Who is Uno Kudo? Aaron Dietz.

Lately, it seems the biggest question on everyone's mind* is, "Just who is Uno Kudo?" and the answer is "Us", "We are" and "This group of people, together."

I am Uno Kudo, each member of Uno Kudo is Uno Kudo. Hell even you can be Uno Kudo. You'd have to give me something first, some art, a pretty photograph, some writery stuffs...but then! You get the idea.

Uno Kudo isn't one thought, one idea, one mind, one single action or one piece of something. The name might suggest otherwise, but the last thing that Uno Kudo is - is a singular entity. We are a group of individuals who are only able to exist within this project that we have created together because of the collective consciousness of the whole. Together we are an ebbing mass of awesome. Each part of this group has been touched by another and that effect is what has made this possible.

With that in mind, I'd like to begin to answer that looming question.

Who is Uno Kudo?

Uno Kudo is Aaron Dietz.

Aaron Dietz is the author of Super, a novel from Emergency Press about commitment, crisis, paperwork, and heartbreak. Dietz's super powers include a high metabolism and the ability to put things back where he got them. He's also pretty good at math.

As an instructional designer, Dietz has written online high school courses on computer programming, green design, and 3-D video game creation. It’s natural for him to write quizzes. He’s worked a decade in libraries. He’s also been paid to count traffic and once failed a personality test.

Dietz blogs at aarondietz.us, writes for TheNervousBreakdown.com, and is an advisory editor of KNOCK Magazine.



Is it really true that you failed a personality test?

Yes. I once took the official Myers Briggs Type Indicator test, and got a response back that said they had failed to detect a personality. It was embarrassing for both parties.


What was the motivation behind writing your piece (called "Status 9") for Uno Kudo Volume 1?

I had so many motivations. I like to combine about thirty different impulses when I write a piece, so I'll just cover the two motivations that are most obvious when you read the piece.

First, I love writing about hopeless situations and how things get that way. In my story, a small crew of people working at an interplanetary science base get stranded without oxygen and are left to wait out the last few hours of their lives with no hope of rescue. I loved thinking of the bureaucracy and various levels of failure that had to occur for things to end up that way. Of course, a rescue does happen at the end, but not before some rather drastic things occur.

Second, I like exploring repression vs. expression. I think it's interesting how repressing a desire can lead to safety (but not gratification) while the expressive action often leads to happiness (but at some level of risk). In my story, the characters decide between instant gratification (at the cost of an increased chance of death) and safety (no gratification, but a better chance of survival). The main character chooses the safe route and part of the motivation for writing this story involves weighing the cost of regret vs. the benefit of survival. How much will a person give up to maintain their safety, and is it worth it?

Aaron Elsewhere:

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* This isn't realllly the biggest question on everyone's mind, but, it makes for a decent opener so...