chapter One' is the first installment of this browser based interactive fiction that incorporates elements of traditional publishing and past technologies. This work was part of a 2015 project called 'Rumors of My Death' where if:book Aus introduced three contemporary writers to three lesser-known authors from Australia’s past with the goal of creating brand new works that adapted, remixed, extended, and mashed up work drawn from nearly two hundred years of publishing.

In the first of these match ups, Mez Breeze was paired with the Irish born Anna Maria Bunn who in 1838 wrote a novel titled 'The Guardian: A Tale', a work that, strangely, combines the Gothic tradition with a comedy of manners. Despite it being set in Ireland, it has the distinction of being the first novel published on the Australian mainland and was published anonymously.

In 2016, 'A [[Non]] Guardian Age' was shortlisted for the 2016 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards – Award for Digital Narrative, with Simon Groth stating: "Projects like Mez Breeze’s 'A [[Non]] Guardian Age' are trailblazing new ways of telling stories. Given the breadth of new modes of writing it is encouraging to see awards like the Award for Digital Narrative in Western Australia acknowledging emerging storytelling forms". Queensland Writers Centre's Chief Executive Officer Katie Woods called 'A [[Non]] Guardian Age' "...an engaging exemplar of story uncoupled from the page."

So what happened when Anna was paired with Mez (the author and crafter of 'A [[Non]] Guardian Age')? This first chapter sets the stage, and illustrates how 'Rumors of My Death' attempted to bring such works to a contemporary audience and to acknowledge the legacy of Australian writing and use it—affectionately—as a launchpad into real-time, hypertextual, networked future.

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All 'A [[Non]] Guardian Age' Chapters come as interactive html files that can be read via most Internet Browsers. Read Chapter Two here and Chapter Three here.