Darrel Plant

Designer, publisher, editor, writer, electronic prepress specialist, multimedia geek. And politician. Plant's involvement with personal computers stretches back to the days of paper tape and Hollerith punch cards, which, he hastens to add, weren't that long ago.

An interest in books prompted almost ten years of work in the hallowed aisles of the bookselling world. After graduating from Reed College with a BA in English Literature (thesis: The People's Shakespeare: The Bard as Popular Culture, Including a Practical Reading of Henry V) he attended New York University's Summer Institute in Book and Magazine Publishing, as a direct precursor to launching what became Plant's Review of Books.

The publishing bug had already led him to the beginnings of desktop publishing, and from there to the world of electronic design, digital prepress, interactive multimedia, and the World Wide Web.An inveterate letter-writer, Plant's missives have appeared in the pages of the Oregonian, Willamette Week, MacWEEK, Publish, Interactive Age, and WIRED, among others, and have ranged from the problems of digital proofing to the future of prisons. Plant has written for a variety of magazines, ranging from The Dragon and Step-by-Step Graphics to WIRED, The Net, Lingo Users Journal, Macromedia User Journal, and Macworld.

His first book, Shockwave! breathe new life into your web pages, was published in 1996. It was followed the next year by Lingo Programmers Reference (co-written with Doug Smith) and the original edition ofFlash! Creative Web Animation. He served for three years as a Technical Editor for the Macromedia User Journal, and was named Technical Editor for the Director Online in early 2001.

Plant has been a speaker at several major conferences, including the Macromedia International User Conference (San Francisco, 1997), newMedia (Toronto, 1998), and Thunder Lizard conferences (Seattle and Denver, 2000). He taught Director for four years at Portland State University and has conducted other classes in Portland and San Francisco.

Plant received 23% of the vote in the 1994 Democratic primary for Oregon State House of Representatives District 14, despite being outspent nearly 20:1.