As part of my re-entry into indie publishing this past Ides of March with the launch of Anomalous Press, I’ve been incorporating as much new media and hybrid literary arts as I can into my vision. But it’s something that I know only a little about. Well, today I feel like I got a crash course thanks to finding out about the 10th anniversary of the E-Poetry Festival this year on Harriet. The festival looks interesting, and I’m especially intrigued by the inclusion of Brasil and Latin American e-poetry… 

The Harriet piece also linked to the Archeological Media Lab which not only is super cool for preserving ‘old’ media works of literary art, but triggers all my nostalgia synapses with Zork. Zork! I loved that game, in fact, it may have been the last video game I truly loved. Lori Emerson, who runs this project, is also an editor at Electronic Book Review, a journal of criticism in an interesting ‘thread’ format, focused on new media literature. She also wrote a post at netpoetic.com on the origin of the term ‘dirty concrete.’ So there I bounced.

Netpoetic.com is part blog, part community forum, with all sorts of resources for digital literature and great critical discussions about digital literature happening all over the place. Including this clever how-to guide: Ten Ways To Make It As A Digital Writer (And Then Fade Away). And since I can’t resist a cleverly titled how-to-be-a-successful-writer article, I started reading.

Then shit just got crazy. Links, and resources, and virtual communities oh my. Electronic Literature has a great playlist for a beginner like me: Explaining Electronic Literature. They also have a fantastic digital anthology, ELC2. And wow. That could take up my whole day, so I’m saving it for another. They have also a dizzying directory of e-lit creators, publishers, and works.

Rhizome is a non-profit organization that provides a TON of resources for new media art, but seems to have little to no literary movement, focusing instead on visual art that engages new medias. Still, very cool, and a good model for resource sharing and virtual collaboration. Their affiliated journal, Hyperrhiz also seems not-so-literary, but says they seek electronic literature, so who knows…

Chris Joseph rocks my world. His projects range from fiction to poetry, most are collaborative and have their own website because of their scope. They are really fascinating.

Linked from his site is the Institute for the Future of the Book which I definitely had come across before, but their wealth of projects demands a full day of exploration. Their folks include the designer for Circumference – which spurs me to think a bit more about the connection between translation and digital literary arts. So exploring, thinking, and yes, downloading Sophie, the mult-media books creator and reader that I can’t wait to try. Mmmm….

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.