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Milkweed Editions: Literature Landscape and Activism
by Ed Taylor

Arriving at the World As Home web site from the spin-cycle whirl of the Internet, the eye encounters a rich purple field, just color, and then individual letters pop out like flowers, becoming Literature Landscape and Activism in a time-lapse growing season, a 3-second spring.

Detail from the World As Home homepage

Detail from the World as Home homepage.

The World as Home is arguably the definitive online resource for literary writing about the natural world, and is a project of Milkweed Editions, a literary press based in Minneapolis, MN. Milkweed began life in 1979 as a journal, then published its first book in 1984. The World As Home began as a print publishing program of the press in 1999, a series of titles related to nature writing and environmental issues reflecting Milkweed's organizational belief that literature is a necessary component of any attempt to effectively address environmental issues. World As Home titles now account for 40 to 50 percent of the press's total titles on a yearly basis (7 to 10 titles from a total list of 17 to 20 books a year).

Given reader interest and the press's own commitment to nature writing, the program's reach and audience was exponentially expanded in 2000 with the unveiling of the World As Home web site. On this innovative site visitors find a home page with weekly themes focused on a key region, writer, or issue (theme materials are archived and available), and a library-like array of environmental information including books by Milkweed and a host of other publishers, organizations, weblinks, endangered landscape information, and other resources, including nature writing done specifically for the site. The site includes both a search engine and an eye-catching eco-region map, which is the key feature of the site. Clicking on a section of the map opens a wealth of information specific to that region and links to other areas and information.

The World As Home represents much more than a web site, however. The site is also an interface between the past and the future in publishing.

With the support of an NEA Resources for Change: Technology grant, the site will eventually become a gateway to paperless books, on-demand e-publishing, and reader-centered custom publishing, as Milkweed embarks on a digital database publishing program growing organically from Milkweed's mission as a literary publisher of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, and from the press's interest in environmental writing. This entry into electronic publishing blends commitment to the same literary and service goals Milkweed has pursued throughout its history, and smart, savvy business planning and adaptation to the rapidly changing landscapes of publishing and technology.

Milkweed is entering the digital age with, paradoxically, books about the antithesis of digital technology  nature and humans' relations with it. For the next 3 years, the press will be designing and implementing a database publishing program allowing Milkweed to create (in addition to traditional paper books) customized texts in all available electronic formats (and projected formats) for educators, students, environmentalists, and general readers. Database publishing means digitally archiving text in ways that allow sorting, selecting, picking and choosing by either the press or a potential reader or customer. For example, a teacher could create a theme-based text with poetry from one author, essays from another, a short story from another author, and selected quotes from a variety of other texts, in addition to high quality theme-based art works and graphics, and have it created, paid for, and available, in minutes.

Texts could not only be customized for a teacher's needs; they could be further customized by the teacher for the differing needs of individual students. Educators can custom create textbooks, activists can compile chapbooks of writing particular to a local issue to energize their communities, general readers can have a hand in composing the books they read for pleasure, tailoring them to particular tastes and interests, seasons, places, or those of friends or family. The applications for such publishing, from both a community service standpoint and from a commercial standpoint, are obviously revolutionary.

Milkweed's growing archive of both traditional and contemporary nature writing, based on its long history of such publishing and fostered by the development of the World As Home web site, represents the foundation from which the full database program will be built. However, "we're already feeling the desire to extend this idea across our publishing program," says Hilary Reeves, Milkweed's director of operations and marketing. "The interest in making texts available in digital form and in flexible formats certainly isn't limited to our World As Home titles."

Over the next 3 to 5 years the publishing world will witness the unveiling of a number of e-publishing formats and options to accommodate a wide variety of consumer preferences. Database and digital publishing, according to Milkweed, represent economical and convenient, but technologically sophisticated and adaptable methods of engaging customers that will place the press at the forefront of independent publishing. "We have been focusing our research on our World As Home markets, particularly educators and environmentalists, trying to find the intersection between literary writing and the ways these groups do their own work." The press sees a growing number of readers interested in the environment and looking for aesthetically and emotionally satisfying "reading experiences" that transcend the functional information provided by science and policy texts.

According to Reeves, "The e-landscape, in terms of technological capabilities, rights issues, and, above all, usage, is still evolving. We're seeing a lot of enthusiasm for the idea of accessing writing in more flexible ways. But, we're moving forward on implementation very slowly, trying to make sure we evolve with the market. Right now, that means listening and learning about the current state of technology."

How has the database initiative affected Milkweed in areas such as staffing, equipment, distribution, marketing? Hilary Reeves responds, "This is one of the conceptual challenges of implementing the grant. We have already changed our processes for World as Home titles we publish, making sure that new books are produced in a web-ready way. We are still producing traditional books, but all our files now are set up for much easier deployment into other formats. We're looking right now at a technology that has been used for very large corporation intranets. I'm interested by the document-handling capabilities of this software. Whether it's a fit for our purposes is not yet clear, but it does take one down the path of thinking about internal structures and how content is generated and managed."

Reeves adds, "We're trying to understand the available technologies but keep a very determined focus on end users. We want to create something that fits our business and is sustainable."

John Connelly, vice president of strategy and new business development for R. R. Donnelly and Sons, the biggest book producer in the country, states, "The first thing is to be not print-centric, but service-centric. The idea that is talked about all over the industry is 'cross-media publishing,' creating material that can be expressed in many ways: print, web pages, electronic books."

With the World As Home web site and its database publishing initiative, Milkweed is creating a plan for its future sustainability, one utilizing all of the presently envisioned reading technologies of tomorrow (and leaving room for things not yet even conceived): paper books; handheld, PC, and laptop readers; websites; instant ebooks, and...who knows? Whether on palm readers, plasma screens, or acid-free paper, the Milkweed imprint will continue to bloom and grow.

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Ed Taylor is an arts consultant, writer, and assistant professor at Erie Community College. From 1998-2001, he was the executive director of Just Buffalo Literary Center in Buffalo, NY. Mr. Taylor was on the staff of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1988-1997, where he served in a variety of positions including Literature Specialist, Senior Program Specialist for the Advancement Program, and National Coordinator for WritersCorps.