[-empyre-] Re: empyre Digest, Vol 11, Issue 4

["Sue Thomas" <sue.thomas@dial.pipex.com>]

Hi Judy!

 I'm really excited to see that your book is out now and I look forward to
reading it.

You ask what women are doing now. I'm doing something I really enjoy so I'll
tell you about that. I don't so much make work in the digital space as
comment on what's happening there, and I've finally managed to finish a book
about that life and find a wonderful publisher - Raw Nerve
http://www.rawnervebooks.co.uk/index.html - who will bring it into being
next Spring. The book is called Hello World: travels in virtuality
http://www.rawnervebooks.co.uk/helloworld.html

The reason I'm enjoying it so much is that unlike my previous books, which
were taken from me still warm, packaged and distributed with jackets and
designs decided on without me, this one has been brought to life in a joint
effort between Ann Kaloski, my editor, based in the Dept of Womens' Studies
at the University of York, UK, and Hilary Doran, the designer of the book,
who lives in Washington DC, and myself. All the major issues have been
discussed every step of the way and I have learned a great deal from both of
them in the process, not least a lot from Ann about the nature of my own
work. Making it has been and still is a fascinating and absorbing experience
and I think it will permanently change my approach to creative production.
I'll write more about that in six months or so when the book is out and
we've finished the entire cycle.

But I'd like to ask you a question - the obvious one, really. Do you see any
major differences between the ways in which women and men approach the
making of art with technology? I ask this tentatively because I very much
subscribe to the hope that one day we will be away to sweep away those
physical differences and all be spivaks anyway, but I can't resist the
question in the context of the publication of your book and am genuinely
curious to hear your thoughts and those of others on this list.

best

Sue