[2] An article in the Los Angeles Times describes the first reading organised by the ELO in July 2000, "a recent evening at the home of Microsoft executive Richard Bangs", with "trays of light finger food and delicately chilled Chardonnay" with "guests from high-tech east side Seattle mingled with representatives of the old-guard arts establishment and half a dozen writers of new fiction who had come to read from their work".

The ELO is currently hosted at York University, Toronto, Canada, under the leadership of Caitlin Fisher,[4] marking the first time this international organization has moved its headquarters outside of the United States.

Past presidents of the ELO include Jeff Ballowe, Scott Rettberg (as Executive Director), Marjorie Luesebrink, Matthew Kirschenbaum, Joseph Tabbi, Nick Montfort, Dene Grigar,[5] and Leonardo Flores.

Most notable among these would be Judd Morrissey’s The Jew’s Daughter, Michael Joyce’s Twelve Blue, Stuart Moulthrop’s Reagan Library, Talan Memmott’s Lexia to Perplexia, and Kate Pulinger’s Inanimate Alice.

[26] Volume 2 (February 2011) Tim Wright explains that "the process of gathering, archiving and tagging the works to make them more easily available to a wider audience, also freezes (necessarily) what may have been otherwise ephemeral or in situ.

[28] This work also includes Qianxun Chen's Shan Shui, Porpentine's With Those We Love Alive, Borsuk's Between Page and Screen, Illya Szilak's Queerskins, Emily Short and Liza Daly's First Draft of the Revolution, Jeremy Height's 34 North 118 West, J.R. Carpenter's Along the Briny Beach, Mark Marino and Rob Wittig's Being@Spencer Pratt, Caitlin Fisher's Everyone at This Party is Dead, Anna Anthropy's Hunt for the Gay Planet, N. Katherine Hayle's Speculation.

This award "honors an independent spirit: a writer, artist, researcher, programmer, designer, performer, or hybrid creator who does not adhere to a conventional path but creates their own and in so doing makes a singular contribution to the field of electronic literature."