By Michael Shumate: "Writing does not take place in a vacuum but within a number of overlapping contexts. The vocation occurs within the writer's life, but both are part of larger artistic communities. Readers, other writers, editors, and various corporate entities such as publishers and distributors all form part of what sociologist Howard Becker has called an "art world." The art world of hypertext fiction, though still quite new, is growing rapidly, especially since the introduction of graphical browsers began luring a massive new audience to the World Wide Web in the last two or three years. Here I look briefly at the development of that world prior to the Web; what has happened on the Web in the last couple of years; and connections between writers and readers in the networked world."