Note from the Editor

What is new media writing?

New media writing challenges the way we approach writing and reading, as all the pieces in this latest issue of The New River illustrate.

Serge Bouchardon's piece "To Touch" asks the reader: "Do you touch me when I touch you?" This piece will have you "touching" your computer in ways you probably haven't before. "To Touch" asks you to engage on several interesting levels, that I won't give away.

Andy Martyn and Andy Campbell's collaboration "The Virtual Disappearance of Miriam" asks the question, "Where am I – really, actually?" What sticks out in my mind from this piece is the feeling of constantly catching up. Perhaps this is how a detective feels when chasing a lead, or how most people feel about life, constantly two steps behind and a handful of clues short.

New media writers Andy Campbell and Jason Nelson are two of our most frequently featured artists because they continually find ways to innovate. Andy Campbell's "The Flat" is creepy, no two ways about it. "The Flat" succeeds in establishing a tone, a grand suspense, that carries the mystery of the piece. There is an urgency, a desperation, a staircase! Your mouse moves the camera lens, and your desperation moves you forward.

Jason Nelson's "wide and wildly branded" has already asked your mother if you could come out and play, and here you are. Nelson's piece is a multiplex of "chronic and significant history," and at the same time it's not that at all. "Wide and wildly branded" is precisely what it says it is. As with most of his work, you'll be entertained by its format, by the music, by the interactive quality of it--but you'll also find yourself thrown into thought reading his "poetics" and "subpoetics."

What is new media writing? This is it. Check it out.

Bryan C. Murray , Managing Editor
Blacksburg, VA
April, 2010