Performance Writing network: A dialogue between Nathan Jones and Mary Paterson

Abstract

This paper sets out to collaboratively explore the notion of the Performance Writing Network. It documents and reconstitutes a conversation which took place between the authors in late-2012, across Facebook, Twitter and blogging services. The process of re-situating this conversation into a page format for the journal has resulted in a range of unconventional formatting decisions, which reflect on the nature of online writing as a performative and networked activity. The authors retain and draw attention to the stylistic quirks of online (and therefore public, and performative) writing – the incessant ‘paratexts’ of dating and html location, and the simultaneity of thought, composition and redraft. Together, the style and content of the paper give an indication of the thematic and temporal folds which occur in textual conversation (or networking) in online space.