The Evolution of the Computers and Writing Conference

Lisa Gerrard's "The Evolution of the Computers and Writing Conference"

My connection to the computers and writing conference began by proxy. In 1982, a group of us at UCLA were developing a computer program for student writers called WANDAH.1 At that time, we were fairly isolated in our work: very little software had been developed for computers and writing, and few people had written on the subject. In October of that year, two of my co-developers flew to the University of Minnesota to talk about the WANDAH project. They came back full of excitement about the computer projects they’d heard about and about the beginnings of a computers and writing community. Though we didn’t know it at the time, they had just attended the first conference on computers and writing.