Like all monographs, this book wasn’t a solo project. I’ve been helped by many people and material grants during the decade in which it has taken shape. The book came out of my dissertation, which was guided expertly by Deborah Brandt at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Through her care, humor, gentle but spot-on critique, and infallible support, Deb has been a model researcher, teacher, writer, and person to me (among many others). When considering any professional decision, I often ask myself: “What would Deb do?” And then I know the way. I learned about 90% of what I know about teaching writing from the University of Wisconsin–Madison Writing Center and Brad Hughes, who brings intellectual rigor and careful research to administration and teaching and has a superhuman ability to juggle a hundred commitments and thousands of students while making everyone around him feel smart and capable. David Fleming helped to show me I was in the right field and doing good work. Kurt Squire and Greg Downey introduced me to sources beyond my own field and treated me like a colleague even when I was a grad student. Mike Bernard-Donals bore with me, an outsider, in my first graduate class and saw me all the way through my dissertation defense. His helpful skepticism strengthened my work; when he said it was ready, I knew that it finally was.
My fellow students at Wisconsin were also essential to the substance and style of this work, in particular, Kate Vieira, Tim Laquintano, Scot Barnett, Rik Hunter, and Adam Koehler. Tim, Rik, Scot, and I worked together to learn digital literacy scholarship and technologies. Kate has been a great friend and guiding star for me since 2004; without her, I might not have entered the field of composition or finished my dissertation, and I certainly would have had a duller and dimmer graduate school experience. Corey Mead, Alice Robison (Daer), Stephanie Kerschbaum, Mira Shimabukuro, Eric Pritchard, Maria Bibbs, Chrissy Stephenson, and Mike Shapiro were all excellent fellow-travelers. Kate and Tim read countless early drafts of this book and my other work. They are everywhere in it. Mike Shapiro’s tough love on a full draft of the book helped me clarify ideas and language. I wish that all grad students had a peer group such as I enjoyed at Wisconsin.
I’ve been lucky to have brilliant and generous colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh as well. Ryan McDermott helped me find additional sources and vet my claims about medieval literacy. Steve Carr offered useful comments on an article version of this book. Jean Ferguson Carr has been a generous, encouraging, and savvy mentor to me, clearing the way for the book to get done. Johnny Twyning and Don Bialostosky have been supportive chairs of my department and have gone over and above to boost me up. Alison Langmead has been a stunning collaborator and I’ve learned at least as much from her as our students have. Pitt graduate students are the best: I’ve been lucky to run seminars brimming with their creative ideas. I owe particular thanks to Kerry Banazek, who is not only a strong and brilliant human, and willing to take a chance on me as an advisor, but who also helped me to proofread this book. Lauren Rae Hall and Lauren Campbell, I’ve cited you both here, but I can’t cite everything I’ve learned from you. I’ve benefitted from research leave at Pitt, and even more importantly, maternity leave for the birth of my two children. A heartfelt thanks to the administrators and other women who paved the way for me to enjoy the privilege of being with my babies while not sidelining my research or career, especially Jean Ferguson Carr, Phil Smith, and Jim Knapp. I wish that all parents, especially mothers, had this right.
Composition and rhetoric, what I consider my home field, is a lovely place to be. It includes people like Jim Brown, who has been a good friend and collaborator; Doug Eyman, who has been a guide in digital rhetoric and publishing and a helpful, humorous mentor; Cheryl Ball, who does it all; Gail Hawisher and Cindy Selfe, who paved the way; Brian Ballantine, Alanna Frost, and Suzanne Blum Malley, who make conferences way more fun; Christina Haas and Elizabeth Losh, who have both offered smart and critical comments on my work; Alexandria Lockett, who brilliantly calls it like it is and inspires me to do better; Chris Lindgren, who has put ideas about coding and literacy into practice and put me in contact with great people … and many more besides. Thanks for making comp/rhet feel like home.
Thanks also to the people I’ve met outside my little academic corner, who helped to shape this work by being interviewed, by hiring me, or just by being awesome. Kenn Hoekstra took a chance on me at Raven Software and taught me enough IT to get me (re)started along a path I’d abandoned. Greg Barr also kindly held my hand through rough learning stages. Roxanne Prichard was a fierce companion and helped ground me and employ me when I needed it. Ruth Benca always trusted me to do my work in her lab and showed me how to be a strong administrator and advocate for people. My brief collaboration with Libbey White and Why the Lucky Stiff made me feel my work was important. Digital media, my home away from home, includes wonderful people like Matthew Kirschenbaum, Jentery Sayers, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, and Stephen Ramsay, who have all been kind promoters of my work. Mike Silbersack, quoted here, was one of a dozen programmers who generously gave their time to me in interviews as this project took shape. I thank all of them for their time and ideas, which are diffusely refracted here.
I’m grateful to Doug Sery and the Software Studies Series editors at MIT Press for placing this book where I had always hoped it would be. The anonymous reviewers helpfully gave me points to sharpen and cut. Susan Buckley and Katherine Almeida have shepherded the book with keen attention and alacrity, and Richard Evans expertly prepared the index, gently teaching me about the process. An earlier version of parts of this book, scattered throughout, was published in Literacy in Composition Studies, to whom I am grateful for their generous licensing and dissemination of my work. A summary version of my argument on programming as a literacy is published in “Programming as Literacy,” in The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities, ed. Jentery Sayers (forthcoming 2017). The Richard D. and Mary Jane Edwards Endowed Publication Fund at University of Pittsburgh sponsored the cost of figure reprints and indexing. Summer funding and research leave from Pitt has also helped me to complete this book.
Last, but foremost, I want to thank my family, including my many supportive parents who helped to fund my education—Joyce, Steve, Joy, Jeff, and Bill—and who patiently waited for me to find a career. I’m sure they’re as surprised as I am, but they were kind enough to keep quiet about it. I am proud to add my small stone to the pile of my foremothers’ educational achievements, the ones that my grandmother and mother always told me about, the ones I will tell my children about. Thanks to Eleanor and Willoughby, who delayed this book’s appearance, but made it worthwhile. And finally, Nathan, whose companionship inspired the book in the first place, and who has stuck around to see it finished.