I've been talking to many of you about 21st Century Writing since last spring. You've seen a few messages from me in that time about getting ready to go. Well, now we finally are going. Marty Smith, who was with Harcourt Brace, has started MicroPublishing, which is incorporated; he has a web page, a working agreement with Kinko's, a couple of editors, and thus the apparatus for us to start accepting text from this group, and others.

To remind you: 21st Century Writing is essentially three things:

  1. a way to test a new publishing concept for the electronic age
  2. a way to help writing teachers learn how to work in a computer environment
  3. a collection of textual elements appropriate to use as a text for students in the electronic age
Regarding number 1: we will see how electronic and print elements can interact, what values we can retain from traditional publishing, how copyright issues play out, how distribution of print can be altered, and how to reconceive revenue (and what produces revenue).

Number 2: MicroPublishing will provide energy to build what will essentially be the Alliance Information Services. MicroPublishing has its own Web page, but will also feed the ACW Web page. What does a person new to our field need to know in order to work effectively in a computer-intensive environment? WE hope to have the information available in electronic and print form through the two Web pages.

Number 3: As this project continues, we'll put together various potential books (print elements that can be mixed and matched) which may be text produced specifically for 21CW or may be text that was published elsewhere (assuming rights and permissions can be worked out).

We want to begin to collect contributions. At this point, I would like to get ideas from you about what you would like to contribute. You might want to do something like a guide to the computers and writing community, approaches to working with computers, lessons from research about using computers to teach writing, ideas for using the most popular writing software, how to design a lab, how to evaluate writing in a collaborative environment, how to use campus email in your writing class, reflections on the rhetoric of electronic text, use of computers for writing in the workplace, and so on. We want short tips as well as longer pieces.

We're looking, now, immediately, for text elements which we can use to test out the 21CW system in the next two months.

Send me ideas about what you can contribute. What you contribute will be reviewed; not all contributions will be included in our "corpus," of course; we will ask for re-writes in some cases. If you send me an actual contribution, please use ascii format.

Elements that are finally accepted will be posted on the Web and made available in print through Kinko's. A copyright release will be required (details still in process of legal review).

Some elements may eventually end up in a student text.

We will be doing a Roundtable at the 4Cs. This 4Cs, as you know, will have heavy emphasis on electronic text, so we expect our 21CW Roundtable to be well-attended. We hope, at that Roundtable, and at the 4Cs, to generate interest in 21CW.

Send ideas or contributions to .

Trent
202-651-5494 (from noon to 5, est)
703-845-1453 (from 9 'til noon)