In the blood

Abstract

This creative project is a short story about a small town in Wisconsin that is suffering from a modern-day diphtheria outbreak. The story is told through the eyes of a woman who is watching the events unfold through the only means she can, via social media. The story is written in a fragmented style, incorporating newspaper articles and social media posts intermixed with the narrator’s reflections. This story was inspired by the non-fiction book Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy, which is a collection of photographs and news articles tracing diphtheria outbreaks, rampant arson, and the strange behavior of the residents of the town of Black River Fall, Wisconsin in the late 19th century. My goal in writing this story was to lean into some of the thematic and stylistic obsessions I have as a writer such as writing about small Wisconsin towns and unsettling occurrences via fragmented narrative structures.