Who's Who in Hyperfiction

This is a small listing of some of the major players in the hyperfiction world. There are many more people out there doing interesting and important things--this is just a start. It should be noted that there is a lot of crossover between hyperfiction authors and hypertheory authors. Some people should probably be on both pages, but I have tried to put them where the bulk of their work lies. A lot of the hyperfiction authors are not writing for the Web (for an extended discussion of why not, see Hyperfiction and the Web: an unlikely pair?).

Robert Coover

Coover is probably most well known as a print author, but has made significant forays into the hyperfiction world as well. He teaches hyperfiction workshops as an adjunct professor at Brown University, which maintains a small and pathetic home page for him. The Hypertext Hotel was a collaborative hyperfiction that grew out of those workshops. It has been moved to the Web and is now a MOO or a MUD, I’m not sure which, (I won’t even get into that!), but the site is almost always down. He is also the author of some New York Times Book Review articles, including the now-classic "The End of the Book." Unfortunately, excerpts are no longer available online, so if you are desperate to read it, try your local library's microfiche collection. For those who haven’t read the full text, in the article Coover explains hypertext/hyperfiction and is generally optimistic about the form replacing books, which it may (someday far in the future).

Edward Falco

Falco is well known for his print texts and poetry, but has also written several hyperfiction works. His print short story, "The Artist," was included in the 1995 Best American Short Story collection. His hyperfiction works are Sea Island, a collection of hypertext poetry, and A Dream with Demons. He gives some information on his background and writings in a 1996 interview. He is a English professor at Virginia Polytechnic and State University.

Carolyn Guyer

Guyer is the author of Quibbling and a co-author of Izme Pass. Her current project is a collaborative hypertext with Rosemary Joyce and Michael Joyce, that, according to Eastgate is "woven of Aztec creation myths and postmodern mystique." She also took part in a dialog in FEED magazine where she discussed, among other things, the hyperfiction/Web dilemma.

Michael Joyce

Michael Joyce is a professor of English at Vassar College and the author of several important hypertexts. The most well-known is afternoon, a story, which Eastgate Publishing's catalog describes as a "classic piece of electronic fiction [where] the protagonist begins his afternoon with a terrible suspicion that the wrecked car he saw hours earlier may have belonged to his former wife." The story, one of the first pieces of electronic fiction, changes with each reading. Joyce's also wrote Twilight, A Symphony. Joyce has other works available on the Web, Twelve Blue and Lasting Image, the latter of which is co-authored with Carolyn Guyer. Joyce, who has been called "...one of the most exciting artists at work today in any medium" (Carole Maso in Eastgate Publishing's catalog), is also the author of Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics. Joyce is one of the co-creators of Storyspace.

Judy Malloy

Malloy is the author of include its name was Penelope and the forthcoming The Yellow Bowl. She is also the co-author of Forward Anywhere. She also has a significant body of work in print, but she is particularly taken with the internet, which she calls a "changeable, fluid, strange and wonderful virtual space" (as quoted by Eastgate. She has a Web hypertext, l0ve 0ne available through Eastgate’s site as well.

John McDaid

McDaid is the author of Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse. A self-described science fiction fan, McDaid is working on a sci-fi novel and a hyperfiction called The Planes. He is currently working on a doctoral dissertation at New York University on the ecology of hypermedia. He has lectured and taught writing several places, including NYU and the New York Institute of Technology.

Stuart Moulthrop

Stuart Moulthrop is at the University of Baltimore. His most well-known hyperfiction is Victory Garden. Eastgate's catalog says "...No precis can do justice to this labyrinth. Scenes range from the humdrum reality of daily life in the Gulf [during the Gulf War], to the flashy unreality of media war coverage, to the truly surreal of lives in collision, unsafe driving, and encroaching madness." Moulthrop also has written some hypertheory, including The Shadow of an Informand.

Eastgate Publishing

Eastgate is widely acknowledged as the main publisher and distributor of electronic fiction. They call themselves the source of "Serious Hypertext." They also distribute Storyspace, created by Jay David Bolter, Michael Joyce, John B. Smith and Mark Bernstein.

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