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Alan
Sondheim's
Projects
As well as the The Lost
Project, which invited writers to go to the site and add name, email
address, and a name and / or description of something they have
lost, irretrievably (Feb-Mar 2000), Alan coordinated other projects.
Bad
Writing? was a light-hearted
opportunity to contribute writing that's "bad", satirical, clumsy,
or just plain horrible (Begun January 2000 at WebBoard). The results
of Alan's trAceroute
project to follow Internet connections over the Millennium period
are now online.
The Experian Big 3 Book
Award
Children's authors Helen Cresswell and Tony Mitton, along
with the Lord Mayor and Sheriff of Nottingham, local dignitaries and
schoolchildren, celebrated this new initiative of Nottingham City
Libraries with sponsorship from Experian. Nottingham children aged
6-11 choose their three favourite paperbacks published in the
previous 12 months from a shortlist of 15. Hosted by Kids on the
Net.
The Citrus Affair
trAce was
invited in Autumn 1999 to host an Online Writing Competition with
a difference - it is open to disabled people only. Our immediate response
was to ask, "But how do we know the entrants are bona fide
disabled, and what does 'disabled' mean anyway?" After all, one of the
reasons many of us enjoy working in cyberspace is because we believe it
goes some way towards transcending the kind of definition which is
driven by our physical existence. We feel it gives us a chance to
meet others on our own terms and without attracting prejudice
or discrimination. We thought about the project long and hard, and
in the end we decided to host it. But we'd like to hear your views.
Check out The Citrus Affair and let us know what you think.
Daisy and the
Intergalactic Travelling Salesmen
An interactive
website story commissioned for the 1999 Cheltenham Festival of
Literature. A tale of a Victorian kitchenmaid who encounters the
crazy aliens from the planet of Pinkerello, it was begun by Jamila
Gavin and completed by children from 26 schools in the UK, USA and
Australia. Hosted by Kids on the Net.
Deep
Immersion
A project of fiction by Terri-ann
White, the result of a writing residency conducted on-line for a
period of eight weeks. It was proposed by ANAT (the Australian
Network of Arts and Technology) with funding from the Australia
Council, and hosted by trAce. (Autumn 1997)
The East
Midlands Hypertext
A snapshot of the history, past
and present, of Ruddington, Nottinghamshire, created on Saturday
19th September 1998.
Electropoetry
Electropoetry asked for good writing which
celebrates, explores or challenges our everyday interactions with
science and technology and all of the winning poems address one or
more of these issues. (November 1998).
Imaginary
Countries
Alan
McDonald began his residency with collaborative project: the
a-to-z of Imaginary Countries. A website dedicated simply to a
word-image, a metaphor.
Island
Voices
A project bringing islander writers from Iceland (Arni
Ibsen), Ireland (Adrian Kenny), Jamaica (Cherry Natural) and England
(Sara Maitland) to the English East Midlands. Supported by East
Midlands Arts and co-ordinated by Tony Graves of Loughborough
University. Island Voices website is designed and built by Bernard
Cohen and hosted by trAce Online Writing
Community.
Kids on the
Net
Kids on the Net is the junior section of trAce and offers
kids aged 6-16 all over the world the chance to share their writing
with other kids. Poems, stories, opinions, computer software and
website reviews, book reviews, or just comments All About Me.
There's a teachers' section, advice to young writers from famous
authors including the Children's Laureate Quentin Blake, and special
sections such as a Spellbook, pages for specific Book Clubs,
community projects and schools. Following a huge success with
Monster Motel we have launched Kids' Castle. Kids on the Net is
edited by Helen Whitehead and is sponsored by 
Lizzie Siddal's Birthday Party
On Sunday 25 July 1999,
trAce members joined poet and playwright Kim Morrissey in
celebrating the birthday of Elizabeth Siddal, Pre-Raphaelite poet,
artist, model and wife of D.G. Rossetti. After cutting the birthday
cake, Kim Morrissey, author of 'Clever As Paint' (a re-examination
of the life of Elizabeth Siddal) led a discussion of issues around
Women and Poetry. You can read the log of this party.
LoveandWar
The LoveandWar project (begun September 1999;
other pages are at 2 3 4 5),
The Monster
Motel
An exciting collaborative writing project
for kids everywhere. We invite them to visit the monsters on our web
site to sign our guestbook and add a description of a monster of
their own, with a scanned picture if available, via web forms and/or
email. Created by writer/illustrator Mark Burgess for Kids on the
Net. (Opened January 1999)
My
Millennium
The "My" Millennium
Project addresses time and the digital revolution. "My" in the title
raises the question of whose millennium is it. Christy Sheffield
Sanford curated this international anthology of web-works addressing
time and the digital revolution. The centrepiece is by celebrated
Australian artist mez [Mary-Anne Breeze] KoDe Dis.pensa 4 the DataH
Inphoennium. Most of the works in this collection require a 4.0 or
above browser. (Launched July 1999)
Opinion
Personal views of the internet by writers at the
forefront of the debate, with an opportunity to contribute your own
opinion. Including Dale Spender, Michael Atavar, Theodore Roszak,
Liz Bailey, Mark Amerika, Bill Thompson, Ami Isseroff and mez.
(Feb-Nov 1999)
The Lord Mayor of
Nottingham's Primary Parliament
The Lord Mayor's
Primary Parliament is an annual event in the form of a conference,
which was held in 2000 on February 14th, at the Council House,
Nottingham. All Nottingham primary schools are invited to take part.
Hosted by Kids on the Net.
Solstice
Alan McDonald invited writing on the theme
of 'the longest day / the shortest day', inspired by the
summer/winter solstice. All writing had to be submitted during the
24 hours of June 21st 2000, the day of the summer/winter solstice,
the longest day in the northern hemisphere and the shortest day in
the southern hemisphere.
Speedfactory
A fast,
collaborative writing exercise/project presented by
Writer-in-Residence Bernard Cohen and Terri-ann White (author of
Deep Immersion), based on their project Speedfactory. (Begun 24
November 1999)
trAcework
A gallery showing of work by
participants in the Web Writing Workshop led by Christy Sheffield
Sanford in Spring 1999. "This inaugural trAce Workshop for Writers",
reported Christy, "included the ne plus ultra of dream members. The
participants can only be described as enthusiastic and productive
high achievers. In 10 weeks, they whipped their projects into shape
for viewing. Criticism and exchange among members was typically
straight forward and encouraging. I was inspired myself to begin
creating movies for the web." Includes Diane Caney's Believe, Janet
Holmes' The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot, Jennifer Ley's The
Astrophysicist's Tango Partner Speaks, M. D. Coverley's Fibonacci's
Daughter, geniwate's Empiricosis, Helen Whitehead's Mirror, Mirror
and Meg Wise-Lawrence's Omega Musical Journey.
trAce Access
Sites 1999
Connection to the internet in the UK can be a
costly business. trAce funds a number of access sites where writers
and readers can log on to collect their mail, conduct research on
the World Wide Web, and take part in our virtual community. Our
access sites also provide training and support as well as contact
with other like-minded people in the local area. Each site receives a
grant of £3,000 towards the provision of open facilities where the
literary community can gain access to the internet and receive
training and assistance in its use. 1998
Awards
The
trAce/Alt-X International Hypertext Competition
A
prize of One Thousand English Pounds was offered for the best
hypertext site on the web. Mark Amerika's alt-X Publishing Network
joined with trAce to locate the most exciting and creative
hypertexts online today. See the written word re-forged on the
screen as it links itself up with multi-media digital space and
creates an entirely different reading experience. The Prize was won
by The
Unknown by William Gillespie, Scott Rettberg, Dirk Stratton, and
Frank Marquardt; and Rice by Jenny Weight. The Second
Competition was for
New Media Writing and was won by Talan Memmott for Lexia to Perplexia.
Web Writers'
Workshops at the trAce Chat Meetings
A series of online chats with writers working at the
frontiers of the Web. What inspires their online work? What
technologies and approaches do they use in the process of creation?
The writers talk live at 9 pm GMT and answer questions. Interview
transcripts are published at the trAce site. (Begun Feb
2000)
Wired in a
Week
Five East Midlands writers spent a week with
trAce in October 1998 receiving intensive internet training. The
winners were Sue Rea, Rosie Garner, Helen Davies, David Leicester
and Nigel Lavender.
The Wired
Poet
Online but not really au fait? The Poetry
Society funded free places with trAce for UK poets to increase their
internet skills via email mentoring for 3 months plus a £200 phone
allowance. (Summer/autumn 1999).
Writers &
the Internet Conference
The first trAce conference
took place on Friday 16 October 1998, in Nottingham, England. With a
lively, interested audience and a rich variety of speakers, we
discussed issues relevant to writers online today.
Writers-in-Residence
Four
Writers-in-Residence are working with trAce over 18 months. Bernard
Cohen is be based in Nottingham, England, for six months from
June 1999, whilst Christy
Sheffield Sanford (Florida, Feb-July 99), Alan
Sondheim (New York, Sep 99-Feb 00) and Alan
McDonald (Cumbria, Apr-Sep 2000) join us as Virtual Residents.
!Xenophobia!
!XENOPHOBIA! invited
writers to interrogate the condition of web internationality.
English is the most common language on the net but whose 'English'
is it? Anecdotes and opinions about cultural misunderstanding
online.
Yours
Alan Sondheim's collaborative project (begun October 1999; f g h i) is
now
completed.
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