Project Type: Edited works (page 1 of 1)

ELMCIP Anthology of European Electronic Literature (2012)

In 2011, I moved to Karlskrona in Blekinge, Sweden, to take up a 12-month  post-doctoral researcher position with the ELMCIP project team based at Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (BTH).

ELMCIP stands for Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice, a 3-year collaborative research project which ran from 2010 to 2013, funded by the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) JRP for Creativity and Innovation.

ELMCIP involved seven European academic research partners and one non-academic partner who investigated how creative communities of practitioners form within a transnational and transcultural context in a globalized and distributed communication environment.

A screenshot from the ELMCIP Anthology of European Electronic Literature homepage.

Focusing on the electronic literature community in Europe as a model of networked creativity and innovation in practice, ELMCIP studied the formation and interactions of that community and also helped further electronic literature research and practice in Europe.

The ELMCIP Anthology of European Electronic Literature was an output from the ELMCIP researchers based at Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (Blekinge Institute of Technology) in Sweden, namely Maria Engberg, Talan Memmott and myself.

The anthology is intended to provide educators, students and the general public with a free curricular resource of electronic literary works produced in Europe. It consists of hypertext works, video art, pedagogical materials on electronic literature and references.

ELMCIP also includes an online Knowledge Base mapping the ongoing field of electronic literature. 

You can view the anthology online. A special, limited edition USB-stick version was also produced.

Cordite Poetry Review (2001–12)

Cordite Poetry Review was established in 1997, and is Australia’s premier Internet poetry journal, with a reputation for publishing experimental and innovative works by both established and emerging Australian poets. Cordite initially received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts, the federal government’s peak arts funding body, and boasts a large and varied readership.

Cordite was founded by Adrian Wiggins and Peter Minter in 1997. It began as a broadsheet, with six full issues of the journal published in print. I was Managing Editor of Cordite Poetry Review between 2001 and 2012. During that time, I produced 30 full issues of the magazine, plus 10 mini-issues, in an online format.

My appointment as Managing Editor coincided with a decision to switch to an online format. The first online issues featured hand-coded HTML pages. Later iterations made use of Movable Type and, briefly, Blogger. Since 2005, Cordite has been produced using WordPress.

In 2012 I stepped down from the Managing Editor position, handing over the reins to Kent MacCarter.

Cordite Poetry Review has been indexed and archived by the National Library of Australia’s Pandora Project.

Below is a list of links (in progress) to issues I produced as Managing Editor.

Cordite–Prairie Schooner Fusion: Work (2012)

I met Kwame Dawes, the editor of Lincoln, Nebraska-based journal Prairie Schooner, at the Struga Poetry Evenings in Macedonia in 2011. Following the festival, Kwame invited me, as the editor of Cordite Poetry Review, to collaborate on a joint issue, to be published online.

Our collaboration became the first of what would become known as Fusion, a new online series features collaborations between Prairie Schooner and interesting, innovative online literary entities from around the world that seek to create dynamic fusions in literature and art.

A detail from 'Army of Mirriams', by Michelle Ussher.
A detail from ‘Army of Mirriams’, by Michelle Ussher.

The Cordite–Prairie Schooner Fusion, with the theme of ‘Work’, featured poems from Cordite Poetry Review by Tom Clark, Lorin Ford, Derek Motion, Brendan Ryan, Adrian Wiggins, Jennifer Compton, Ivy Alvarez, Barbara De Franceschi, Liam Ferney, Peter Coghill, M. F. McAuliffe, Benito Di Fonzo, Esther Johnson, Geoff Page, Emily Stewart and Margaret Owen Ruckert, plus audio poems by Sean M. Whelan & the Interim Lovers, Maxine Beneba Clarke, komninos zervos and Benito Di Fonzo.

It also featured poems from Prairie Schooner by Hedi Kaddour (translated by Marilyn Hacker), R. F. McEwan, Ander Monson, Linda McCarriston, Toi Derricotte, Marvin Bell, Marcella Pixley, Ted Kooser, Moira Lineham, Sandy Solomon, Jenny Factor, John Engman, Gary Fincke, Dannye Romine Powell, John Canaday, James Cihlar, Nance Van Winckel, Floyd Skloot and Roy Scheele.

Illustrations were provided by Michelle Ussher and Watie White.

In addition, the feature included interviews with Derek Motion, Jennifer Compton and Nance Van Winckel, plus eight more interviews on the Cordite site.

Going Down Swinging 24 (2006)

Like most good things in life, my stint as co-editor of Going Down Swing­ing, Australia’s finest lit­er­ary mag­a­zine, was all too brief.

I came on board for just one issue but the expe­ri­ence was fan­tas­tic: we selected over 140 pages of poetry and prose, along with a bumper eighty page comics sec­tion, mak­ing this issue one of the biggest (and, of course, best).

I was flat­tered to be asked to be MC for the launch of the issue in Decem­ber 2006. Props to my co-editors Steve Grimwade, Lisa Green­away and Mandy Ord. Here’s a quote from my editorial for the issue:

This is the first time I’ve ever worked closely with a group of fellow-editors and let me tell you, the GDS editorial meetings are barnstorming affairs, where the seemingly impossible task of selecting a book’s worth of content from thousands of submissions takes on epic proportions. I’d like to be able to say that these meetings were full of tears, tantrums and tie-breaks but the truth is, working with Steve and Lisa has been a fantastic experience.

To order copies or to find out more about submitting to GDS, visit the website.

Southern Review 38.1 (2005)

In 2005, Denise Meredyth and I, wearing our Swinburne hats, co-edited a special issue of Southern Review: Communication, Politics & Culture.

Southern Review is a fully-refereed interdisciplinary journal of communication, politics and culture published by RMIT University, Melbourne.

The theme of the issue was Online Archives and Virtual Collections and it contains our editorial, nine articles and four book reviews.

One of the articles is about my experiences as an editor of Cordite, entitled “That Wicked CIA Technology: Archiving An Online Literary Journal”. Here’s the abstract:

This paper explores issues associated with the maintenance and archiving of a Melbourne-based online poetry journal, Cordite Poetry Review. I reflect upon the pitfalls of online production from the perspectives of editor, writer and researcher. The paper argues that an archiving strategy aimed at satisfying these three perspectives will only succeed if it incorporates both traditional and non-traditional media. Various options are explored in the context of present efforts to permanently archive the journal. While thus addressed primarily to editors of literary journals, the paper has wider application for organisations and creators involved in similar voluntary activities across the arts.

covers by nick whittock (2004)

In 2004 I had the bright idea of starting up a poetry imprint for Cordite Poetry ReviewCordite On Demand (or COD). It was a short-lived venture, to say the least, but we did publish two books, and also set up an equally short-lived website.

The second book published by COD was the magnificently barmy covers by nick whittock. Nick, I think it is safe to say, is the wold’s best cricket poet, and a total tragic when it comes to the game. Cordite basically single-handedly kickstarted Nick’s career as a poet and cricket blogger, and I’m proud to this day to have been a supporter his published poetic output.

If OI: poewemz bii tom see (2004) was a challenge, design-wise, then covers was an absolute monster. Nick had very particular ideas about poem placement and line breaks, and it took a lot of back and forth before we got it right.

The book also contains a number of images of ‘sleeping’ cricketers, as well as spectacular cover image, which shows players taking cover as a flying bomb passes overhead during a wartime match at Lords.

covers (2004)

michael slater
damien martyn
hayden & langer: open slat(h)er
re mission
sonny rollins
dizzy gillespie
brett lee
steve waugh … 
michael slater
an eleven
test 
pe
record 9th wicket partnership
justin langer
[ ]
spin
border-gavaskar trophy 03/04
doosra locomotion

OI: poewemz bii tom see (2004)

In 2004 I had the bright idea of starting up a poetry imprint for Cordite Poetry Review: Cordite On Demand (or COD). It was a short-lived venture, to say the least, but we did publish two books, and also set up an equally short-lived website.

The first book published by COD was the idiosyncratically titled OI: poewemz bii tom see (2004), which was actually written by Tom Clark, with illustrations by Charles Lake. The poems in the book are written in Tom’s trademark phonetic style: see ‘Heet’, which was published in Cordite’s first issue in print, for an example.

The book itself was designed to mimic the shape and size of a record cover, with the titles printed on the back as if it was an album rather than a book. Looking back, this was definitely an exercise in discovery: trying to work out how to design and format an object that was true to the author’s style and personality.

OI: poewemz bii tom see (2004)

Goalden aij
Dhe paasing uv jaimz bond
Dhe Wautuweel
Daivi joenzez lokur
Tranz
Tramz
Daun-derj
Dhu blak and green skaerkroe
U praer fur joniy
Evurest (audio) 
Hoem
Songmoth
Wen niits berden faulz
Wej-tail
Dubul disuloushen kiit
Freedum
Henliy beetc
In praiz uv patenz