After the Reformation: Interviews with the Grammarians (Selected Extracts), first published in Farthing magazine, Jan 2007.
Despite the title, this is a complete story, not literally an extract from a longer real text!
A series of anthropological interviews with Grammarians, people who were once magically transformed into words in a book. When they were later restored (reformed) back into human beings, they weren’t quite the same…
“Of course I have been a word in a book. What kind of crazy question is that? I am a word in a book, right now. You’re standing right here in the book at this very moment, looking at me! You people, insisting a book can only be ink and paper, not flesh and brick. Well, I’ll tell you: This, this collection of stone and plumbing, these buildings and the spiral road linking them, this is a book, and I am a word within it. And not just any word, either. No, I’m the definitive article: “the”. That’s me.”
Sadly Farthing Magazine is out of print, and this story is not available online. Contact me if you are interested in reading (or even reprinting) it.
“After the Reformation: Interviews with the Grammarians (Selected Extracts) by Helen Keeble is nearly impossible to summarize. It’s the sort of story that breaks free of the staple essentials; there’s a lack of an actual protagonist, and quite possibly, a lack of a substantial plot. Keeble provides interview excerpts with letters (actual letters, such as “i”) and words (such as “the”) that have gone through some tough times (i.e. the Reformation). The use of language is strong and consistent. The interviewees are different enough in their voices to make for interesting reading. Is it clever? Yes. Is it a story? Maybe. No. I don’t really know.”
– From Tangent Online review of Farthing issue 5
“Helen Keeble has created one of the most unusual concept I’ve come across for a long time in After the Reformation. The fact that it’s subtitled Selected Extracts probably explains why the reason behind it is a bit unclear. The story consists of interviews with various people who have, somehow, been turned into words in a book, then transformed back into people. They now live their lives as part of a sentence, bound by an innate sense to the other people that make up their book. It’s a mind-bending idea and one that I’d really like to see expanded in further works.”
– From review of Farthing issue 5 at SciFi UK Review