SECTION:
Cyberspace - The Closeness out of Difference
Sylvia Petter (Genf)
Cyberspace - Much More than ComputersAs an Australian in "Francafonia" and a wannabe writer, I was exposed to the net through my day job at the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva. When I started writing in 1993 I went online to a Writing Group on CompuServe. These were pre-web days and there was the excitement of something new.
Through online writing groups I made cybermates and professional acquaintances and some of those friendships spilled over into real life. Others remained virtual, but have endured. Contacts were made with other writers and with editors of budding ezines. Some disappeared, like real people do, and others moved on and then reappeared. Zines were born and others folded, just like the shops and the boutiques in town.
But the difference has been that we have come together from all over the world, have shared our viewpoints, have learned from each other. Just this year I received a request from Jim, an old cybermate in Puerto Rico to whom I'd submitted work back in 1995. A ten year-old boy from Indiana was doing a school project and sending a hard copy journal all over the US. Would I help his journal have an adventure? Last week, the journal was on its way from Connecticut to Alabama. It had been to France, Switzerland, England, Germany and Australia. Cybermates from the most different of backgrounds, through their love of writing, had remained close enough to enable a hardcopy school project and give a new spin to what can be done thanks to Cyberspace.
|
INST |