John Logie's New Book Is Now Published

Cover of John Logie's book "Writing in the Clouds"

John Logie’s new book Writing in the Clouds: Inventing and Composing in Internetworked Writing Spaces is now published. The book joins Parlor Press’s Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition, honoring the late Janice Lauer Rice, and edited by Jenny Bay and Thomas Rickert. A preview PDF and fuller description (on the back cover) are available at Parlor’s website

Writing in the Clouds is an intensive examination of the profound consequences of contemporary writing technologies for the act—and art—of composition. In the 1980s and 1990s, the increasing adoption of computers as digital composing tools prompted scholars to re-examine the roles technology might play in written composition. This book elaborates those consequences at a time when internetworked writing has supplanted digital composition. Our centuries-long relationship with paper as the default space for certain types of written composition has been thrown into question. The advent of ebooks and their sharply spiking popularity is one indication of the ongoing technological and cultural shift. Perhaps more important is the relative affordability of tablet computers and their increasingly widespread acceptance and use in roles that formerly required paper-based writing. For years, the notion of the paperless office has been an ironic joke. Paper consumption soared after the adoption of desktop computers. Now portable and tablet computing appear to be contributing to a dramatic decline in US per capita paper consumption. Today’s writers are increasingly aware of the likelihood that their compositions may never be printed. When they are certain that their works are being developed for digital delivery, they cannily adapt their writing to exploit the affordances of internetworked digital spaces. Writing in the Clouds offers history, analysis, and a set of keywords to help readers better understand these changes in their particularity and help them prepare for what’s next as writers embrace the expansive opportunities of cloud-based writing spaces. 

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