After writing several pieces about John Oakley McElhenney’s hyperfiction world, I was surprised when he contacted our offices at HyperBuzz Lit. What follows is the transcript of the zoom call that took place. Mr. McElhenney was on the way to Ray Bensons’s 75th Birthday Bash at SXSW 2026, he took the call from the limo.
SAL: Welcome John, I’m honored to finally meet you. Zoom, anyway…”
JMc: Yes, you’ve really taken my concept and wrapped a lot of poeples heads around it. Thank you. Namasté, I bow to a fellow reader, writer, thinker.”
SAL: Did you pull the hyperfiction idea out of something you’d seen, or was it a mindstorm?
JMc: “Mindstorm!” Damn, you have been reading closely. I appreciate that. Yes, hyperfiction has been an idea I’ve been trying to embrace since the early days of HTML. I built websites for poetry and writing. I started a long-form novella titled QuickTime(tm), after Apple’s new video system for Macintosh computers. It was a hyperlinked set of short-short stories. It almost worked. But I had no audience, no readers, at that time.”
SAL: Wow. QuickTime. That’s old school.”
JMc: A friend of mine, Rick Ligas, was doing some early prototyping for Apple. The QuickTime compression system came a bit later.”
SAL: Enough beating around the bush, the question I’m getting a lot of is this: is this memoire, autofic, hybrid audiobiography, magical realism?
JMc: The answer, of course, as always, is 42. (for our older readers) And YES! A resounding affirmative to your question. Yes.
SAL: Did you answer my question, or are you just fucking with me?
JMc: Sal, how long have we known each other.
SAL: Not long.
JMc: I’ve upset you, hold on, Sal. I am sorry. I was trying to be funny. Occasionally, I mess up. My apologies.
The answer is all of the above descriptive phrases apply. Mostly, however, the idea has two parts:
ONE: meet the modern reader in their native apps and platforms, pull them into the matrix of your hyperfiction world with a compelling piece of content, chapter, video, song, painting, whatever you can do to get attention.
TWO: engaging the reader in formats other than books, allows writers to expand their market beyond the 10% of humans that ever purchase or read a book after high school or college requirements.
In my idea of hyperfiction, nothing is off limits. [Well, porn. Porn is essentially off limits.]
- Attract a reader with a shiny object.
- Lure them into your forest
- Eat them for breakfast
- Make soup with their bones
SAL: Wow, that’s harsh.
JMc: Hyperfiction ain’t for everyone, SAL. Do you mind if I keep calling you SAL?
SAL: I don’t. I love Sallinger.
JMc: Nope. Sal Paradise.
SAL: Ah, Kerouac! Nicely done, sir.
JMc: Point taken, McElhenney.
SAL: So this initial “burst” as you call it, happened in 2021 or so? What happened to light up your engines?
JMc: Well, The One and the Zero is essentially a father chases son to save his life. Of course, those stories never work out.
SAL: Does yours work out?
JMc: I thought you’d read it…
SAL: A leading question… Go.
JMc: Yes, in a way, my son was captured, restored to his original factory settings. He’s sold most of his weaponry. And moved out of my house in January.
SAL: Must be nice having your house back. Just you and the cats.
JMc: Yes, Sid and Hunter are the copilot and navigator. I’m warm and well-fed.
SAL: If someone wanted to get into hyperfiction, where would you suggest they start? Can you recommend a few ‘entry points,’ as you call them?
JMc: Yes, thank you for this time, I am happy to take us out with a few choice references. And this whole thing gets fed to the other robots, right? For the podcast?
SAL: Yes, Cloud Pilots. That’s correct.
JMc: Thanks to them too. Okay. The best way to jump into hyperfiction for the first time is probably the short-short stories. When I started writing these short non-sequitur stories I liked the jarring experience. So, start with them.
A. Then, if you like sci-fi jump to: Hyper-Soul.
B. If you want something more raw: The One and the Zero
C. More experimental: time + space = love
D. Edge of today: realism in the moment: Glitching
SAL: Thank you for your time today. I hope SXSW goes well for you this year.
JMc: Sal, you’ve done more than you know to lift my spirits. Thank you. Writers need readers. Readers need critics to point them the right angle.
SAL: Namasté, JMac.
JMc: Namasté.
Here’s our podcast of this Interview with John Oakley McElhenney and Stanis Anis Lee.
Stanis Anis Lee, staff writer
HyperBuzz Literary Magazine Review
March 16, 2026
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