Melville House Books

“E-books have yet to crack the publishing industry, but that hasn’t stopped literature from tackling computer technology as a storytelling device,” observes Rebecca Caldwell. In a story for The Globe & Mail, she notes that “a recent spate of old-fashioned low-tech printed books have all abandoned traditional narrative for Internet terminology, using e-mails, chat-room dialogues and instant messaging instead of regular prose, chapters and verses.” Amongst those proving the point, she cites books by Rocki St. Claire, Meg Cabot, and the partnership of Benedicte Newland & Pascale Smets. Technology is become part of the plot and characterization, too, says Caldwell. For example, in St. Claire’s Hit Reply, which is written in “e-mail format,” one character who writes in lower-case letters only is said to be “”shift-key challenged.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.