Submissions for Issue #4

Our next issue will be an extended issue.

All are welcome to submit for possible publication in future issues, but please see the information about our reading periods and the specific calls for each issue. We plan for the information about each N+1th issue to be available included with the release of the Nth issue.

Taper #4: A New Trope will be the next issue, showcasing computational pieces exploring the concept of metaphors, archetypes, perspectives, and paradigm shifts. Taper melds the literary traditions of the Oulipo with the restrictions of computing systems to provide a fertile ground for creativity. Our vision is to showcase short web-based programs at the crossroads of computation, literature, text, and art. These programs embody artistic and poetic elements, and may take the form of interactive software, concrete poems, visual media, digital poetry, etc. We believe constraints provide a fruitful basis for creativity, and that short, free-open-source programs invite tinkering and exploration in ways that longer code bases do not.

Submission Details

Timeline

Submissions will be accepted from Nov 24, 2019 at 11:59 PM EST until Jan 10, 2020 at 11:59 PM EST. The editorial collective will review works and reach out to authors during the month of February. Taper #4 will be published mid April.

We invite submissions from those interested in participating at anewtrope@badquar.to. Simply attach your work in one zip file containing your HTML pages (up to five poems per author will be considered). This email address will not be active until the reading period begins.

Sebastian Bartlett is an undergraduate studying computer science at MIT. He is an arcade game enthusiast who owns, maintains, and is currently studying vintage coin-operated games. He is developing online cross-platform computer games using the Löve2D framework, and has created educational tutorials and lectures on game development principles — sebastianbartlett.com.
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is the author of Personal Science (Tupelo Press), a slice from the cake made of air (Red Hen Press), But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise (Red Hen Press), and Grand Dessein (Container). They direct the creative writing MFA at UMass Boston — see lillianyvonnebertram.com.
Kit Buckley is an artist living in Chattanooga, TN. He is currently interested in printmaking, papier mache, and gardens. He is a member of CHA Art/Dev, an art and tech collective in Chattanooga, and has previously had writing in Open Review Quarterly. His webpage is webpage.horse.
Angela Chang enjoys tinkering with technology to craft shared experiences and bring people closer together. She researches how sensorial design can enhance cognition, collaboration, and presence. Chang is interested in simplifying representations of hidden or complex relationships to improve understanding and communication. People across five continents, from rural children in Ethiopia to audiences in Japan, have experienced her work. She founded TinkerStories to encourage parents to learn storytelling rituals that help with early literacy. She is a member of the MIT Trope Tank, treasurer-elect for the Berkley Cultural Council, an alumna of the MIT Media Lab and adjunct faculty at Emerson College and Roger Williams University — see anjchang.com.
Leonardo Flores is interim director and professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico: Mayagüez Campus and vice president of the Electronic Literature Organization. He was the 2012–2013 Fulbright scholar in digital culture at the University of Bergen in Norway. His research areas are electronic literature and its preservation via criticism, documentation, and digital archives. He is the creator of a scholarly blogging project titled I ♥ E-Poetry, co-editor of the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 3, and has a Spanish language e-lit column in 80 Grados. He is currently co-editing the first Anthology of Latin American Electronic Literature. For more information on his current work, visit http://leonardoflores.net. His passion for e-lit and bots shines through in his Twitter account @Leonardo_UPRM. On July 1, 2019 he will join the Department of English at Appalachian State University as chairperson and professor.
Eirian Friedkin is looking for the moments when engineered machinery tips and brings forth poetic qualia. Contact eirian_taper3@liminal-space-agency.org
Ross Goodwin is an artist, creative technologist, hacker, gonzo data scientist, and former White House ghostwriter. He employs machine learning, natural language processing, and other computational tools to realize new forms and interfaces for written language. From word.camera, a camera that expressively narrates its photographs in real time using artificial neural networks, to Sunspring (with Oscar Sharp, starring Thomas Middleditch), the world's first film created from an AI-written screenplay; from making London’s Trafalgar Square lions roar poetry (“Please Feed The Lions” with Es Devlin), to writing a novel with a car (1 the Road), Goodwin’s projects and collaborations have earned international acclaim. Winner of the 2018 IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling, he earned his undergraduate degree in economics from MIT in 2009, and his graduate degree from NYU ITP in May 2016. // rossgoodwin.com // twitter: @rossgoodwin // instagram: @ross.good.win
Judy Heflin is a writer and researcher focusing on computational narrative intelligence and the literary aspects of new media. She graduated from Yonsei University in South Korea with a BA in comparative literature and cultures and a certificate in creative writing. At MIT, Judy works at The Trope Tank assisting with interactive fiction systems and computational narrative models. See judyannheflin.com.
Will Luers is digital media artist and writer living in Portland, Oregon. In the Creative Media & Digital Culture program at Washington State University Vancouver, he teaches multimedia authoring, creative programming, digital storytelling and digital cinema. His art has been exhibited internationally and selected for various festivals and conferences, including the Electronic Literature Organization, FILE (Brazil) and ISEA. The generative e-lit work novelling, a collaboration with Hazel Smith and Roger Dean, won the 2018 Robert Coover Award for Electronic Literature. http://will-luers.com Twitter: @wluers.
Zach Whalen is an associate professor in the Department of English, Linguistics and Communication at the University of Mary Washington. He directs the minor in digital studies and teaches courses in Communication and Digital Studies including courses on comics, electronic literature, transmedia fiction, video games. His research is in video games and visual narrative. He also makes things like Twitter bots, and tools for making Twitter bots. Visit www.zachwhalen.net for more information.
Logan K. Young's I(<3)U!: A Factorial Chapbook is out now via T(W)E(L)V(E)! BOOKS. A summer student of Thurston Moore at Naropa’s Kerouac School, he’s since been published everywhere from Jacket2 to Industrial Worker to On-line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences and anthologized as far flung as Erase the Patriarchy (University of Hell Press), Emergency Index, Vol. 7 (Ugly Duckling Presse) and the forthcoming second edition of Tonebook (Inpatient Press). Twitter: @logankyoung
This page and the main page of Taper #3 are offered under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license so you can copy and share these two pages, and the whole issue, without modifications. (These pages are mainly informational; we do not want you to edit the author's biographies, modify the open call for Taper #4, or change the way our authors and editors spell their names, for instance.) Each poem is offered individually under a short all-permissive free software license that appears in a comment at the top of each poem's source code. That means you can use any or all of the poems however you like. You are free to study, modify, and share these poems, use them as the basis for projects of your own, and share your modified versions, among other things.
Taper #3 contents