Dying to weave the next hypertext masterpiece? If the answer is yes, New York University Press may have the perfect forum for you.
As sponsor of the first-ever hypertext fiction contest, NYU Press – unlike the majority of today's literary establishments – intends to drive this innovative form of writing further away from the fringe. And that's a formidable task for a medium that, due to its lack of strict structure, often seems more like channel surfing than book reading.
"New York University Press has made a significant – and lately it seems, courageous – move toward serious consideration of online writing," said contest juror Stuart Moulthrop, who is a hypertext writer and an associate professor of the School of Communications Design at the University of Baltimore. "Much of the commercial literary establishment thinks hypertext is 'claptrap.' A small and perhaps growing number of artists and writers disagree. This prize recognizes their efforts and keeps the spirit of experiment alive."
The brainchild of Suzanne Kemperman, NYU Press's Electronic Publishing Manager, this prize was conceived "to both foster a new genre of creative writing working with new technology and to continue NYU Press's tradition of publishing work on the cutting edge."
Although the contest was announced last summer, only about 10 submissions have been received so far. Kemperman believes this is because they have asked for works that have not been previously published. The problem here is that people usually write hypertext and publish it on the Web as soon as it is created.
Next year the plan is to accept previously published works as well, with the hope that a greater number of entries will be received.
The nonlinear quality inherent in the medium makes the work harder to judge.
"It's a different kind of work for the juror," says Kemperman. "You must see how intelligently the links are connected.... It makes it all the more difficult for the jurors, but it also makes the process more exciting."
These feelings are shared by hypertext fiction author Adrianne Wortzel, the contest's other juror, who finds it "both difficult and exciting to be a juror committed to making a hierarchical judgment of works that emerge out of a pluralistic medium."
The guidelines on the contest's Web page state that "hypertext is a new, complex information system, which allows people to create, annotate, link, and share information from a variety of media, such as audio, video, animation, text, and graphics. It is a nonlinear text, stored in a network of nodes connected by links; the nonlinear approach mirrors the networking structure of the human mind. Hypertext changes the author-reader relationship, as readers shape the text by deciding which links to follow."
Submissions are due by 1 June, and can come from any country, though they must be in English. The author(s) of the winning entry will receive US$1,000 and have their work published on the NYU Press Web site.
"A few decades from now," Moulthrop says, "when they wrap my mortal remains in the last print edition of The New York Times, this hypertext prize may prove to have been a crucial contribution to American letters; an important gesture, at the least."
