For a long time, before I became involved in the net and digital writing, I felt I didn’t have permission, or not enough permission, to write/speak/create publicly or make my words, my art public. It wasn’t until I ‘took control’ of my computer and later my own domain on the net, built my own site, etc. that I felt able to invent permission for myself to write/create digitally for some kind of public (whoever and wherever they may be). This sense of control may be illusory, and frequently crumbles, but nevertheless I feel more empowered in the digital realm. I also feel more playful here too.

We create, critique, analyze, dissect, but as writers/artists, we rarely talk about our personal drive toward digital literature, our often euphoric and frustrating relationship with an emerging form. To invent permission: what if this were the condition of digital poetics? Sandy asks, and maybe this extends to giving ourselves permission to relax, to treat digital literature not only as an object of serious study, but with a fondness, a sense of humor, and an attitude of play?