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Michael Gosney   Michael Gosney has been involved in innovative publishing ventures for over 15 years. In 1981, he founded Avant Books, a trade publishing house, publishing prestigious literary works such as Buddha by Nikos Kazantzakis and Clear Wind by Neeli Cherkovski, and non-fiction titles such as Deep Ecology, ed. by Michael Tobias, The Roots of Rastafari by Virginia Lee Jabobs, and The Life and Adventures of John Muir by James Mitchell Clarke. Gosney launched The Word Shop in 1984, a book production service featuring one of the first commercial computer-phototypesetting systems in use on the West Coast. In 1985 he co-founded Microtrend, a computer book publisher/packager which developed publishing programs for firms such as IBM, Tandy, McGraw Hill and Mitchell Publishing. In 1987 Gosney founded Verbum, Inc. with the publication of the Verbum Journal, the first magazine devoted to the creative applications of desktop media. Verbum was instrumental in the genesis of the desktop publishing field, and, through its coverage of digital animation, photography, music composition, video and interactive programming, was a catalyst for what became the multimedia field. In August of 1991 Verbum shipped Verbum Interactive, the nascent industry's first true multimedia product: a double CD-ROM featuring a pioneering interface design, stunning graphics, original music, animation and video. Sony, Macromedia, GTE and other firms participated in the development of Verbum Interactive, which inspired many of the early multimedia titles. Between 1992 and 1996, Verbum produced leading instructional books for digital media professionals, including Multimedia Power Tools, the "bible" of the multimedia field with a CD-ROM dynamically linked to the book's contents, featuring step-by-step instruction. Other books included the Official Photo CD Handbook, in partnership with Kodak, and the Desktop Color Book. Once the market for CD-ROM was finally established, Verbum began development of its first consumer product in 1996, Peter Norton's PC Guru, a double CD-ROM published by MediaX in January 1998. Verbum is developing other proprietary products for publication on CD-ROM and the Internet. In January of 1998, Verbum launched Studio-V, a services division offering custom Internet and CD-ROM publication development. Along with a circle of co-producers, Gosney produces the annual Digital Be-In in San Francisco, an influential gathering of new media pioneers now in its 10th year. In 1997 he launched the annual Paradox Conference on cyberspace, arcology and human evolution at Arcosanti, Arizona. He has been a frequent speaker at digital media industry events in the U.S., Japan, and South America since the mid-1980s.