We initiated this interwriting during one of MA’s trips to the Twin Cities — it was early winter of 2000 — and continued it on his return to rural Wisconsin writing, as was our custom, back and forth by email, interjecting, adding to, and rearranging our own and each other’s contributions as we expanded the piece. By the time we finished, it was snowing regularly, and “descent into this flurry of omniscience” referred to the seasonal wisdom that comes with hibernation.

Some months later in the summer, MD visited Dreamtime Village, MA’s home, for a few days during a cross-country drive, and while he was away at his 9-5 work (a relatively new development at the time which gave MD more responsibility for the design of our projects), MD was given the task of laying out the text typographically. The experience was one of entering a world enveloped by letters as by snowflakes and ice crystals, and organizing the space using these natural elements as decorating / organizing principles as well as materials. Snow-angels became word-angels, shimmering seams of ice along the cracked lake became lines of wavering words.

~Maria Damon