Electronic Literature Organization

update: 8/20/12

Following the wildly successful conference in Morgantown, ELO announces the addition of 2 new members to each of its boards. This year, Jessica Pressman and Davin Heckman join the Board of Directors, and Erik Loyer and Chris Funkhouser join the Literary Advisory Board.

The opening event of “Electrifying Literature” conference is on Tuesday, June 19 at 7pm, after the pre-conference workshops. As mentioned in emails from local organizer Sandy Baldwin, this is an open mic, following in the tradition of open mic/open mouse events at UCLA, the University of Maryland, and MIT.

Sandy encourages all to participate, saying, “I love these sorts of readings (even when they aren’t entirely of e-lit) and am planning to present at least a short piece myself. Please sign up and present, if you’re coming with work of yours to Morgantown. I hope to see, and hear, you there.”

(above: the MLA 2012 Electronic Literature Exhibit promo video)

2012 marks the 20^th anniversary of the first session at the MLA on electronic literature, and, fittingly, the ELO was a strong force at this year’s conference this past January.

In the latest issue of dichtung digital, Scott Rettberg, co-founder and Vice President of ELO, reviews the history of the organization from its inception.

According to Rettberg, the article attempts “to provide a relatively comprehensive history of our accomplishments from 1999 to date.” Recounting its development from its early days at Brown University to its current HQ at MIT, the article offers an important review of the evolution of the organization into its current international community of artists and critics.

In addition to the galleries and e-lit reading at MLA12 in Seattle this weekend, a number of ELO Board members will be presenting papers. Here is a handy list.

Dene Grigar

Announcing the publication of The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 2.

ELO is excited to announce the publication of its 2nd collection of electronic literature. With its wide ranging forms, Volume 2 picks up where ELC1 left off, offering a diverse anthology of works from an international group of authors in a variety of languages and forms.

We apologize for our site being down as we switched to a new hosting service. We worked to restore the Web publication of the Electronic Literature Collection, volume 1 first so that teachers and students, as well as general readers, would have access to it. The organization will be continuing to develop the site, and will be working to ensure that there is less downtime in the future, as we also pursue our three main projects: The Electronic Literature Collection, The Electronic Literature Directory, and our series of conferences.