Technology Platforms for 21st Century Literature

The program will feature print and electronic writers and poets and representatives of leading developers of electronic writing technology, as well as major print and online publishers, leading journalists of the computer press, multimedia designers, and eminent electronic writing theorists.

To see a current list of confirmed attendees, along with their email addresses and/or home pages, follow this link.

Robert Arellano
Robert Arellano is the instructor of the Hypertext Fiction Workshop at Brown, as well as co-author and publisher of LSD-50, the Internet's first hypertext 'zine, since 1993, and author of Sunshine '69, the Web's first interactive novel.

Mary Kim Arnold
Mary-Kim Arnold is the author of the hypertext fiction Lust, and co-author of kokura. Her work has also appeared in the Asian Pacific American Review. She is currently at work on a collection of short fictions.

Jeff Ballowe
While at Ziff-Davis, Jeff Ballowe led the launches of 5 magazines, ZDNet on the Web, and ZDTV. He also led the initial ZD/Softbank investments in Yahoo!, USWeb, GameSpot and Herring Communications. Since leaving ZD in at the end of 1997 he has served as Chairman of DejaNews and as a director of drkoop.com, VerticalNet, XOOM.com and ZDTV.

Mark Bernstein
Mark Bernstein is president and chief scientist of Eastgate Systems, a pioneer company in the development of hypertext and hypermeda, a leading software vendor of electronic writing tools such as Storyspace, and publishers of original hypertexts--poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Eastgate has been called by the New York Times "the New Directions of electronic publishing."

Bill Bly
Bill Bly, a writer and musician living in New York, is the author of the hypertext novel We Descend (Eastgate, 1997) and the forthcoming hypertext chapbook Wyrmes Mete

Jay David Bolter
Jay David Bolter is the Wesley Professor of New Media at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His most recent book, Remediation, coauthored with Richard Grusin, was published by the MIT Press in 1998.

Marc Canter - Oberlin - B.F.A in Intermedia 1980
Work in Laser Light shows, Interactive laserdiscs, videogames, music scene before starting MacroMind in 1984. Developed creativity tools called MusicWorks, VideoWorks and GraphicWorks before moving to SF in 1988. Called next version of their product Director. MacroMind later became MacroMedia. Started Canter technology in 1992 - work in Interactive Music Videos (Mediaband), Interactive Talk shows (Marc canter Show) and cyber Venues (MediaBar.) Under the name Venuemedia - did work system at SuperBowl XXXII and under the name Adrical have been working on producing a digital city in Trieste, Italy. Now working under the name Broadband Mechanics - producing scalable tools for broadband portals.

Julianne Chatelain
Julianne Chatelain has worked with interactive information in the corporate world since 1979, trying to improve its readability / usability / playability. Since 1996 she has studied authors' and readers' use of the hypertext map developed by Dan Bricklin and others at Trellix Corporation. Another current project involves exploring ways in which software-style usability assessments can be morphed into useful tools for both readers and writers of cybertexts.

Robert Coover
Robert Coover, author of some fifteen books of fiction, including Pricksongs & Descants, The Public Burning, and most recently Ghost Town, has for the past decade been teaching experimental courses in hypertext and multimedia narrative at Brown University.

J. Yellowlees Douglas
Jane Yellowlees Douglas has published over two dozen articles about hypertext, narrative, and aesthetics in edited collections and journals in the US, UK, and Australia. She is also the author of I Have Said Nothing, (1993) which appeared originally in the Eastgate Quarterly Review and, recently, in Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology (1997). Her book, The End of Books--Or Books without End? Reading Interactive Narratives, will be published by the University of Michigan Press this fall.

Martin F. Eberhard
Martin Eberhard is CEO and Cofounder of NuvoMedia. He has worked in the exciting startup environment of Silicon Valley since 1983, when he graduated from the University of Illinois. He was an Engineering Manager at Wyse Technology when they went public in 1986, and the Chief Engineer at Network Computing Devices -where he was a cofounder- when they went public in 1991. He was subsequently VP of Engineering at another startup company, Belfort Memory International. After 14 years working for pure-technology companies, Mr. Eberhard and his colleague, Marc Tarpenning, founded NuvoMedia to bring together their expertise in technology and their love of reading.

Edward Falco
Edward Falco's most recent work is the hypertext novel A Dream with Demons (Eastgate Systems, 1997). He is the editor of The New River, a hypertext journal.

Dan Farber
Dan Farber is vice president and editor-in-chief of ZDNet, a leading source of computing and internet content. Dan brings more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist to ZDNet. As Editor-in-Chief, he manages the team responsible for the development of the ZDNet sites, as well as the integration of content from Ziff-Davis' six media platforms, including its more than 20 publications.

Dan joined ZDNet in 1996, and is currently based at the company's San Francisco headquarters. Previously, he served as vice president and editor-in-chief at Ziff-Davis' flagship computing news publication, PC Week.

Dan was formerly editor-in-chief of MacWeek, a national news weekly for IS managers. Previously, he was a founding editor at MacWorld and on the editorial staffs of PC World and PC Magazine.

William Gillespie
William Gillespie is one of the authors of the Unknown , (a first-place winner of the Trace/Alt-X hypertext novel competition). He maintains the Newspoetry site (an alternative online news source) and is a webmaster at ERIC/EECE .

Diane Greco
Diane Greco is the author of the hypertext Cyborg: Engineering the Body Electric (Eastgate Systems, 1995). She worked as an editor at Eastgate Systems, Inc, a hypertext press in Watertown MA, from 1994-1997. A graduate of Brown University, she is presently completing her PhD in the History of Science and Technology at MIT.

Harlan Hugh
Harlan Hugh is President and cofounder of Natrificial Software Technologies. In 1994, Harlan invented the company's core technology, The Brain. The fundamental concept behind The Brain is letting people organize information in the same way they think about it. The Brain lets you create and visualize the associations between information, creating an interface that lets you move through information as it naturally flows.

Michael Joyce
Michael Joyce is the author of the groundbreaking hyperfiction, afternoon, as well as such multimedia works as Twilight, a Symphony and Twelve Blue. His newest work, On the birthday of the stranger, has just been published by the online Evergreen Review.

Deena Larsen
Deena Larsen has been writing hypertexts for over a decade. Her latest work, Ferris Wheels kicks off the Iowa Review Website.

Jim Louderback
Jim Louderback is currently vice president and editorial director of ZDTV, and is responsible for all technical content. He came to ZDTV from PC Week, where he held the same title, and was responsible for all editorial direction and content for the industry leading news weekly. Prior to that, he was Editor In Chief of Windows Sources, where he pioneered their innovative leading-edge 32-bit new products review strategy. He began his career at Ziff-Davis as Director of PC Week Labs, where he built the labs into an industry leader for testing new computer products for corporate use.Prior to Ziff-Davis, Jim spent 8 years working in corporate america, 6 of those years consulting with Fortune 500 companies and implementing leading edge technologies. He spent 4 years at American Management Systems as technical director for the PC/Lan consulting group, where he pioneered the use of client-server technologies, and two years at Management Dynamics. He started his career at Chase Manhattan, spending two years as a senior analyst. Jim has an MBA in computer applications from New York University, and a BS in Mathematics from the University of Vermont.

Marjorie C. Luesebrink
Marjorie C. Luesebrink teaches writing at Irvine Valley College; she writes hypertext fiction as M.D. Coverley. Her CD-ROM novel, Califia, is forthcoming from Eastgate Systems. Web stories are available at http://califia.interspeed.net/cover.htm

Ben Marcus
Ben Marcus is the author of a book of fiction, The Age of Wire and String (Knopf). He also edits the web magazine Impossible Object.

Cathy Marshall
Cathy Marshall is a researcher at Fuji Xerox's Palo Alto Laboratory. She works in the interstices between system design and ethnography, and between non-fiction and fiction. With Judy Malloy, she wrote Forward Anywhere.

Miko Matsumura
Miko Matsumura has a Masters degree in Neuroscience from Yale University, where he studied neural networks, and a BS in Psychology from the University of Michigan. As the Java Evangelist for Sun Microsystems' JavaSoft, Miko has been a keynote speaker at the International Java developer's conference, Java days in the UK, Mexico City, Toronto, Tokyo and the first Internet conference in India. Before becoming the Java Evangelist, he worked at HotWired (www.hotwired.com) as the director of R & D, at the WELL (www.well.com) for Woodstock '94 and at the Branson School (www.branson.org). He is now the Chief Strategist for BusinessTone (www.biztone.com), an Internet start-up.

Miko's first computer was an Atari 400 with 16k of RAM and a cassette tape recorder, which he got at the age of 12. He has been pondering questions about human and machine behavior ever since. He holds a first degree black belt in Shotokan karate.

Krishnan Menon
Krishnan Menon is a Partner and a senior systems architect at USWeb/CKS in San Francisco. Krish's interests currently lie in examining the shift in content deployment strategies caused by expanding bandwidth, collaborative workflow and the need for extended and more robust security measures. He is plodding away on his second book Webgnosis, about the future of information publishing, data exchange protocol generation and content management on the Web. He is a member of Microsoft's Internet Advisory Board and serves on Allaire's West Coast Advisory Board. Krish studied theater at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and Computer Information Systems at the University of Sioux Falls. He is the author of two plays, The Killer Inside, and Milking Metaphors From Thunder.

Michael Miller
Since 1991, Michael J. Miller has been editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, the world's largest computer publication. Miller also serves as Editorial Director for ZD Publishing, taking an active role in corporate editorial issues, defining new editorial needs in the Marketplace, and helping shape the editorial positions of every Ziff-Davis title.

Miller is an accomplished journalist who has become a leader for the computer industry through his experience in testing products and evaluating and writing about software issues. An experienced public speaker, Miller has also become a spokesperson for the computer industry. He has participated on industry conference panels, has appeared on numerous business television and radio programs discussing technology issues, and is frequently quoted in major newspapers.

Prior to joining PC Magazine, Miller was editor-in-chief of InfoWorld. Miller earned a BS in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York and an MS in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He has received several awards for his writing and editing, including being named to Medill's Alumni Hall of Achievement.

Stuart Moulthrop
Stuart Moulthrop is a Web designer and teacher based in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the author of Victory Garden, Hegirascope, and other hypertext fictions and essays.

Scott Rettberg
Scott Rettberg is the designer and a co-author of The Unknown, a hypertext novel. He also guides the Authors site at the Mining Co., an online resource on authors, books, and writing, and is completing his Ph.D. in English from the University of Cincinnati.

Jim Rosenberg
Jim Rosenberg (jr@amanue.com)has been working in non-linear poetic forms in one medium or another since 1966. His best-known work is Intergrams, published by Eastgate Systems. His interactive work includes dense overlays of words and intense structuring, typically by means of an external syntax. The preoccupying vision: taking hypertext into the fine structure of language.
http://www.well.com/user/jer/

Anne Schott
Anne Schott is a marketing and communications manager at Microsoft. Her team, led by vice president Dick Brass, is responsible for organizing Microsoft's efforts in the emerging field of electronic book software, improved on-screen reading and eBook devices. Anne helped research and edit Bill Gates' recently released book, "Business at the Speed of Thought." From 1995 to 1997, Anne led the design and construction of sections of Microsoft's Web sites for Windows 95, Internet Explorer, and their portal site http://home.microsoft.com. Anne earned a BA in English Literature from Middlebury College.

Stephanie Strickland
Stephanie Strickland's hypertext poem, True North, published by Eastgate Systems, won a 1998 Salt Hill hypertext prize. Print True North won the Di Castagnola and Sandeen awards, and an earlier volume, The Red Virgin: A Poem of Simone Weil, won the Brittingham Prize. Her essays about hypertext appear on the Web in the Electronic Book Review.

Rob Wittig
Rob Wittig was a leading citizen of the literary group Invisible Seattle and co-founded the pioneering literary bulletin board IN.S.OMNIA (1983-ca. 1992). These literary sins lead to Fulbright work on the practical and theoretical aspects of electronic literature with Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jacques Derrida. His account and meditation on these adventures, Invisible Rendezvous, was published by Wesleyan U. Press in 1994. Rob is currently director of TANK20_literary_studio, works with design consultants Thirst/3st.2, and teaches at Chicago's IIT Institute of Design.

Sol Yurick
Born in '25, already old in the developments of technological waves. Wrote five novels, book of short storys, essay book (Metatron), and articles. Two of them made into films: Warriors and Fertig. I and Coover, with the aid of info-maven, R. Shapiro, invented interactive info lit in the late '60's. Still, humans are born and die and, oh yes, there's that little bit in between. In short, my plaint is, technology or not, show me something new.