It is a decade ago today that Lyn Pemberton and I hosted Writing and Computers 10. Out of nostalgia I’m going to include some of the original call for papers which appeared on a news group. Does anyone remember them?
Subject: Writing and computers 10 - call for papers
From: sjs16@itri.bton.ac.uk (Simon Shurville) [long gone!]
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 15:52:30 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.ai.doc-analysis.misc
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Xref: cfar.umd.edu comp.ai.doc-analysis.misc:361 Writing the Future:Writing and Computers 10 September 18th and 19th 1997, University of Brighton, UK http://www.itri.brighton.ac.uk/events/WandC97/ [long gone!] The Tenth Annual Writing and Computers conference will be hosted thisyear by the University of Brighton in the lively seaside town of Brighton, 60 miles from London. The conference regularly brings together an international community ofpeople concerned with all aspects of computers and the writing process, including psychologists, software designers, educational researchers, teachers, journalists, authors and technical writers. The theme for this year's conference will be Writing the Future-potential developments in writing with computers as we enter thenext millenium.
The conference led to a special issue of the journal Text Technology and the book Words on the Web, both edited by Lyn Pemberton and myself. Stand out academics included Illana Synder (author of Page to Screen, which is still a great book) and Pamela Gay. The man of the match was Steven Marcus, who sadly died not long after.
24 hours after all conferences one should be listening to Sleepy LaBeef delivering the Jim Beam Small Batch of rockabilly in a café with buffalo burgers and 300 kinds of hot sauce! So, on a whim, I fled the UK to Memphis to avoid Diana mania. In those days you could still vacation without a laptop. So I spent some great twilights on Beale Street soaking up the blues without e-mail or football scores. Later Erin Stanfill drove us slow and lost down to New Orleans with nay a Blackberry in our world. As an old New Orleans hand Erin showed me an Anne Rice of a time. As Lucinda Williams sang "my brother knows where the best bars are" and Erin is one hell of a brother. Then a lot happened in America that shouldn't and look what went down in New Orleans in the intervening years! I miss the deep fried oyster po' boys and the widest lake I ever saw. "You say your not nostalgic … then give me another word for it ...".
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