Conversations about computer-generated text often omit the long history of work in this area, tending to focus instead on the more recent launch of ChatGPT in 2022. The anthology Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953–2023 aims to correct this omission by gathering, celebrating, and contextualizing over seven decades of English-language pieces produced by generation systems and software. Join us for presentations of computer-generated texts and other experimental outputs by anthology editors Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Monfort, along with anthology contributors Jim Carpenter, Steve McLaughlin, and Syd Zolf.

About the Authors:

Considered an emerging leader in the field of AI writing and literature, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is co-editor of the newly released anthology Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953-2023, published by The MIT Press and Counterpath. Bertram also recently published the AI-written chapbook A Black Story May Contain Sensitive Content, winner of the DIAGRAM/New Michigan Press Chapbook Prize. Bertram’s most recent book of poetry is Negative Money (Soft Skull Press, 2023), which was a finalist for the New England Book Award. Their previous book, Travesty Generator (Noemi Press, 2019), won the 2018 Noemi Press Poetry Prize and the Poetry Society of America’s 2020 Anna Rabinowitz prize for interdisciplinary work, was longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Their other books include Personal Science (Tupelo Press, 2017); a slice from the cake made of air (Red Hen Press 2016); and But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise (Red Hen Press, 2012), chosen by Claudia Rankine as the winner of the 2010 Benjamin Saltman Award. They are a 2024 Foundation for Contemporary Art grant recipient and they direct the MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland College Park.

James Carpenter designed his ETC poetry generation system while a member of the affiliated faculty of the Wharton School. Submitting his system’s work under the name Erica T. Carpenter, he had her poetry accepted for publication in numerous literary magazines and journals. Steve McLaughlin used ETC to generate the poems for the Issue 1 hoax, which made a lot of people mad and made others laugh. He has also published three literary novels, No Place to Pray, Nineteen to Go, and Honeyed Words and Bitter, as well as a couple of dozen short stories, including in the Chicago Tribune Printers Row, and Fiction International–all of which he wrote without digital assistance (except for half a paragraph in No Place to Pray, which he adapted from one of Erica’s published pieces. Which people can’t possibly hold against him because it wasn’t word for word).

Steve McLaughlin is a writer and bookseller in Philadelphia. His projects include the hoax poetry anthology Issue 1 (2008, with Jim Carpenter) and the 57-volume pun collection Puniverse (2014). He currently runs Iffy Books, a bookshop/workshop space focused on DIY technology, privacy, and activism.

Nick Montfort‘s work includes ten computer-generated books (in print from seven presses), the collaborations The Deletionist and Sea and Spar Between, and more than fifty individual digital projects. His latest poetry book, All the Way for the Win, is composed entirely of three-letter words. His MIT Press books include The Future and two co-edited volumes, The New Media Reader and Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953–2023. He’s a professor at MIT, principal investigator in the University of Bergen’s Center for Digital Narrative, and directs a lab/studio, The Trope Tank. He lives in New York City.

Syd Zolf‘s most recent books are No One’s Witness: A Monstrous Poetics (Duke UP, 2021) and a selected poetry, Social Poesis (WLU Press, 2019). Honors include a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, a Trillium Book Award for Poetry, and finalist for several other prizes. Zolf’s sixth full-length book of poetry, Neutrøis, will be published by Coach House Books in early 2027. They teach at the University of Pennsylvania.