acknowledgements

{<div id="scroll-container"> <div id="scroll-text">} (text-style:"bold","underline")[Acknowledgements] First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisory team, Dr. Elizabeth Reeder, Dr. Matthew Barr, and Prof. Bryony Randall. I am so grateful to have had Elizabeth as my primary supervisor, who has championed and nurtured this work from the get-go across all its variables and swerves. Through the many years this project has developed and the life changes that come inevitably with that amount of time, you have been with me every step of the way, challenging me to develop my work, believing in me and helping me to craft a voice for this hybrid thinking. Your own research and writing on essaying is a major influence in the directions this project has taken. The many conversations, WhatsApp voice notes, reflective moments and friendship means more than you can know. Thank you to Matt for all your encouragement, suggestions and patience with my coding as I’ve learnt as I go on this doctorate, and for introducing me to new forms of interactive fiction and game theory. At the beginning of this project, I didn’t know if I had the knowledge to steer myself in all of these directions, but your enthusiasm for the work, and the connections I’ve made through you and your expertise in game writing have been pivotal. Bryony, you’ve been such a joy to work with and you’ve consistently come to my writing with exciting questions, and expansive connections to other literary works and theory I couldn’t have foreseen. The found poem you wrote in response to one of the later drafts of this piece was more than I could have dreamed of. The care and time taken in editing was so appreciated. You’ve all kept me calm and energised by the possibilities along the way, and I feel so lucky to have been supported by your generosity and astute thinking and writing over the last seven years. Thank you to the Eglinton Fellowship for the funding, which helped me at a vital moment in returning to the Doctorate. So much of this project has been stimulated by conversation across subject areas and I am grateful to have been a part of the University of Glasgow’s Games and Gaming Lab, the Infrastructures Humanities Group, the Contemporary Fiction Reading Group and collaborations in creative writing outside academia across various reading groups and events. I'm grateful to have audited courses in the MLitt in Modernities and first year undergraduate Computer Science, alongside further computational courses outside the University, including Code First Girls. All of these environments have developed my skillsets, giving me confidence to experiment in different fields, and have helped me to look at the work from different angles, expanding my directions. My experience going to the International Conference of Interactive Digital Storytelling in Estonia in 2021 was an important stage of the doctorate for me, and I hold close the memories from that trip and the support for my ideas still in development. My thanks go to all organisers and editors of the article published in the Journal of Computer Science that same year and a special mention to Hartmut who invited me to write an expanded version for the inaugural Journal of Interactive Narrative, published in 2024 and included in this thesis. My work editing with SPAM Press, and the many writers and thinkers I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with, has been such a massive part of my life during this research. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting so many amazing creative thinkers and I’m grateful to the opportunities opened up by the wider Glasgow arts scene too. To all the editors I’ve had the joy of working with — Maria, Maya, Ian, Loll, Alice, Denise, Max, Emma, and Pramay, our amazing accountant — thank you, and to the wider DIY zine community who have supported us; attended workshops, bought zines, come along to events and much more. I’ve had the great privilege of teaching and learning from students over the years. Thank you to all who took my Hybrid Forms and Fiction classes in particular; your work is brilliant. I loved designing a new week in Digital Poetics for first year English Literature students with brilliant colleague Dr. Alex Campbell. Teaching is at the cente of this practice and its possibilities. To my co-workers at Royston Library/my Royston family; the chats every week have been a balm. Big love goes to Danielle, Carly, Jean, Robert, Jamie, Pauline. A special mention for the coding and writing chats with Carly and Danielle on Saturdays. This work is for my family, friends and loved ones. To my family, Mum, Dad, Eva, Douglas and Isla, who have loved and supported me unconditionally and whose words of encouragement – particularly in these final stages – have helped me enormously. To my granny, for all her care over the years. To my gran and grandpa, who I both miss dearly. I love you all. To many friends near and far, who have been there at various points across this work and the years undertaken. To Meagan, Leo, Jeehan, Shruti who have been brilliant pals on this doctoral journey alongside me, to everyone that was up for playtesting and have been so supportive in general: Ruthie, Mhairi, Danielle, Lucille, Byron. To Ashleigh, Mollie, Amy, Brenda, Hedvig and Aoiffe for the many sustaining years of friendship and for always checking in. To the many strangers who have helped me so kindly on the Interactive Fiction Forum with coding enquiries over the years. To everyone, who has chatted with me about ideas within this project, showed enthusiasm, asked questions, listened; every conversation has lit a new spark and kept me moving forward. To Maria, dearest friend and constant support. Our shared energy, collaborations, many memories and swerves of ideas have given me endless inspirations and excitement in writing over the years. Here's to more glitches, hyper-portals of shared possibility and poetry. To Sean, for the love every step of the way, for the kindness, care, laughter, motivation, belief, generosity, and for so much more. How lucky am I. Thank you for all of it. <a href="index" >Return to home page</a> <div> </div>