The theme of SevenThirteen is reality language–the way that language is creates reality. Reality is a composite of memories, sensory impressions, imagination, and levels of awareness; an axis appears along which we oscillate between an inner reality and an outer reality, woven over threads of language, and worn by the individuals who receive us. My goal was to create an surreal work so that I could point out the absurdity of agreeing on a common reality. I self published SevenThirteen in 2002.

The journey starts with GirlOne, an recruit for a mysterious cult that parties their way into self transformation. She goes clubbing, releases energy, breaks free, and loves deeply. GirlOne is me and not me. She is an avatar, a slipstream character that emerges out of the hologram of my memories, sensory impressions, and imagination.

SevenThirteen is anti-literary establishment and anti-common reality. The work is a meant to confuse the reader so that the reader is forced to ask “What is going on?”–an engagement with the reading experience, an opening to confusion–and then question everything. I came to terms with an adverse relationship with shared reality by creating this book. The catharsis wasn’t in the character’s (or my) change, but my performance as a writer who crafted words into something completely illogical that is activated by the reader.

I needed a place to inject chaos to order to emulate the messy nature of our engagement with reality, and the world of SevenThirteen is that place.

There are first editions floating around the internet. If you’re meant to have this book, you’ll find it.

“If anything demonstrates that people with mental illnesses are individuals, not their mental illness, Meta Work has arrived to concretize it in the sweaty summer heat of New York’s Central Park with its sidewalks full of aquatic monsters, fire-eyed mannequins and a life-sized compass that will snatch readers along the way as the narrative leads the heroine and the audience to a place we all need, a place called home.” —Gila Green, author of White Zion, Passport Control, No Entry and King of the Class

Meta Work exemplifies the power of personal story to evoke catharsis in a healing journey. A cross between memoir, poetry, and narrative fiction, the new subgenre of autofiction is shown here to be an entry into an individual’s inner world, allowing one the freedom to explore it without the strictures imposed by the aforementioned genres.

I show, by sharing my own journey as a person living in recovery from bipolar disorder, the power of this immersive tool to clarify, magnify, and ultimately transform one’s own relationship with their internal challenges.

Meta Work was released summer 2021 by Planet Dust Enterprises.

Autofiction: SevenThirteen

Autofiction: Meta Work

Buy a copy of Meta Work

LuLu (e-book; Overdrive app/reader)

Barnes & Noble (print)

Amazon (print)