Coover does a great job situating digitally produced literature in the larger history of writing and narrative. He suggests that the invention of computer-based writing is a moment in the history of narrative-making similar to that of the invention of writing itself in Sumer.

The first twenty minutes are spent detailing this history, the next twenty, surveying the field now (over the last few years). Coover transitions between these two halves with the assertion (I just love this phrase), "conjure up a new medium, and writers and artists will break in to play with it."

The talk closes with Coover suggesting that, as it took millennia for cuneiform to deliver Gilgamesh, 150 years for movable type to deliver Don Quixote, and 200 years of American history to deliver the American novel, so it may be a while before we see similar texts in our own newly "conjured" medium. In the mean time, I'll keep my eyes peeled (and my fingers nimble).