Editorial

Margaret Procter

A spring heatwave, a handsome ski resort, a provocative topic, and a set of interesting people talking about their lifework: no wonder the presentations at Inkshed's sixteenth annual conference produced intense experiences that included tears, laughter, heated discussion, and animated scribbling. The announced topic was stimulating to start with: "Finding each other in a hall of mirrors: Negotiating goals and values in language." Responding to the McGill organizers' invitation to go beyond talking, presenters involved us in games, poetry-reading, videos, and even dancing. They elicited more talking and writing, including the unique activity of group inkshedding: writing in immediate response to the sessions, sharing that writing with other participants, then transcribing some for further reading. And of course the experiences continued after and beyond the official presentations -- over the many bountiful meals in the wood-beamed dining hall, on the attempted mountain walks in rainy weather, and in the Talent Night that, as always, included the willing and the tolerant as well as the talented.

The articles here range from complete texts to partial outlines of presentations given at Inkshed XVI. None captures the whole experience, but they all invite responses from distant readers, as they did from the listeners there and then. Our selection starts with two challenges to our sense of modes for communication (Brent on the new medium of hypertext, Mason and Hussey on self-expression through dance) and moves on to ask how and why we share our ideas about writing (Artemeva and Fox on the ways engineering students learn to write like engineers; MacKinnon on the responsibilities of being an expert about writing), and ends with a moving affirmation of the value of teaching literacy in bad times (Costandi on teaching ESL during the war in Lebanon). These pieces offer a taste of the conference. More examples, including a selection of transcribed inksheds and some revealing photographs (revealingly relaxed, anyway), are available on the Web at http://www.stthomasu.ca/inkshed/16/ , thanks to Russ Hunt's able work as Webmaster.

This issue marks another stage of the travelling editorship. Russ Hunt took it on for a Fall/Winter issue in January 1999, and Mary Kooy and Margaret Procter have filled in for two more issues. It's been a pleasure to keep in touch with so many devoted and lively people across Canada, and now Joanne André and Barbara Schneider of University of Calgary have agreed to take on the mantle (or at least the mailing list). Please send them (at Social Sciences 301, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4 or andre@ucalgary.ca ) your latest thoughts on language and literacy in general and your bright ideas in particular. Their first issue will send out calls to the next Inkshed conference in May 2000. Look for a Western flavour!