Linda Stupart
Virus, novella, published and launched alongside their exhibition: ‘A Dead Writer Exists in Words and Language is a Type of Virus’, at Arcadia Missa in 2016.
Live reading recorded by ‘No Matter’, Manchester 2018.

‘A dead writer exists in words and language is a type of virus. Information is at once this resistance, and what it resists— its own dead form, communication. Words are microbes, molecules, maggots. A dead writer also exists in the devastated by cancer rotting corpse; in death’
Language as a nearly-but-not-quite-living-organism, like a virus. Replicating itself in hospitable, unwitting hosts.
‘HI HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT HOW YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT THE FUTURE BUT YOU’VE ONLY CITED WHITE MEN HEY HOW ARE YOU GONNA STOP THAT HEY WHAT KIND OF FUTURE IS THAT?’
Citing dead writers brings their thoughts back into almost-existance. Choose who you resurrect wisely.
How you talk about yourself changes your future. Write with care.
Linda’s approach to written language speaks deeply to my own creative writing practices.
Bodily, organic, growing, yet simultaneously, methodical, careful, biological.