Technology Platforms for 21st Century Literature

Today, the technologies supporting the rapid growth of the Internet -- powerful databases that respond to plain-language queries, hypertext linking, data compression, neural networks, collaborative filtering, and high-speed telecommunications -- make the static, create-once-read-forever nature of print seem like only one option to imaginative readers. The proliferation of client devices like modems, browsers and PC's means that now a huge and growing group of readers expect very different things from text, and they have the desire and capability to deal with the consequences of having those expectations met.

The promise of the new technology for literature - born from the academic research and pioneering hypertext systems of the last 30 years and mixed with the stylistic innovations of interactive game creators of the '80's and 90's -- is already beyond theory. It's a working reality for a growing cadre of writers who create nearly exclusively in digital media, many of whom began their writing careers there. The excitement ignited by the breakthrough hyperfictions of Michael Joyce, Stuart Moulthrop and Judy Malloy has been fueled by important recognition of the medium such as Robert Coover's New York Times Book Review essays and the Brown University hyperfiction and multimedia workshops. As a result, the new medium has become a hotbed of innovation in literature and where a growing audience of readers looks to find some of the most exciting new literary achievements.

Until now, technology developers have naturally focused on the high-priority business opportunities of mass media Web sites, e-commerce, and moving enterprise systems to the Internet. Unfortunately and in spite of an urgent interest by writers and readers alike, the intense focus in these areas has not been mirrored in the creation of technology specifically for literature. The result is that creative writing, which is essential to how individuals learn about themselves, lags behind the business and media worlds in technology development and use. That can only be to the detriment of society at large, including the technology community. For technology to succeed completely in transforming how people live, it must rearm artists and their audiences as well as business people and consumers.

To harness the opportunity presented by digital technology to writers and readers of serious literature, these needs must be addressed.

• Writers need standard, flexible, affordable, easy-to-use authoring, structuring and database design tools that perform functions specific to creating the new forms of fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction.
• Writers also need technical education and support to shorten the learning curve and make the technology serve the creative process as transparently as possible.
• Publishers need standard and flexible publishing systems to which authors can post their work easily, where editors and authors can collaborate to shape the work, and where readers ultimately find high-performance, familiar environments to enjoy the end result.
• Developers, publishers and writers need to create a vocabulary for ongoing collaboration that they both understand and that addresses the differences as well as shared interest between literary invention and technical innovation.
• Most writers and publishers can't employ large teams of developers to manage deep ruptures in technology development. They need the confidence of a backward- and forward-compatible path they can follow that ensures that the months, sometimes years of work that go into a project will not be lost for large parts of the audience as a result of technology changes.

To move closer to meeting those needs, the creators of interactive fiction and poetry must describe the form and function of their new works for technology developers. Developers also need to hear how writers go about creating in the new medium, how they imagine it would be like to work with tools perfectly suited to their art, and how publishers would ideally host and present the finished work to audiences. In other words, writers, publishers and technologists need to create together a "needs assessment" for the design of literary authoring and publishing systems.

So for the specification of authoring and publishing systems to have any kind of shelf-life, the process will need to be informed by the best informed technologists' latest views on the near- and longer-term future for such technology.

Through a series of focused panel discussions, demonstrations, and creative workshops, the Conference will seek to advance agreement on the following:

• Possible forms of fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction
• Functions of the tools to create those forms
• User interface and support necessary for authors
• Technological ability and capacity developers should expect from authors
• Publishing systems where the work and the readers meet.