September 8, 2008

Submit to The Electronic Literature Collection volume 2

by Nick Montfort · , 6:04 am

September 30 is the deadline – coming up in just a few weeks – for submissions to volume two of The Electronic Literature Collection. Note particularly that old and new work is welcome; there is a new editorial board; there is to be similar Creative Commons licensing and publication on both disc (DVD, this time) and Web; and, documentation of an e-lit piece on video is acceptable this time around. If you want to get an idea of what counts as “electronic literature,” you can read the definition on the Electronic Literature Organization site or, probably even better, take a look at the diversity of work included in the first volume of the ELC. Here are all the details from the call on the ELO site:

The Electronic Literature Organization seeks submissions for the Electronic Literature Collection, volume 2. We invite the submission of literary works that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the computer. Works will be accepted from June 1 to September 30, 2008. Up to three works per author will be considered; previously published works will be considered.

The Electronic Literature Collection is a biannual publication of current and older electronic literature in a form suitable for individual, public library, and classroom use. Volume 1, presently available both online (http://collection.eliterature.org) and as a packaged, cross-platform CD-ROM, has been used in dozens of courses at universities in the United States and internationally, and has been widely reviewed in the United States and Europe. It is also available as a CD-ROM insert with N. Katherine Hayles’ full-length study, Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary (University of Notre Dame Press, 2008).

Volume 2, comprising approximately 50 works, will likewise be available online, and as a cross-platform DVD in a case appropriate for library processing, marking, and distribution. The contents of the Collection are offered under a Creative Commons license so that libraries and educational institutions will be allowed to duplicate and install works and individuals will be free to share the disc with others.

The editorial collective for the second volume of the Electronic Literature Collection, to be published in 2009, is Laura Borràs Castanyer, Talan Memmott, Rita Raley and Brian Kim Stefans. This collective will review the submitted work and select pieces for the Collection.

Literary quality will be the chief criterion for selection of works. Other aspects considered will include innovative use of electronic techniques, quality and navigability of interface, and adequate representation of the diverse forms of electronic literature in the collection as a whole. For volume 2, we are considering works of electronic literature in video.

Works submitted should function on both Macintosh OS X (10.5) and Windows Vista. Works should function without requiring users to purchase or install additional software. Submissions may require software that is typically pre-installed on contemporary computers, such as a web browser, and are allowed to use the current versions of the most common plugins.

To have a work considered, all the authors of the work must agree that if their work is published in the Collection, they will license it under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License, which will permit others to copy and freely redistribute the work, provided the work is attributed to its authors, that it is redistributed non-commercially, and that it is not used in the creation of derivative works. No other limitation is made regarding the author’s use of any work submitted or accepted.

To submit a work, prepare a plain text file with the following information:

  • The title of the work.
  • The names and email addresses of all authors and contributors of the work.
  • The URL where you are going to make your .zip file available for us to download. The editorial collective will not publish the address of this file.
  • A short description of the work — less than 200 words in length.
  • Any instructions required to operate the work.
  • The date the work was first distributed or published, or “unpublished” if it has not yet been made available to the public.

Prepare a .zip archive including the work in its entirety. Include the text file at the top level of this archive, and name it “submisson.txt”.

Upload the .zip file to a web server so that it is available at the specified location. Place all of the text in the “submisson.txt” file in the body of an email and send it to elc2.elo@gmail.com with the name of the piece being submitted included in the subject line.

The Electronic Literature Collection is supported by institutional partners including: Blekinge Institute of Technology; Brown University, Literary Arts Program; Center for Program in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania; Duke University, Program in Literature; Hermeneia at the Open University of Catalonia; Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies; nt2; Pomona College, Media Studies Program; UCSB, Department of English; University of Bergen, Department of Literary, Linguistic, and Aesthetic Studies, Program in Digital Culture; University of Dundee, School of Humanities.

Institutional sponsorship opportunities are still available. If your organization or academic department is interested in more information, please contact helen DeVinney, Managing Director of the ELO, at hdevinney [at] gmail [dot]com.

4 Responses to “Submit to The Electronic Literature Collection volume 2”


  1. Ian Bogost Says:

    Obtained when clicking the “read the definition” link above:

    Internal Server Error

    The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
    Please contact the server administrator, gplord@gmail.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

    More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

    Now the question is… is that an error, or the definition?

  2. Nick Montfort Says:

    For the time being, you could try this link instead.

  3. Gimcrack’d: Dross: Grappling with the dos Says:

    […] have no excuse for slacking off; the deadline for the Electronic Literature Collection will be here pretty soon. Tonight I managed to get the standalone template I want to submit my […]

  4. Nick Montfort Says:

    The ELO site, which was down for maintenance, is now back online.

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