ELOs History

The Electronic Literature Organization was founded in 1999 to foster and promote the reading,
writing, teaching, and understanding of literature as it develops and persists in a changing digital
environment. A 501c(3) non-profit organization, the ELO includes writers, artists, teachers, scholars,
and developers.
The Electronic Literature Organization was initiated by electronic author Scott Rettberg, novelist
Robert Coover, and internet business leader Jeff Ballowe. Realizing the promise that electronic
media offered for literature but the lack of a supporting infrastructure, the three assembled a board
of directors that included writers, publishers, internet industry leaders, and literary nonprofit experts,
founding the organization in Chicago. In the fall of 2001, the ELO moved its headquarters to the
University of California, Los Angeles, where the ELO received generous assistance from the UCLA
English Department, SINAPSE (Social Interfaces and Networks in Advanced Programmable
Simulations and Environments) and the Design Media Arts Department. After five productive years
at UCLA, in the summer of 2006 the ELO headquarters came to the University of Maryland, College
Park. The ELO was housed at and sponsored by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the
Humanities (MITH). The summer of 2011 marked the ELOs move to the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, thanks to support from the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies and The Trope
Tank.
The ELO has grown to be a vital part of the electronic literature community. In 2001 the
Organization ran the Electronic Literature Awards program, still the only one of its sort, that
recognized exemplary works of poetry and fiction and rewarded winners with substantial cash
prizes. The ELO also undertook the PAD (Preservation, Archiving, and Dissemination) project from
2002-2005, which involved a conference, e(X)literature, at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, and resulted in the publications Acid-Free Bits and Born-Again Bits.
Landmark events in the organizations short history have included the launch of an acclaimed
database-driven Electronic Literature Directory maintained by scholars and visited by thousands of
readers; readings and outreach events in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia,
Seattle, and the Washington, D.C. area; the publication of two volumes of theElectronic Literature
Collection, each with about 60 works of electronic literature and each edited by a different editorial
collective; and a conference series that has run from the State of the Arts Symposium at UCLA in
2002 to the 2013 conference in Paris, Chercher le texte.

What is E-Lit?
Electronic literature, or e-lit, refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage
of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. Within
the broad category of electronic literature are several forms and threads of practice, some of which
are:
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Hypertext fiction and poetry, on and off the Web

Kinetic poetry presented in Flash and using other platforms

Computer art installations which ask viewers to read them or otherwise have literary aspects

Conversational characters, also known as chatterbots

Interactive fiction

Novels that take the form of emails, SMS messages, or blogs

Poems and stories that are generated by computers, either interactively or based on parameters
given at the beginning

Collaborative writing projects that allow readers to contribute to the text of a work

Literary performances online that develop new ways of writing

The ELO showcase, created in 2006 and with some entries from 2010, provides a selection
outstanding examples of electronic literature, as do the two volumes of our Electronic Literature
Collection.
The field of electronic literature is an evolving one. Literature today not only migrates from print to
electronic media; increasingly, born digital works are created explicitly for the networked computer.
The ELO seeks to bring the literary workings of this network and the process-intensive aspects of
literature into visibility.
The confrontation with technology at the level of creation is what distinguishes electronic literature
from, for example, e-books, digitized versions of print works, and other products of print authors
going digital.
Electronic literature often intersects with conceptual and sound arts, but reading and writing remain
central to the literary arts. These activities, unbound by pages and the printed book, now move
freely through galleries, performance spaces, and museums. Electronic literature does not reside in
any single medium or institution.

The ELOs Role

Because information technology is driven increasingly by proprietary concerns, authors working in
new media need the support of institutions that can advocate for the preservation, archiving, and
free circulation of literary work. The ELO has from the start made common cause with organizations
such as Creative Commons, Archiving the Avant Garde, ArchiveIT.org, and the Library of Congress,
to ensure the open circulation, attributed citation, and preservation of works, without which no field
can develop.
Equally important is the discovery of talent and common areas of interest among our membership.
Our affiliation with numerous organizations attests to the extensive network of people who produce
works and the growing audience that reads, discusses, and teaches e-lit. The collection and
circulation of works is another way that developments in the field are recorded and made available
to our membership continuously in the Electronic Literature Directory, serially in the Electronic
Literature Collection, and perennially in the Library of Congress Archive-IT initiative. Through
our conference series, we provide a way for artists, writers, and scholars to productively discuss
existing work and to further develop the field.