Do you remix, write stories, play with image and text? Have you ever jumped into a story as it unfolds on a Twitter hashtag? If you’re a teacher, please share this with your students even if you don’t teach media making! Self-taught artists most welcome.

If you’re curious about literature being made on computers, come check out what we’re doing & share your stuff.

Jason Nelson’s “Nothing You Have Done Deserves Such Praise,” a game-poem about how games flatter us.

M.D. Coverley reading from her work-in-progress last weekend at the Chicago Institute of Art.

Electronic literature artists use a huge range of digital tools for making art. There’s no one way to do it. M.D. Coverley is telling her latest story, Fukushima Pinup Girl, in a spreadsheet. Jeremy Douglass’ poem “8 Was Where it Ended” nests 8 stanzas inside ordinary folder icons you find on your desktop. Undergraduate Lans Pacifico used TypeDrawing for iPad to “color in and over” a sketch of deer to visualize Emily Dickinson’s “A Certain Slant of Light.” Jason Nelson’s “Nothing You Have Done Deserves Such Praise” is a playable poem that “satisfies your compliment addiction.” Adaptation, remix, re-visioning, hacking: come play in the new medial spaces of literary engagement.

If you’ve made a project, no matter how big or small, please submit it to the virtual Gallery of E-Literature First Encounters!

There’s no fee to enter, and there’s plenty of community that would dig your work.

Marylhurst student Lans Pacifico visualizes words from Dickinson’s “A Certain Slant of Light”

Hosted in conjunction with the 2014 conference of the Electronic Literature Organization, the virtual gallery will present works created by newcomers of all ages & backgrounds. Students, hobbyists, teachers, programmers, video artists, Twitter storytellers, folks noodling around with their devices & dreaming: Send us your stuff.

What is e-literature? Stories that change when you mess with them, as my students like to say. Stories designed to be read on a computing device and which “work with an important literary aspect that takes advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer” (Hayles). If the story doesn’t respond to your interaction — if it just scrolls like an ebook — it’s not e-literature.

HOW TO
1) Prepare a brief statement about your work of art (200-500 words). What’s your concept? Or how did you make it? Tell us a little bit about this 1st Encounter.
2) Include a link to your art!
3) Send your submission to eliterature2014 [at] gmail [dot] com by 15 February 2014
4) Questions? Send them to eliterature2014 [at] gmail [dot] com, or post a comment below

WHAT YOU GET
1) Inclusion in a group of new & emerging writers
2) Access to the best new work in this wide & exciting field
3) Reflection on your work from experienced media artists, curators & scholars
4) Welcome to attend E-Literature Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee June 19-22. (No stipend for travel & expenses, but we’d welcome you warmly!)
5) Must one attend conference to be included in virtual gallery? Nope.

WHAT YOU GIVE
1) Goodwill
2) Courage to share your work
3) Cash? No — Absolutely Free

SPREAD THE WORD: Share this call with others making cool stuff!

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