By putting together an international board of literary advisors including not only renowned experts on electronic literature, such as Sue Thomas, Michael Joyce, and Takayuki Tatsumi, but also print writers such as TC Boyle and George Plimpton, and leading critics and publishers from both the print and electronic side of things, we re seeking a different level of engagement from the culture as a whole. The prizes should do a great deal to validate the field, and bring more people into the tent of electronic literature. An interesting issue being discussed in the electronic literature and hypertext communities is just what constitutes electronic literature. These distinctions are tough to make, but our focus is on aiding and publicising the development of literary works which utilise the electronic media to accomplish things that could not be done in print. I m a big book reader, and treasure the print form, but there are already organisations working to support literature in print.
Electronic literature is the babe in the woods it s what needs our help right now.
Furthermore, it s the way that literature is going to reach a generation of readers who are more accustomed to surfing the web than they are to picking up a book. So most of my hopes and fears for literature in general are tied up in the idea that without some particularly literary innovation in the electronic media, the internet will move ahead without a literature native to it. Such a failure would be an horrendous missed opportunity. We don t want to see what happened to television happen to the web. The meaning of Stephen King s e-book Electronic literature seems to be entering the dot com universe with the success of things like Stephen King s recent offering.