Mark Amerika : Mike Berrington : Marie-Laure Bouchet : Paul Brown : Stephen Bury : Siobhn Edwards : Joe Elliot : R.J.Ellis : Keri Facer : Craig Gibson : Catherine Gillam : Keith Harrison : Alison Hill : Lesley James : Richard Massey :  Margaret Meyer : Simon Mills : Stuart Moore : Ian Murray : Charles Oppenheim : Christina Patterson : Carol Posnett : Alan Sondheim : Sue Thomas : Helen Walker : Helen Whitehead : Simon Widdowson : Gregory Woods : Tim Wright

Mark Amerika, who has been named a "Time Magazine 100 Innovator" as part of their continuing series of features on the most influential artists, scientists, entertainers and philosophers into the 21st century, has recently had two large-scale retrospectives of his digital art work, one at the ICA in London and one at the Media Arts Plaza in Tokyo. His epic online narrative, GRAMMATRON, was selected for the 2000 Whitney Biennial and his sound art work, PHON:E:ME, was commissioned by the Walker Art Center and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. Amerika's recent cross-media art project is entitled FILMTEXT. The work was commissioned by Playstation 2 for his European retrospective and can be accessed at his website, www.markamerika.com. He is presently on the faculty of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Mike Berrington is Head of Electronic Infomation Services at The Nottingham Trent University and is a member of the Writers for the Future Steering Group. 

Marie-Laure Bouchet studied and worked at Loughborough University before joining Nottingham Trent University in 1995 as "The Library Internet Person" - a rare phenomenon back then!  She has now metamorphosed, trying to keep up with the Internet, into the Electronic Library Development Manager.

What I have next to my computer: Toy model of Kenny, (as in Who Killed?) aptly always falling over, a calendar showing Frank Gehry's architecture (lovely hut on Venice Beach for this month!) and a card of Newcastle United home strip (broon ale version). In case that all sounds too exciting, (mustn't forget I'm a librarian) I also have a note pad from the Nottingham Pension Funds Roadshow.

Paul Brown is a Senior Research Fellow involved with the CACHe project at Birkbeck College.  He is a member of the Writers for the Future Steering Group.

Stephen Bury
1985-2000 Librarian, Chelsea School of Art;
2000-2002 Head of Modern English,
2002- Head of European & American Collections (with Maps, Music & Philatelic), British Library.
2001-2 project leader domain.uk, CDRS and Questionpoint projects at British Library;
2002- project leader, 21st Century Curator Project, SHERPA (pre-print) projects at BL;
2003- ARLIS Council, Chair, National Coordination Committee of Art Library Resources.
Ph D research supervisor, London Institute (1991-).
Published 'Artists' books' (1995),
'Artists' multiples' (2001).
Writes for 'Art Monthly' 1997-.
Exhibitions curated: 'For the voice: sound and silence in artists' books', workfortheeyetodo (1994) and 'The Body and the book', Old Operating Theatre, London (1996), 'Ian Hamilton Finlay', Centre for Artists Books, Dundee (2000)
Participant in art projects: 'Volumes of vulnerability'(2000-1), 'Bibliomania' (2002), 'Football haiku' (2002-3).
Chair, Trustees of Book Works;
Trustee, Matts Gallery etc.
Currently writing a book on text engines and artists' books.

What I have next to my computer: Next to my PC is a large abstract painting by Noel Forster - it's a bright lattice of coloured arcs, and I can get lost in it just as easily as the World Wide web.

Siobhan Edwards is Learning Programme Manager for NESTA and is a member of the Steering Group. 

Joe Elliot is an Education Advisor and NESTA Advisor representing SeeThinkDo.Com  He is a member of both the Steering Group and Teacher Tools Advisory Group. 

R.J. Ellis is a Professor at The Nottingham Trent University and is a member of the Writers for the Future Steering Group. 

Keri Facer - Before joining NESTA Futurelab, Keri spent four years as researcher and lecturer at Bristol University's Graduate School of Education, where she continues to be a visiting fellow. Here she worked on a range of major innovative research projects, including ESRC projects Screen Play and InterActive Education. She has published widely in the field of children's digital cultures, with a particular focus on how young people use and learn with digital technologies in the home. At the School of Education Keri taught Research Methods and co-ordinated a new MSc in Education, Technology and Society. Prior to this, she graduated from the Media Culture Masters course at Glasgow & Strathclyde, and read English at Cambridge.

What I have next to my computer: Cups of tea of various temperatures, paper in piles and scattered, a load of old postcards (slightly curled), dv tapes, hand cream, a key from a hotel room that I keep meaning to return, some pencil sketches from a storyboard artist from a workshop last year, and people within talking distance.

Craig Gibson joined The Nottingham Trent University as a member of the Libraries & Learning Resources (LLR) e-Systems Group as a placement student when it was the Exchange Development Project in 1999. Initial projects included the research, development and configuration of Outlook Web Access (OWA). Following on from this Craig worked on adding additional functionality into OWA including the intergration of Site Server to search all of the University's web servers and Exchange Public Folders. This work led to the development of the Virtual Learning Portal based on Exchange Server 5.5. Currently Craig is responsible for the development of the Univesity's Virtual Learning Portal based on Exchange 2000 Server and SQL 2000 Server as well as providing hardware, software and development support for a range of e-library projects.

What I have next to my computer:
A snazzy Disney Fantasia mug (needs washing)
The Complete Reference to HTML
On top of my monitor - Mike the Monsters Inc employee, Rex the dinosaur and Stitch - experiment 626
A rather messy stack of print outs

Catherine Gillam is the Research Administrator for the Writers for the Future project. She graduated from Coventry University in 1999 with a BA (Hons.) in Communication, Culture and Media and obtained an MSc in Information and Knowledge Management from Loughborough University in December 2003. Her MSc dissertation focussed on virtual teamwork, a topic on which she has given lectures at both Nottingham Trent and Loughborough Universities.

What I have next to my computer: Amongst the usual officy things I have water, a can of soup, handcream, lipbalm and smelling salts, small change to buy milk with, two birthday cards from April and a stack of disks containing coursework from my first degree.

Keith Harrison is the Head Teacher of Porchester School in Nottingham and is a member of the Teacher Tools Advisory Group.

Alison Hill is Curator of Web Archiving at The British Library and a member of the Archive Advisory Group. 

Lesley James is Head of Education at the Royal Society of Arts.  She is a member of the Writers for the Future Teacher Tools Advisory Group. 

Richard Massey is the Development Group Manager at The Nottingham Trent University and is a memebr of the Archive Advisory Group. 

Margaret Meyer is Head of Film and Literature at the British Council and is responsible for its film and literature programmes around the world. She was educated in New Zealand and read English and Music at the University of Auckland. After graduating she worked as a journalist and scriptwriter, and as a managing editor with Hodder & Stoughton (New Zealand). In 1990 she moved to the UK, working first as publisher at the Museum of London, and then at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, where she was Head of Information. Since joining the British Council in 2001 she has directed a number of high-profile literary events including the British Council's 2002 'Provocations' literature showcase (in conjunction with the Edinburgh International Book Festival) and a landmark conference bringing together 30 women writers from South Asia and the UK in Delhi (2003). Her principal interests are the arts, international relations and social policy.

What I have next to my computer: Sitting next to my computer I have a mountain of files, photographs of my children at various ages, several novels by diverse writers including Andrew O'Hagan, Maggie Gee and Jeanette Winterson.

Simon Mills is a Senior Lecturer in New Media at De Montfort University. He has a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from the University of Nottingham, an MA in Writing and MSc in Multimedia from The Nottingham Trent University, and worked in the commercial web development sector for several years. He edits frAme: the Online Journal of Culture and Technology and is a member of the trAce editorial board. His technical skills include programming in Cold Fusion and Flash ActionScript as well as general web design and development and he has a special interest in issues surrounding new media aesthetics.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/s-mills/

Stuart Moore is a Technical Support Analyst at The Nottingham Trent University and is a member of the Archive Operational and Technical Groups. 

Ian Murray (BA(Hons) MA DipLib) is a lecturer in the Department of Information Science at Loughborough University specialising in the applications of computer-based library information systems and in the development of Web technologies. Research interests include library automation, systems management, electronic public information systems, metadata and the WWW, and the use of Information Communication Technologies in public libraries. Within the department he has responsibility for the management of the undergraduate programmes and teaching responsibilities include Web Design and Authoring, and database design. He has published in the areas of public libraries and the Internet. Prior to joining the department in June 1995, he had been Library Systems Manager with Surrey County Libraries. Before joining Surrey, he was with Specialist Computer Group responsible for the implementation and training requirements of a wide range of library customers using the Bookshelf Library Management System then sold to a wide range of libraries including public libraries. He began his career as a library assistant for the London Borough of Sutton in 1978.

What I have next to my computer: Next to my computer I have some oranges, a carved wooden elephant, not life size(!) and three small spherical objects, also made of wood. Why any of these objects are precisely here I am not sure!

Charles Oppenheim has been Professor of Information Science at Loughborough University since 1998. Prior to that, he has held a variety of posts in academia and the electronic publishing industry, working for International Thomson, Pergamon and Reuters at various times. He has been involved in legal issues in information work since the mid 1970s. He is author of "The Legal and Regulatory Environment for Electronic Information" (Infonortics, 2001) and the regular "Lislex" column in the Journal of Information Science. He was the co-author of the "Guide to the Practical Implications of the Data Protection Act 1998" (BSI, 1999). Charles was for some years a member of JISC, and has been a member of  a variety of JISC Committees since 1992. He  is an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. He was Vice President of Aslib between 1992 and 2002. He is a member of the Legal Advisory Board of the European Commission. He was the Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords’ Inquiry into the Information Superhighway. He is a regular contributor to conferences and to the professional literature, and is on the editorial board of a number of professional and learned journals.

What I have next to my computer: Next to my work computer I have an original Dilbert cartoon in a frame. I also have a broken coffee mug with a Harvard University logo, postcards or small pictures of Karen Matheson, Kelly Brook, Nigella Lawson, the Mediaeval Babes, Andrea Corr and the Beatles on the wall, and a collection of various polished stones in a small wicker basket.

Christina Patterson read English at the universities of Durham and East Anglia before going on to work in publishing. From 1990-1998 she worked at the Royal Festival Hall, programming and presenting hundreds of literary events. From 1998-2000 she ran the Poetry Society’s Poetry Places scheme, a lottery-funded programme of poetry residencies and placements, while also working as a freelance writer and consultant. From 2000-2003, she was Director of the Poetry Society, overseeing activities ranging from the publication of its magazines to its education programme and the Poetry Café at Covent Garden.  As a freelance literary journalist, she has written regularly for the Observer, the Sunday Times and the Independent. She has contributed to a number of books, including The Cambridge Guide To Women’s Writing and the Forward Poetry Anthology 2001, and has chaired literary events at festivals around the country. Christina was Chair of the judges for the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 2000, of the Forward Poetry Prizes in 2001 and is a judge for the poetry category of this year’s Whitbread Award. She is currently Deputy Literary Editor of the Independent.

What I have next to my computer: My computer at the Indy is next to a phone and an in-tray, which really couldn't sound less exciting. My one at home is also next to a phone and an in-tray, but you could also mention the leaning pile of books next to it, the carved wooden letter tray behind it (into which I stuff all that interesting, unfilable "miscellaneous correspondence") or the inspirational quote from Goethe stuck on the wall.

Carol Posnett has had extensive teaching experience in a range of primary schools in Nottinghamshire over a period of twenty years where she coordinated the teaching of English across the schools in which she taught. She joined Nottingham Trent University in January 2001 and teaches English on the BA (Hons) in Primary Education and the PGCE courses. She is module leader for the module ‘Development of Communication in Children including Media Studies’ on the BA (Hons) Childhood Studies degree. Prior to joining the Faculty of Education, she worked as a Literacy Consultant for Nottinghamshire LEA. This involved supporting a range of schools across the county to develop Literacy initiatives through training courses and working with school coordinators on curriculum management. During her time at the University, she has been involved in two Partnership Projects with City schools on developing strategies for the teaching of writing.

What I have next to my computer: A picture of my son, a mouse mat I bought in Australia, a thank you card, a calendar, stapler, hole punch, sheaves of paper, CD Roms, diary and several ‘reminder’ post-its on my computer.

Alan Sondheim's books include the anthology Being on Line: Net Subjecti-vity (Lusitania, 1996), Disorders of the Real (Station Hill, 1988), and.echo (alt-X digital arts, 2001) as well as numerous other chapbooks, books and articles. His videos and films have been shown internationally. Sondheim co-moderates several email lists, including Cybermind, Cybercul-ture, and Wryting. For the past several years, he has been working on an "Internet Text," a continuous meditation on philosophy, psychology, lang-uage, body, sexuality, and virtuality. Sondheim lives in Brooklyn; he lectures and publishes widely on contemporary art and Internet issues. In 1999, Sondheim was the second virtual writer-in-residence for the trAce (sic) online writing community (Nottingham, England). He is currently associate editor of the online magazine Beehive, and one of the editors of Nettime's Unstable Digest. In 2001, Sondheim assembled a special topic for the America Book Review on Codework. His video/soundwork has often been screened at Millennium Film (NYC), as well as a number of other venues. Sondheim teaches in the trAce online writing program; last year he taught new media at Florida International University in Miami. He currently works in video, cdrom, performance, sound, and text, often in collaboration with Azure Carter, Foofwa d'Imobilite, and others.
http://www.asondheim.org/

What I have next to my computer: A Mirage sampling keyboard which I constantly improvise on. Other laptops; I usually have two or more open with different operating systems (linux, Mac Jaguar/BSD, Winxp). Cup of coffee (always!) Several books - right now something on Oulipo (French literary avant- garde) and Rene Thom's Paraboles et Catastrophes (both in French), and a Max Beerbohm book, Seven Men and Two Others.

What else? The writing of Kari Edwards and David Daniels - both of whom I love.

Behind me (and my chair revolves!), an antique Beatty Victorian pump organ (like a harmonium) from 1878; I'll play during downloads. And to my right, an old Selmer Paris oboe...

Sue Thomas is Professor of New Media in the School of Media and Cultural Communication, in the Faculty of Humanities at De Montfort University. Until 2004 she was Artistic Director of the trAce Online Writing Centre, which she founded in 1995. Her books include Hello World: travels in virtuality (Raw Nerve Books, 2004) called by Canadian critic Carolyn Guertin "a Baedeker to the cyber-realm"; the novel Correspondence , a mix of flesh and machine short-listed for several prizes including the Arthur C Clarke Award (London: The Women's Press, 1992; New York: Overlook, 1993); Water , a novel of fluids, imaginations and passions (New York: Overlook, 1994; UK: Five Leaves, 1995) and an edited anthology Wild Women: Contemporary Short Stories By Women Celebrating Women (New York: Overlook, 1994; London: Vintage, 1994). At trAce she produced and managed many successful digital writing projects, most notably The Noon Quilt (1998), Migrating Memories (2001), Mapping the Transition from Page to Screen (2002/3), The Dawn Quilt for South Asia (2004), and Writers for the Future (2003/5). She is a Literary Advisor to the British Council; a member of the Advisory Board of the Electronic Literature Organization, a member of the East Midlands Digital Arts Steering Group, and a member of the Management Group of the DMU Centre for Creative Technologies. She sits on the Editorial Board of Scan Journal of Media Arts and Culture based at Macquarie University. She recently launched a new research group at DMU,  'Writing and the Digital Life', to explore the impact of digital technologies upon writing and lived experience. http://www.mti.dmu.ac.uk/~sthomas/

What I have next to my computer: A large white pen shaped like an astronaut; a china dolphin; a Starship Enterprise dashboard air freshener that never worked.

Helen Walker works for the Promoting Effective Team Practice group at Becta and is a member of the Teacher Tools Advisory Group. 

Helen Whitehead is a web-specific writer and editor who has been working with online media since 1985. She has led collaborative Web writing projects and developed Web writing with a variety of groups from schoolchildren to management trainees. She tutors the Arvon Foundation's "Writing for the Internet" courses. She holds a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and an MA in Writing from The Nottingham Trent University, where she specialised in hypertext fiction on the Web. Her web work Web Warp & Weft was commissioned for the Year of the Artist, 2000/2001. She is particularly interested in multi-dimensional structures of texts and narratives and in making new media writing accessible to new readers. She is currently Website Editor for the trAce Online Writing Centre and Editor of Kids on the Net, and is developing a Teachers' Portal for Writers for the Future.
http://helenwhitehead.com

What I have next to my computer: A small model of the Babylon 5 space station from the TV series (to remind me that a writer's dream can come true!) and a large coffee table book about Rennie Mackintosh as inspiration for the writing I'm currently engaged in.

Simon Widdowson qualified in 1993 as a primary school teacher. He taught supply until 1995, and then became the ICT coordinator at a small city school in 1996. Here he bought the school's first PC, learnt how to use it and began to learn how to write WebPages before developing the school's website.  Simon has worked with Kids on the Net on projects for the school website, as well as being a member of the Advisory Committee.   He has won a nationwide website award for the school's Comic Relief WebPages, and worked with an author to produce a book about the school newspaper. Simon has worked for Becta since 2001 - short listing and judging their web awards, writing a case study about developing a website for a publication, and becoming a mentor for the New2Computers project helping teachers who are new to using ICT in the classroom.
http://www.simon-widdowson.com/

Gregory Woods is Professor of Gay and Lesbian Studies at the Nottingham Trent University. His was the first such appointment in the UK. His publications in cultural history include Articulate Flesh: Male Homo-eroticism and Modern Poetry (1987) and A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition (1998), both from Yale University Press. His poetry collections are We Have the Melon (1992), May I Say Nothing (1998) and The District Commissioner's Dreams (2002), all from Carcanet Press. He was a member of the board of directors of East Midlands Arts until 2002, and is a Fellow of the English Association. He chairs the management board of trAce.

What I have next to my computer: Books, fountain pen and paper. The real information super-highway.

Tim Wright trained as a journalist and editor on various magazines (Which Computer?, LAN Magazine) and newspapers (The Independent, Sunday Times). In 1995 Tim left print publishing to become one of the three Managing Partners of NoHo Digital, one the UK's most successful independent new media agencies. In 1999, Tim and his creative collaborator Rob Bevan left NoHo to form XPT, with a view to finding markets and audiences for their own original digital works. In that time he has been the lead writer of two BAFTA-winning interactive projects - the comedy self help disk 'MindGym' and Web & email drama 'Online Caroline', as well as scripting the lunatic Web 'holiday' 'Mount Kristos' and the absurd virtual gift-giving service 'IT3C'. Tim speaks regularly at industry events & workshops. He is a Norwich City supporter.
www.xpt.co.uk/timwright

What I have next to my computer:
3 phones and ansaphone
Another computer (an iMac)
4 Zip disks, 2 PCMCIA cards
Wireless network card
Headphones
Elton John's Captain Fantastic CD (blush)
Bonnie Prince Billy CD (fab!)
A novel written by an old family friend
White Coffee Cup
Candles
Box of paper clips
Moleskin notebook and filofax
Donald the nodding dog
A yellow submarine
MDF sealant
A book token
A fez

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