Writing Surfaces: Selected Fiction of John Riddell

By John Riddell

John Riddell is best known for “H” and “Pope Leo, El ELoPE,” a pair of graphic fictions written in collaboration with, or dedicated to, bpNichol, but his work moves well beyond comic strips into a series of radical fictions. In Writing Surfaces, derek beaulieu and Lori Emerson present “Pope Leo, El ELoPE” and many other works in a collection that showcases Riddell’s remarkable mix of largely typewriter-based concrete poetry mixed with fiction and drawings.

Riddell’s work embraces game play, unreadability and illegibility, procedural work, non-representational narrative, photocopy degeneration, collage, handwritten texts, and gestural work. His self-aware and meta-textual short fiction challenges the limits of machine-based composition and his reception as a media-based poet.

Riddell’s oeuvre fell out of popular attention, but it has recently garnered interest among poets and critics engaged in media studies (especially studies of the typewriter) and experimental writing. As media studies increasingly turns to “media archaeology” and the reading and study of antiquated, analogue-based modes of composition (typified by the photocopier and the fax machine as well as the typewriter), Riddell is a perfect candidate for renewed appreciation and study by new generations of readers, authors, and scholars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Release date: Jun 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781554588534

John Riddell

Born in Giffnock, John Riddell became interested in the Clyde, shipping and engineering from a young age. He worked as a civil engineer before becoming a senior lecturer and reader in water engineering at the University of Strathclyde. He has lived in Fairlie since 1972, and in retirement has continued to pursue his interest in the Clyde, ships and local history.

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