Timelord Dreaming: tweetems from ward 8b
About this ebook
“You”, in this case, was the author, who, with the kindness of a Dr Who understudy and other medical staff at the Mater Hospital, Brisbane, survived a urgent operation and had many medicated days to reflect on an often surreal experience.
Timelord Dreaming uses “tweetems”, microtexts with Internet call-outs, to recreate one man’s journey through the parallel universes of patient and personal identity. If you’ve ever been hospitalised, you’ll find much that is familiar – and not always comfortable – here.
Dr David P Reiter won the 2012 Western Australian Premier’s Award for My Planets Reunion Memoir. Timelord Dreaming continues his innovative work in the frontier between text and digital media.
Illness as altered reality isolates us from the world. Sharp as a scalpel, David Reiter beams trippy tweetems from his hospital bed, cracking sterile walls and piercing us with poignancy.
– Dr Leah Kaminsky, Deputy Editor, Poetry & Fiction, Medical Journal of Australia
In the half-life world of hospitals, pain and medication, Dr Reiter has taken us on his journey into and through his mind. Taking twists, turns and delightful detours, he has developed a new form of digital communication – tweetems. While some draw on visitations of Doctor Who, the tweetems also take us on a myriad of musical and educational voyages. Between sonic screwdrivers and white cell scouts, Timelord Dreaming ensures our normalacy bias will be prodded and deconstructed.
– Anna Maguire, Digireado
About the author
Winner of the Western Australia Premier’s Award for Digital Narrative and the Queensland Premier’s Award for Poetry among other distinctions, David P Reiter has been recognised internationally for his ground-breaking creative works.
Hemingway in Spain and Nullarbor Song Cycle began as text works and later were extended to films. My Planets: a fictive Memoir as well began as a physical book and an enhanced CD but then, in collaboration with the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, became the innovative My Planets Reunion Memoir <http://ipoz.biz/myplanets>, an interactive website in which text, film, audio performances, classical music, astronomy, and animation converge on a journey from separation to reunion of biological families.
In his latest hybrid work, David creates ‘tweetems’ – text and social media moments – that immerse the reader/viewer in the timeless and sometimes surreal experiences of being an emergency and post-op patient.
Dr Reiter is Publisher/CEO at IP (Interactive Publications) and lives in Brisbane with his wife, two children, and menagerie of irreverent pets.
