An Earth Turning Slowly is an entry in the 2014 Shufflecomp, the premise of which is that (1) authors submit eight links to songs and eight pseudonyms, (2) these links and pseudonyms are shuffled and redistributed, and (3) authors then have three weeks to pseudonymously write a story based on the links they receive. The inspiration for An Earth Turning Slowly came from a couple of fleeting shots in the music video for Owl City's “Fireflies”. (Thanks, Adri!) I chose my pseudonym, Mæja (Maria) Stefánsson,[1] from the suggestions merely for the reason that I have always liked the nickname Mæja; I hope there aren't any associations with “Maria Stefánsson” that I don't know about.
A number of people have influenced or contributed to An Earth Turning Slowly. Thanks to:
- I. D. Millington for Undum,
- Leo Selig for the custom scroll bars,
- Micha Kirste for the cover photo,
- Diedra Rater for the background texture,
- the interactive fiction (IF) community, especially Jon Ingold, Erik Temple, and the IF Theory Club for insights into and speculation on IF interfaces,
- Summer del Mono (whose real name will not be revealed until after the judging period), Rowan Lipkovits, Alan DeNiro, and Daniel Stelzer for a stellar job of beta testing,
- Juhana Leinonen for coordinating beta testing, and
- Sam Ashwell for hosting the competition.
[1] I find it interesting that it's “Stefánsson” and not “Stefánsdóttir”. My working theory is that my family moved to the US some time ago (the US because that would explain why I write in a US dialect), and my great-grandfather's patronymic has since evolved into a family name.