text:
Stalker (1979 film)

Stalker (Сталкер) is a 1979 Soviet science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky with a screenplay written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, loosely based on their 1972 novel Roadside Picnic. The film tells the story of an expedition led by a figure known as the "Stalker" (Alexander Kaidanovsky), who guides his two clients—a melancholic writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) seeking inspiration, and a professor (Nikolai Grinko) seeking scientific discovery—through a hazardous wasteland to a mysterious restricted site known simply as the "Zone", where there supposedly exists a room which grants a person's innermost desires. The film combines elements of science fiction and fantasy with dramatic philosophical, and psychological themes.

The film was initially filmed over a year on film stock that was later discovered to be unusable, and had to be almost entirely reshot with new cinematographer Alexander Knyazhinsky. Stalker was released by Goskino in May 1979. Upon release, the film garnered mixed reviews, but in subsequent years it has been recognized as one of the greatest films of all time, with the British Film Institute ranking it #29 on its 2012 list of the "100 Greatest Films of All Time". The film sold over 4 million tickets, mostly in the Soviet Union, against a budget of 1 million roubles.

Plot
A man works in an unnamed location as a "Stalker" leading people through the "Zone", an area in which the normal laws of physics do not apply and remnants of seemingly extraterrestrial activity lie undisturbed among its ruins. The Zone contains a place called the "Room", said to grant the wishes of anyone who steps inside. The area containing the Zone is shrouded in secrecy, sealed off by the government and surrounded by ominous, supernatural hazards.

At home with his wife and daughter, the Stalker's wife begs him not to go into the Zone, lest he risk another long prison sentence, but he dismissively rejects her pleas. In a rundown bar-café, the Stalker meets his next clients for a trip into the Zone, a Writer and a Professor.

They evade the military blockade that guards the Zone by following a train inside the gate and ride into the heart of the Zone on a railway work car. The Stalker tells his clients they must do exactly as he says to survive the dangers which lie ahead and explains that the Zone must be respected and the straightest path is not always the shortest path. The Stalker tests for various "traps" by throwing metal nuts tied to strips of cloth ahead of them. He refers to a previous Stalker named "Porcupine" who entered the Room and left, became very rich, and then hanged himself. The Writer is skeptical of any real danger, but the Professor generally follows the Stalker's advice.

As they travel, the three men discuss their reasons for wanting to visit the Room. The Writer expresses his fear of losing his inspiration. The Professor seems less anxious, although he insists on carrying along a small backpack. The Professor admits he hopes to win a Nobel Prize for scientific analysis of the Zone. The Stalker insists he has no motive beyond the altruistic aim of aiding the desperate to their desires.

After traveling through the tunnels, the three finally reach their destination: a decayed and decrepit industrial building. The men hesitate as the room is guarded by a "Meat Grinder" anomaly which requires a death for someone to enter the Room proper, causing an argument. In a small antechamber, a phone rings. The surprised Professor decides to use the phone to telephone his former boss to taunt him over finding the room. As the trio prepare to enter the Room, the Professor reveals his true intentions in undertaking the journey. The Professor has brought a 20-kiloton bomb to destroy the Room and prevent evil men from abusing it for their own gain, blaming the Room, Stalker, and Stalkers' clients for the rise of crime, social strife, military coups, and destructive science. The three men enter a physical and verbal standoff just outside the Room that leaves them exhausted.

The Writer realizes Porcupine sent his brother to his death in the Meat Grinder and entered the room to wish for his brother back - but the Room instead fulfilled Porcupine's secret desire for wealth, rather than bring back his brother from death. This prompted the guilt-ridden Porcupine to commit suicide. The Writer tells them that no one in the whole world is able to know their true desires and as such it is impossible to use the Room for selfish reasons. The Professor gives up on his plan of destroying the Room. Instead, he disassembles his bomb and scatters its pieces. No one attempts to enter the Room.

The Stalker, the Writer, and the Professor are met back at the bar-café by the Stalker's wife and daughter. After returning home, the Stalker tells his wife how humanity has lost its faith and belief needed for both traversing the Zone and living a good life. As the Stalker sleeps, his wife contemplates their relationship in a monologue delivered directly to the camera, saying she'd rather live an interesting life of hardship than an easy, boring one. Martyshka, the couple's deformed daughter, sits alone in the kitchen reading as a love poem by Fyodor Tyutchev is recited. She appears to use psychokinesis to push three drinking glasses across the table, one falling off, although this is made ambiguous as simultaneously a train passes by where the Stalker's family lives, and the entire apartment shakes.

Cast

 * Alexander Kaidanovsky as the Stalker
 * Anatoly Solonitsyn as the Writer
 * Alisa Freindlich as the Stalker's wife
 * Nikolai Grinko as the Professor (voiced by Sergei Yakovlev)
 * Natasha Abramova as Martyshka, the Stalker's daughter
 * Faime Jurno as the Writer's interlocutress
 * Evgeniy Kostin as Lyuger, owner of the bar-café (credited as E. Kostin)
 * Raimo Rendi as the patrolman
 * Vladimir Zamansky as the Professor's telephone interlocutor

Title
The meaning of the word "stalker" was derived from its use by the Strugatsky brothers in their novel Roadside Picnic, upon which the movie is based. In Roadside Picnic, "Stalker" was a common nickname for men engaged in the illegal enterprise of prospecting for and smuggling alien artifacts out of the "Zone". According to author Boris Strugatsky, "prospectors" and "trappers" were potential word choices before "stalker" was decided on, which was at least partially inspired by Rudyard Kipling's character "Stalky" in his Stalky & Co. stories, of which both authors were fans. Their adaptation of the English word into Russian is pronounced slightly differently as "Stullker", and it came into common usage after being "coined" by the authors.

Tarkovsky also wrote "Stalker is from the word 'to stalk'—to creep." in a 1976 diary entry.

In the film, a "stalker" is a professional guide to the Zone, someone having the ability and desire to cross the border into the dangerous and forbidden place with a specific goal.

Themes and interpretations
In a review in Slant Magazine, critic Nick Schager describes the film as a "dense, complex, often-contradictory, and endlessly pliable allegory about human consciousness, the necessity for faith in an increasingly secular, rational world, and the ugly, unpleasant dreams and desires that reside in the hearts of men", while conceding that the obliqueness of the imagery renders definitive interpretation "both pointless... [and] somewhat futile".

Several critics have identified the nature of human desire as a central theme of the film. James Berardinelli interprets the film as suggesting that "one's innermost desire may not be what one thinks it is and that one may be better off not achieving it", while Schager describes the film as capturing "the essence of what man is made of... a yearning for something that's simultaneously beyond our reach and yet intrinsic to every one of us".

Geoff Dyer argues the Stalker is "seeking asylum from the world", and says that "while the film may not be about the gulag, it is haunted by memories of the camps, from the overlap of vocabulary ("Zona", "the meat grinder") to the Stalker's Zek-style shaved head".

Writer Lilya Kaganovsky says the film's mysterious Zone drawn comparisons with the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone that was established in 1986 (seven years after the release of the film) in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, and some of the people employed to take care of the Chernobyl power plant referred to themselves as "stalkers". Though the film does not specify the origin of the Zone, near the end, in a shot of the Stalker with his family outside the Zone, what appears to be a power plant is visible in the background. The themes of nuclear radiation and environmental degradation would be revisited by Tarkovsky in his final film, The Sacrifice.

Midway in the film, the Stalker has an interior monologue in which he quotes the entire section 76 of Lao Tse's Tao Te Ching, the text of which characterizes softness and pliancy as qualities of a newborn, hence, new life; hardness and strength, on the contrary, are qualities nearing death. ("Man, when he enters life, is soft and weak. When he dies he is hard and strong.")

Slavistic Nils Åke Nilsson says that in the context of late Soviet stagnation, Tarkovsky makes a contrast between the oppressive dystopia of the outside world—marked by industrial decay, pollution, alienation, and political repression—and the Zone, a realm of beauty and mystery. In conjunction with the Room, they act as a representations of new possibilities, a utopia amidst the anti-utopian world of modern society, offering an escape from the constraints of the decaying society. The film reflects the disillusionment of late socialism, which fell short of the communist utopia, resulting in a stagnant and sterile reality.

In this film, Tarkovsky wishes to emphasize two essentially human aspects, faith and love. He believes that faith "cannot be dissolved or broken down, [it] forms like a crystal in the soul of each of us and constitutes its great worth," and that when humans feel that there is no more hope in the world, love is what proves them otherwise. The Writer feels as though the world has become mundane and ordinary, and has become cynical of it, he desires to be shaken by the unknown that is the zone. What ends up surprising him is not the zone, but instead, the Stalker's wife and her faithfulness to the stalker even after all he has put her through, "her love and her devotion are that final miracle which can be set against the unbelief, cynicism, moral vacuum poisoning the modern world, of which both the Writer and the Scientist are victims", in Tarkovsky's films, he believes that it is his responsibility to make his viewers aware and reflect on their need to love and to give their love.

Style
Like Tarkovsky's other films, Stalker relies on long takes with slow, subtle camera movement, rejecting the use of rapid montage. The film contains 142 shots in 163 minutes, with an average shot length of more than one minute and many shots lasting for more than four minutes. Almost all of the scenes not set in the Zone are in sepia or a similar high-contrast brown monochrome, with the exception of scenes featuring Stalker's daughter, shot in colour.

Writing
After reading the novel Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Tarkovsky initially recommended it to a friend, the film director Mikhail Kalatozov, thinking Kalatozov might be interested in adapting it into a film. Kalatozov abandoned the project when he could not obtain the rights to the novel. Tarkovsky then became very interested in adapting the novel and expanding its concepts. He hoped it would allow him to make a film which conformed to the classical Aristotelian unity; a single action, on a single location, within 24 hours (single point in time).

Tarkovsky viewed the idea of the Zone as a dramatic tool to draw out the personalities of the three protagonists, particularly the psychological damage from everything that happens to the idealistic views of the Stalker as he finds himself unable to make others happy: "'This, too, is what Stalker is about: the hero goes through moments of despair when his faith is shaken; but every time he comes to a renewed sense of his vocation to serve people who have lost their hopes and illusions.'" The film departs considerably from the novel. According to an interview with Tarkovsky in 1979, the film has basically nothing in common with the novel except for the two words "Stalker" and "Zone".

Yet, several similarities remain between the novel and the film. In both works, the Zone is guarded by a police or military guard, apparently authorized to use deadly force. The Stalker in both works tests the safety of his path by tossing nuts and bolts tied with scraps of cloth, verifying that gravity is working as usual. A character named Porcupine is a mentor to Stalker. In the novel, frequent visits to the Zone increase the likelihood of abnormalities in the visitor's offspring. In the book, the Stalker's daughter has light hair all over her body, while in the film she is crippled and has psychokinetic abilities. The 'meat grinder', a particularly perilous location, is mentioned in both film and the book. Neither in the novel nor in the film do the women enter the Zone — indeed, the film features a female character who is introduced as wishing to enter the Zone, but who is dismissed by the Stalker prior to departure. Finally, the target of the expedition in both works is a wish-granting device.

In Roadside Picnic, the site was specifically described as the site of alien visitation; the name of the novel derives from a metaphor proposed by a character who compares the visit to a roadside picnic. The closing monologue by the Stalker's wife at the end of the film has no equivalent in the novel. An early draft of the screenplay was published as a novel Stalker, or The Wish Machine, that differs substantially from the finished film.

Shooting
In an interview on the MK2 DVD, the production designer, Rashit Safiullin, recalled that Tarkovsky spent a year shooting all the outdoor scenes. However, when the crew returned to Moscow, they found that the film had been improperly developed and their footage was unusable. The film had been shot on new Kodak 5247 stock with which Soviet laboratories were not very familiar. Even before the film stock problem was discovered, relations between Tarkovsky and Stalker's first cinematographer, Georgy Rerberg, had deteriorated. After seeing the poorly developed material, Tarkovsky fired Rerberg. Safiullin contends that Tarkovsky was so despondent at having to discard all the outdoor work that he wanted to abandon further work on the film.

After the loss of the film stock, the Soviet film boards wanted to shut the film down, but Tarkovsky came up with a solution: he asked to be allowed to make a two-part film, which meant additional deadlines and more funds. Tarkovsky ended up reshooting almost all of the film with a new cinematographer, Alexander Knyazhinsky. According to Safiullin, the finished version of Stalker is completely different from the one Tarkovsky originally shot.

The documentary film Rerberg and Tarkovsky: The Reverse Side of "Stalker" by Igor Mayboroda offers a different interpretation of the relationship between Rerberg and Tarkovsky. Rerberg felt that Tarkovsky was not ready for this script. He told Tarkovsky to rewrite the script in order to achieve a good result. Tarkovsky ignored him and continued shooting. After several arguments, Tarkovsky sent Rerberg home. Ultimately, Tarkovsky shot Stalker three times, consuming over 5000 m of film. People who have seen both the first version shot by Rerberg (as Director of Photography) and the final theatrical release say that they are almost identical. Tarkovsky sent home other crew members in addition to Rerberg, excluding them from the credits, as well.

The central part of the film, in which the characters travel within the Zone, was shot in a few days at two deserted hydro power plants on the Jägala river near Tallinn, Estonia. The shot before they enter the Zone is an old Flora chemical factory in the center of Tallinn, next to the old Rotermann salt storage (now Museum of Estonian Architecture), and the former Tallinn Power Plant, now Tallinn Creative Hub, where a memorial plate of the film was set up in 2008. Some shots within the Zone were filmed in Maardu, next to the Iru Power Plant, while the shot with the gates to the Zone was filmed in Lasnamäe, next to Punane Street behind the Idakeskus. Other shots were filmed near the Tallinn–Narva highway bridge on the Pirita river. A small set was built in Moscow not far from the CHPP-20 thermal power plant for the scene exiting the bar.

Several people involved in the film production, and possibly Tarkovsky himself, died from causes that some crew members attributed to the film's long shooting schedule in toxic locations. Sound designer Vladimir Sharun recalled: "'We were shooting near Tallinn in the area around the small river Jägala with a half-functioning hydroelectric station. Up the river was a chemical plant and it poured out poisonous liquids downstream. There is even this shot in Stalker: snow falling in the summer and white foam floating down the river. In fact it was some horrible poison. Many women in our crew got allergic reactions on their faces. Tarkovsky died from cancer of the right bronchial tube. And Tolya Solonitsyn too. That it was all connected to the location shooting for Stalker became clear to me when Larisa Tarkovskaya died from the same illness in Paris.'"

Soundtrack
The Stalker film score was composed by Eduard Artemyev, who had also composed the scores for Tarkovsky's previous films Solaris and Mirror. For Stalker, Artemyev composed and recorded two different versions of the score. The first score was done with an orchestra alone but was rejected by Tarkovsky. The second score that was used in the final film was created on a synthesizer along with traditional instruments that were manipulated using sound effects.

In the final film score, the boundaries between music and sound were blurred, as natural sounds and music interact to the point where they are indistinguishable. In fact, many of the natural sounds were not production sounds but were created by Artemyev on his synthesizer.

For Tarkovsky, music was more than just a parallel illustration of the visual image. He believed that music distorts and changes the emotional tone of a visual image while not changing the meaning. He also believed that in a film with complete theoretical consistency, music will have no place and that instead music is replaced by sounds. According to Tarkovsky, he aimed at this consistency and moved into this direction in Stalker and Nostalghia.

In addition to the original monophonic soundtrack, the Russian Cinema Council (Ruscico) created an alternative 5.1 surround sound track for the 2001 DVD release. In addition to remixing the mono soundtrack, music and sound effects were removed and added in several scenes. Music was added to the scene where the three are traveling to the Zone on a motorized draisine. In the opening and the final scene Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was removed and in the opening scene in Stalker's house ambient sounds were added, changing the original soundtrack, in which this scene was completely silent except for the sound of a train.

Film score
Initially, Tarkovsky had no clear understanding of the musical atmosphere of the final film and only an approximate idea where in the film the music was to be. Even after he had shot all the material he continued his search for the ideal film score, wanting a combination of Oriental and Western music. In a conversation with Artemyev he explained that he needed music that reflects the idea that although the East and the West can coexist, they are not able to understand each other. One of Tarkovsky's ideas was to perform Western music on Oriental instruments (or vice versa). Artemyev proposed to try this idea with the motet Pulcherrima Rosa by an anonymous 14th century Italian composer dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

In its original form Tarkovsky did not perceive the motet as suitable for the film and asked Artemyev to give it an Oriental sound. Later, Tarkovsky proposed to invite musicians from Armenia and Azerbaijan and to let them improvise on the melody of the motet. A musician was invited from Azerbaijan who played the main melody on a tar based on mugham, accompanied by orchestral background music written by Artemyev. Tarkovsky, who, unusually for him, attended the full recording session, rejected the final result as not what he was looking for.

Rethinking their approach, they finally found the solution in a theme that would create a state of inner calmness and inner satisfaction, or as Tarkovsky said "space frozen in a dynamic equilibrium". Artemyev knew about a musical piece from Indian classical music where a prolonged and unchanged background tone is performed on a tanpura. As this gave Artemyev the impression of frozen space, he used this inspiration and created a background tone on his synthesizer similar to the background tone performed on the tanpura. The tar then improvised on the background sound, together with a flute as a European, Western instrument. To mask the obvious combination of European and Oriental instruments he passed the foreground music through the effect channels of his SYNTHI 100 synthesizer. These effects included modulating the sound of the flute and lowering the speed of the tar, so that what Artemyev called "the life of one string" could be heard. Tarkovsky was amazed by the result, especially liking the sound of the tar, and used the theme without any alterations in the film.

Sound design
The title sequence is accompanied by Artemyev's main theme. The opening sequence of the film showing Stalker's room is mostly silent. Periodically one hears what could be a train. The sound becomes louder and clearer over time until the sound and the vibrations of objects in the room give a sense of a train's passing by without the train being visible. This aural impression is quickly subverted by the muffled sound of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. The source of this music is unclear, thus setting the tone for the blurring of reality in the film. For this part of the film Tarkovsky was also considering music by Richard Wagner or the Marseillaise.

In an interview with Tonino Guerra in 1979, Tarkovsky said that he wanted: "'...music that is more or less popular, that expresses the movement of the masses, the theme of humanity's social destiny...But this music must be barely heard beneath the noise, in a way that the spectator is not aware of it.'"

The journey into the Zone on a motorized rail car features a disconnection between the visual image and the sound. The presence of the rail car is registered only through the clanking sound of the wheels on the tracks. Neither the rail car nor the scenery passing by is shown, since the camera is focused on the faces of the characters. This disconnection draws the audience into the inner world of the characters and transforms the physical journey into an inner journey. This effect on the audience is reinforced by Artemyev's synthesizer effects, which make the clanking wheels sound less and less natural as the journey progresses. When the three arrive in the Zone initially, it appears to be silent. Only after some time, and only slightly audibly can one hear the sound of a distant river, the sound of the blowing wind, or the occasional cry of an animal. These sounds grow richer and more audible while the Stalker makes his first venture into the Zone, as if the sound draws him towards the Zone. The sparseness of sounds in the Zone draws attention to specific sounds, which, as in other scenes, are largely disconnected from the visual image. Animals can be heard in the distance but are never shown. A breeze can be heard, but no visual reference is shown. This effect is reinforced by occasional synthesizer effects which meld with the natural sounds and blur the boundaries between artificial and alien sounds and the sounds of nature.

During the journey in the Zone, the sound of water becomes more and more prominent, which, combined with the visual image, presents the Zone as a drenched world. In an interview Tarkovsky dismissed the idea that water has a symbolic meaning in his films, saying that there was so much rain in his films because it is always raining in Russia. In another interview, on the film Nostalghia, however, he said "Water is a mysterious element, a single molecule of which is very photogenic. It can convey movement and a sense of change and flux." Emerging from the tunnel called the "meat grinder" by the Stalker, they arrive at the entrance of their destination, the room. Here, as in the rest of the film, sound is constantly changing and not necessarily connected to the visual image. The journey in the Zone ends with the three sitting in the room, silent, with no audible sound. When the sound resumes, it is again the sound of water but with a different timbre, softer and gentler, as if to give a sense of catharsis and hope. The transition back to the world outside the Zone is supported by sound. While the camera still shows a pool of water inside the Zone, the audience begins to hear the sound of a train and Ravel's Boléro, reminiscent of the opening scene. The soundscape of the world outside the Zone is the same as before, characterized by train wheels, foghorns of a ship and train whistles. The film ends as it began, with the sound of a train passing by, accompanied by the muffled sound of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, this time the Ode to Joy from the final moments of the symphony. As in the rest of the film the disconnect between the visual image and the sound leaves the audience unclear whether the sound is real or an illusion.

Box office
Stalker sold 4.3 million tickets in the Soviet Union.

Critical response
Upon its release the film's reception was less than favorable. Officials at Goskino, a government group otherwise known as the State Committee for Cinematography, were critical of the film. On being told that Stalker should be faster and more dynamic, Tarkovsky replied:"The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts."

The Goskino representative then stated that he was trying to give the point of view of the audience. Tarkovsky supposedly retorted: "I am only interested in the views of two people: one is called Bresson and one called Bergman."

More recently, reviews of the film have been highly positive. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Stalker is rated at 100% based on 43 reviews with an average rating of 8.6/10. Its critical consensus states, "Stalker is a complex, oblique parable that draws unforgettable images and philosophical musings from its sci-fi/thriller setting." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". It earned a place in the British Film Institute's "100 Greatest Films of All Time" poll conducted for Sight & Sound in September 2012. The group's critics listed Stalker at joint #29. Directors ranked it at #30. In The Guardian, Geoff Dyer described the film as "synonymous both with cinema's claims to high art and a test of the viewer's ability to appreciate it as such". Critic Derek Adams of the Time Out Film Guide has compared Stalker to Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, also released in 1979, and argued that "as a journey to the heart of darkness" Stalker looks "a good deal more persuasive than Coppola's." Slant Magazine reviewer Nick Schager has praised the film as an "endlessly pliable allegory about human consciousness".

In 2018, the film was voted the 49th greatest non-English-language film of all time in a poll by BBC Culture involving 209 critics in 43 countries.

Awards and nominations
The film was awarded the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Audience Jury Award – Special Mention at Fantasporto, Portugal.

Home media

 * In East Germany, DEFA did a complete German dubbed version of the movie which was shown in cinema in 1982. This was used by Icestorm Entertainment on a DVD release, but was heavily criticized for its lack of the original language version, subtitles and had an overall bad image quality.
 * RUSCICO produced a version for the international market containing the film on two DVDs with remastered audio and video. It contains the original Russian audio in an enhanced Dolby Digital 5.1 remix as well as the original mono version. The DVD also contains subtitles in 13 languages and interviews with cameraman Alexander Knyazhinsky, painter and production designer Rashit Safiullin and composer Eduard Artemyev.
 * Criterion Collection released a remastered edition DVD and Blu-Ray on 17 July 2017. Included in the special features is an interview with film critic Geoff Dyer, author of the book Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room.

Cultural events

 * The film heavily influenced the Cacophony Society, which began in 1986 in the San Francisco Bay Area and which organized "Zone Trips" for participants.
 * The first burning of a wooden, symbolic man at Black Rock Desert, Nevada, occurred on "Zone Trip Number 4" in 1990. This occasion evolved into an enormous annual festival of arts, music, culture called Burning Man.

Film and television

 * The French filmmaker Chris Marker used Tarkovsky's concept of "The Zone" from the film for his film, Sans Soleil (1983).
 * Stalker, the Russian International Human Rights Film Festival, was named after the film at its founding in 1995.
 * The 2012 film Chernobyl Diaries also involves a tour guide, similar to a stalker, giving groups "extreme tours" of the Chernobyl area.
 * Jonathan Nolan, co-creator of Westworld (2016–2022), cites Stalker as an influence on his work for the HBO series.
 * In the 2017 film Atomic Blonde, the protagonist Lorraine Broughton goes into an East Berlin theater showing Stalker.
 * Annihilation (2018), a science fiction psychological horror film written and directed by Alex Garland, although based on the eponymous novel by Jeff VanderMeer, for some critics seems to have obvious similarities with the Roadside Picnic and Stalker.    However, such notions prompted the author of the Annihilation novel, upon which the movie is based, to state that his story "is 100% NOT a tribute to Picnic/Stalker" via his official Twitter account.

Literature

 * In 2012, the English writer Geoff Dyer published Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room drawing together his personal observations as well as critical insights about the film and the experience of watching it.

Music

 * In the song "Dissidents" from the 1984 album The Flat Earth by Thomas Dolby, the bridge between two verses includes a narrative from the film.
 * The track "The Avenue" by British group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark samples the sound of a train in motion, recorded directly from the film. Band member and songwriter Andy McCluskey refers to the film as, “One of the most haunting pieces of film and music that I ever saw". The track features as a B-side on the group's 1984 hit single Locomotion.
 * Stalker was the inspiration for the 1995 album of the same title by Robert Rich and B. Lustmord, which has been noted for its eerie soundscapes and dark ambience.
 * Ambient music duo Stars of the Lid sampled the ending of Stalker in their song "Requiem for Dying Mothers, Part 2", released on their 2001 album The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid.
 * The Prodigy's music video "Breathe" is heavily influenced by film's visuals and cinematography.
 * The lyrics of the 2013 album Pelagial by the progressive metal band The Ocean are inspired by the film.
 * The Vocaloid music series Parties Are For Losers by producer Ferry is heavily influenced by both the novel Roadside Picnic and Stalker, having utilized the concept of the Zone.
 * The 2024 song "Tarkovski" by New York band Bodega refers to "The Zone." The title is "a pun on the famous Russian director and skiing," according to vocalist Ben Hozie.

Video games

 * In 2007, the Ukrainian video-game developer GSC Game World published S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, an open-world, first-person shooter loosely based on both the film, the original novel, and the real life Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster. The game was a critical and commercial success, selling over 15 million copies through 2021 and leading two sequels set in a similar environment.
 * The entire Metro book trilogy and video game series is partly influenced by the novel Roadside Picnic, on which the film was based.
 * Pacific Drive is inspired by the novel Roadside Picnic, on which the film was based.

title: Stalker (1979 film)


text:
Talk:Self-publishing

Unsorted text
It seems that this page has not undergone any serious revisions since 2003. Technology, especially the Internet, has changed the opportunities available for authors looking to self-publish. I broke the section titled "printing and production quality" into multiple sections. The original section covered printing techniques at the beginning and ended with obstacles to self-publishers such as marketing and advertising. So, I broke that off into a section entitled "Obstacles" and I pulled some of the printing and production quality section out and integrated it into the proper topic under "Types of Self-Publishing," a breakdown of the various types of self-publishing, including "True Self-Publishing," "Print on Demand," and "Subsidy Publishing" and the previous entry of "Vanity Publishing."

I think this is a good start to looking deeper into what self-publishing means to people today, and all explores various types of self-publishing. I don't think an entry can be complete without an updated look into how the Internet and technology affect the self-pub. industry.

As I said, this is a start and will need updating and input from varied sources to be a complete entry. Jamesmetzger2 (talk) 23:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The section on Printing and Production Quality needs to be reworked. It begins talking about typesetting and gets into POD and difficulties faced by self-publishers including marketing. Difficulties faced by self publishers can be a section in itself. Perhaps a section on POD publishing is in order -- it has become more and more popular. Some of the services that POD companies offer can be explored. A section on the history of self-publishing, talking about some of the authors mentioned in the Self-Published Best Sellers section may also be worthwhile. Jamesmetzger2 (talk) 06:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

This article is somewhat POV at present, I've self-published my own stuff and whilst I may not be JK Rowlings I've steadily sold to an audience in the vegan and permaculture markets (and not even used wiki for publicity ends!). There's more to self-publishing than 'vanity presses' (like not wanting to be beholden to any sort of editorial control) and I resent the insinuation that one can either be 'published' or self-deluded. For me self-publishing represents a 'third way'. I can be creatively free, make a modest income, and spend my evenings in ways that are more stimulating than watching EastEnders ... Here's my website, make up your own minds; (oops what was that about not using wiki for self promotion???) quercus robur 01:15, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * 207.44.148.201 was User:Jstanley01 who forgot to log in. With the advent of personal computers and the internet, the 'third way' you talk about has become much more viable than in the olden days of typewriters and photocopy machines. Just look at what the 'third way' is doing to the music industry. That said, looking at self-publishing as a whole, I believe your success still represents a statistically-rate exception.

 * As far as POV, if it ain't NPOV, correct it. That's what Wikipedia is all about. Recognize, though, that writing about a subject with a perfectly NPOV can appear to have a biased POV to someone with a stake in the subject. ô ¿ ô  01:37, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

 * Good job on the changes. ô ¿ ô  02:10, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

This article fails to note the prevalance of self-publishing in the past. In former centuries, the first edition of many books that are now regarded as "classics" were self-published. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:13, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That's really interesting, Daniel. Can you add that statement, with some examples, to the article? -- The Anome 16:15, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Indeedy. there is alot more that can be added- please do so! Weren't the original writings of William Blake, William Morris, etc self published? (I'm not sure enough of this to add it myself). self publishing is a fine & venerable tradition, which is perhaps why I saw red at first when it was originally dismissed as 'vanity publishing'... Also stuff on the Digger tracts, the writings of Abneizer Coppe, etc, etc?? quercus robur 17:44, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
 * I know that Blake's were, but I'm unfamiliar with Morris. Those who have read Blake's work as only poems on a black-and-white page don't know Blake at all; the unique method of engraving he invented and the integration of pictures and writing in his beautiful and extremely subtle engravings are the real Blake.  --Daniel C. Boyer 16:40, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the source for the "Self-published best-sellers" is Famous Authors who have self published their own books, part of an advertising website for Daphna Moore and her self publishing seminars and private conferences. However, I cannot find any source that will corroborate. To the contrary, I find many sources contradicting some of those examples. Should the whole section be deleted? Or should I only delete the authors and items that I KNOW are wrong? Kindofdavish (talk) 13:33, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

How about self-published/released music? Is there an article on that, or should it go in here?Vicki Rosenzweig 17:50, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * it's certainly pertinent, esp the post punk independent record labels boom and the DIY punk ethic (which informs my own attitudes to self publishing BTW). A paragraph could certainly be integrated, or at least links added in the 'see also' area. Not tonight by me though, I'm off for a barbie in the garden with mucho lager and rum drinking in store.... quercus robur 17:56, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

---

Until Edison and his dog came along, all music, except for sheet music, was "self published." You just sat down at your harpsichord and played for whoever was over that night for supper. Once tunes became a marketable commodity -- to be recorded, packaged, and distributed -- music began to be dominated by big companies, the way print had long been dominated (not to mention that the proportion of the population which learned to play musical instruments dropped sharply).

As far as print: until Gutenberg came along, and with him translations of the Bible and other works in the vernacular, most people remained illiterate. The earliest "self-published" works were often Protestant diatribes, at first against Catholicism, and then against one another (sorta like Wikipedia NPOV disputes).

With the rise of print, came the rise of literacy, and with the rise of literacy, came a rise in the demand for published works, and with the rise in demand for published works, came the flowering of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, ongoing to this day. The publishing industry was organized to meet that demand.

As the article notes, with the advent of PCs (that's "personal computers," Ethyl, NOT the "politically correct") for production, and the Internet for promotion and distribution, self-publishing has become much easier. However, it looks to me like the practice is making its biggest inroads, not in print publishing, but in the music industry. If true, it's probably due to the fact that there are a heck of a lot more good musicians out there than there are good writers.

As far as researching and writing about this...of course, I'm busy with other stuff too...like dissecting the fractals in my belly button-lint -- a surrealist's endeavor sure. ô ¿ ô 20:08, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)

 * Jstanley said; However, it looks to me like the practice is making its biggest inroads, not in print publishing, but in the music industry. If true, it's probably due to the fact that there are a heck of a lot more good musicians out there than there are good writers.

 * This statement seesm to make the assumption that the aim of every writer is to be validated by being published by a 'real' publisher and to sell bucketloads of books to the 'mainstream' punters (whoever they are...). maybe yer average local allotment historian, situationist prankster, anarchist ranter, permaculture plotter, gnostic visionary, old lawnmower collector and renovator is quite content to address their specific audience in a way which is direct and unmediated and that has it's niche- it's not to do with quality of writing but what you want to say and to whom. Are you saying that the average published Mills and Boon novel is of a higher quality than, say, the well researched history of Rottingdean allotments (yes, there is such a book, I own a copy, and found it fascinating rerading), simply by dint of the fact that the Mills & Boon book is published by a recognised publisher? Maybe the aims and objectives of the allotment book are not the same as those as the M & B writer....

 * Is the music of Queen or Status Quo more artistically valid than that of say, Spontaneous Music Ensemble simply because they shift more units? quercus robur 22:20, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Oh, I was talking about "good" in the sense that there are a sufficient number of people willing to go to the effort and expense of procuring someone's music or books, that her/his efforts can be counted as something other than mere narcissistic doodlings.

I'm not telling you that "Mills and Boon" (whoever they are) are "good." It's the people who buy, read, and enjoy their novels that are telling you that. If those novels are just "banal entertainment," okay. But who are you to say that a little banal entertainment now and then is a bad thing?

Don't fool yourself. It's the enjoyment you, and people like you, derive from niche works that gives them their niches.

Be advised, I was talking about "good," not "artistically valid." For me, dissecting the fractals in my navel lint is an entirely valid artistic endeavor, even if no one else agrees. Methinks, though, that the joy of making music or literature ought to be the joy of having someone else listen or read, and like it.

That's the whole point, ain't it? Then again, I'm just the old-fashioned type who prefers making love over just "choking my chicken." ô ¿ ô 00:40, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Jtdrl, where abouts in the world exactly are the terms 'vanity publishing' and 'self publishing' synonomous? Vanity publishing may be one form of self publishing, but I can't accept that the traditions of fanzine production, samizdat, come under the vanity publishing heading. Peter Finch's 'How To publish Yourself' lists a number of options for the self-publisher, of which Vanity publishing is but one, and about which he unequivocacbly states To be avoided at all costs because basically they will publish any old shit and leave you stuck with 500 unsalable books. He also lists 'private presses', 'independant publishers', small presses and subsidy publishers as options for the self publisher. quercus robur 14:25, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

quercus robur 14:15, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I have a lot of contacts in the book trade (I used to work in it and now it publishes my stuff). They are equated I know in Ireland and in dealing the UK reps who were visiting Ireland they use both terms interchangably. That may be because with the appearance of DP self-publishing is now a more viable option, it moving into the niche that was called vanity publishing. My guess is that s-p is effectively taking over VP, with VP as a term evolving to have a broader new meaning that heretofore. That is just my theory from my experience of publishers and the book trade and their usage of language. VP as a specific niche, where a printer prints text to order, is less in demand now that authors can use DP to do their own text, reducing costs and so making it possible for them to have very small print runs. It is all, like the entire book trade right now, a rapidly changing area. FearÉIREANN 14:57, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Kat's View
This article needs work and some refactoring.

I am uncomfortable with the use of "Vanity Publishing" as a synonym.

 * We should be careful about the use of this phrase as it is more of an attempt to read the motives of the self-publisher than a neutral description of the phenomenon. The motives probably range all over the map.  --Daniel C. Boyer 13:54, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * My point entirely Daniel and expressed most succinctly. I'm very happy with kat's editing and refactoring though which positions Vanity publishing as but one manifestation of the motives/manifestations of self-publishing. quercus robur 19:32, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

There is a fair amount of self-published material that is not inherently self-aggrandizing. Willys World and Salmagundie are both self-published magazines, yet have moved well beyond the 'zine moniker and are published more as a service than because of vanity. In books, there are any number of locally significant books on an area's history that are self-published yet not self-aggrandizing. There are probably better examples.

The article dances around the distinction between self-printed and self-published work. This should be called out and discussed more clearly.

"Death of the Dream", for example, is published by a county historical society, iirc, that commissioned the writing and photography that it contains. Inasmuch as that organization has published little else, this volume might best be considered self-published. Yet, it was printed in considerable quantity and has printing, binding, and overall production values comparable to any other "coffee table" book. Self-published; but not self-printed.

 * This is a really bizarre definition of "self-published" that reverses the actual definition. Whether or not something is "self-published" does not depend on the publishing record of the publisher other than that book, just whether or not that particular book was "self-published."  --Daniel C. Boyer 13:27, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

And finally, the article doesn't address the distinction (or lack of one?) between self-published books and such things as political and religious pamphlets.

Kat 15:57, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * I'd welcome your inputs Kat, this is a subject I feel strongly about, I've self published stuff but I don't think I'm particularly 'vain', but decided to step back from this for a few days at least to get a better perspective on what needs to be said here. Your inputs may well help to make me feel less embattled over this issue, which is how I'm tending to feel at the moment... quercus robur 16:08, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No-cost self publishing
In sharp contrast to the 'vulture press' variety of vanity press outfits that charge 100% of the cost to the author, a new bunch of companies like lulu.com has sprung up that charge the author nothing and the author retains 100% of the rights. All the costs are folded into the sales price of the books, which are printed on demand as they're ordered.

Another thing, which has gone pretty much nowhere, is the point of sale book machine. The idea is to allow a bookstore to have a machine that produces books on demand, with a selection of paper and binding grades. If a buyer wants a cheap paperback to read once, she can get it without having to wait weeks or months for the more expensive hardcover to sell down its print run enough for the publisher to start on the softcover. At the same time, a book collector can get the utmost in acid-free heavy paper with a hardcover, from the same machine.

The cost for the machine would be a large chunk of change, but a bookstore with one would save big by not having to keep hundreds or thousands of books in stock, and the worst thing that can happen too a book store, selling out of a popular book, would never happen.

Library of Congress
I have just removed two copies of a section regarding the Library of Congress's supposed "dismissal" of self-published items as "not really books." The section fell somewhere between opinionated argument and borderline vandalism. Aside from being poorly sourced (the Library of Congress effort referred to did not address publishing in general, but was only a guide to a limited range of forthcoming titles intended to be used by libraries in considering new acquisitions. Aside from self-published titles, it also excluded certain textbooks, reissued books, mass market paperbacks (whether original or reprint), travel guides, electronic books, and other categories.   The presentation of the LOC activity in the article was highly opinionated, if not downright inaccurate, and failed to present the limited information it contained in a manner that met WP:NPOV requirements.  The only relevant information one could infer from the sources is that very few self-published books are acquired by libraries; assuming that inference to be accurate, it should be stated concisely and sourced appropriately, rather than harangued in multiple sections. Minos P. Dautrieve (talk) 21:34, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Order?
I noticed that "Vanity publishing" is mentioned several times before it is defined. Perhaps "Vanity Publishing" should be moved above "true self-publishing" because all of the types below reference it.

Spandox (talk) 17:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I made the change based on lack of objection Spandox (talk) 21:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes Sunny0171 (talk) 03:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Motives for self-publishing
I would love these to be a more neutral tone. Here some some of my suggestions

Commercial publishers must be confident of sales of several thousand copies to take on a book. A book may not have this potential for many reasons:

fine fine This one is sort of mean
 * author wants complete control over the books outcome, database, sales and customers.
 * overall low publishing cost (Can be as low as $400 for those on a budget)
 * author lacks important literary skills

fine
 * topic is obscure

How about: Author doesn't agree with editorial changes or censorship
 * author refuses editorial input

fine fine fine fine
 * author is unknown and does not have substantial resume
 * author would prefer to publish content independently
 * topic is of interest only in a small geographic area or only to a handful of people, such as a family reading about its own genealogy
 * content is controversial or offensive enough that publishers do not wish to be associated with it

Why not separate it into two categories?
 * Author cannot get published by traditional publishers
 * Author is unknown
 * Topic is obscure
 * Topic is controversial
 * Topic is only of interest to a small geographic are small group of people
 * Writing, style, or genré was rejected

 * Author desires complete artistic freedom
 * Author does not agree with editorial changes a publisher would make
 * Author wants complete control over the books outcome, database, sales and customers
 * Overall low publishing cost
 * Author would prefer to publish content independently

Spandox (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Especially interesting is the category of 'Author is unknown', implying that an author must be known to the public in order to publish his/her first book. Another reason, but not mentioned, is the age at first publication. Publishers want authors to be very young, because the publicity campaign to turn the author into a marketable celebrity is costly; so they want to ensure that these costs yield over several decades, which is kind of impossible if the new author is over 50. So the age factor is huge.

For authors who are not in the public eye for some reason, and who are older than 20 years, self-publishing is the only outlet. While figures are not available officially, some reports say more books are self-published than trad. published. Most self-publishing authors nowadays did not even bother with submissions prior to publishing. 95 % of books from trad. publishers get pulped anyway, which are those 95 % who cannot attract a review in the newspaper. It is important for the public to know that self-publishing is not a judgement on quality; it simply means that people over twenty, who are neither celebrities nor academics do not fit the requirements of the trad publishing industry. There are also more books written than there is space on the shop shelves.

The industry has changed, books are seen as an extension to the movie industry, the music industry, sports, political argument, academia, the newspapers, and yellow press - or they must be young, so they can be marketed as the new sensation. Any book or author who is not in one of these slots, must stand on his/her own two feet. 144.136.176.116 (talk) 04:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Editorial control - economic control
The issue of giving up editorial control has less impact on the writer than signing over economic control. The publishing houses have more experience than the individual author and unless they insert too many clichés or shift the fundamentals this is more of a sideline issue which I don't believe drives many people to self-publishing. What has a lot more influence on a writer's/ a book's success is that the signature on the dotted line means giving up economic control.

When a book is published by a publisher in one country, normally the country where the author resides, it could well never go further than being sold in that one country. 'Sister' companies of the publisher in other countries are independent entities, despite having the same name, who make their own decisions on what they release in their territory. Giving an Australian example: The print run is normally 2,500 to 3,000 books. Nearly all Australian authors would look to expand their market into the other English speaking countries, but if the catalogues of the overseas sister companies are 'full', then the trad-published Australian author is excluded from approaching other companies and is left with the low figures of the Australian market. Some books have truly international content and could so easily 'get stuck' in a small market in a small country. After several years the rights might fall back to the author, but by then he/she might have undertaken a career change to pay the bills.

With self-publishing, the author reaches a global audience immediately, although of course the penetration of each market is not as good as it would be as part of a solid publicity campaign from a publishing house. Authors have to weigh up where their priorities lie, but the increasing success of self-publishing in all media plus book shop closures suggest that the balance is shifting. For self-publishers, book shop closures are actually a good thing as they break the market dominance of the publishing industry who has so little room for new writers. 144.136.176.128 (talk) 05:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Vanity Press
is listed first as a "not to be confused with [self publishing]" and then as a "type of self publishing". I don't have an opinion as to which of these it is but am pretty sure that it can't be both.Originalname37 (talk) 16:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm visiting the talk page to make the exact same comment. My impression is that someone in the "self-publishing" industry is engaging in a bit of PR.  The distinction from a vanity press eludes me. Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 07:08, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Although I know nothing of the inner workings of "true" self publishing or "vanity press," they definitely have different meanings to me that I think the article comes reasonably close to explaining. I know several people who have self published business books.  They act like a publisher - they may hire an editor or at least an editorial assistant, they may hire a book designer or graphic artist, they find a printer, they handle the marketing, etc...  They typical vanity press, on the other hand, is essentially a turnkey operation which provides most or all of the services, for a fee, that a commercial publisher provides when it is publishing a book for its own list. I do agree that the notation at the top of the page is itself confusing.  All of the articles listed at the top of the page seem to fall under the broad category of self publishing and are better handled by dropping them to the "See also" section.  I will do that and see if anyone objects. -- DS1953 talk  15:31, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello! Sometime back in the 1980s, I submitted a book of poetry written by me alone, to some publishers. I only got two responses. I can't recall the name of the second company now, who still has the manuscript I hope, but the other one, I believe their actual company name is, "Vanity Press". If that is an actial company name, shouldn't the people here be very careful about using "vanity press" in the manner that you've been doing, lest people confuse those comments with the actual reputation of that company? By the way, I do know that the other company's name starts with an "E" at least. LeoStarDragon1 (talk) 05:38, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

More on Motives for self-publishing
Within this section, reasons authors cannot publish traditionally include "Author is unknown" and "Topic is controversial." Since unknown ("debut") authors are published regularly, as are controversial books, it's unclear that either of these things are barriers, by themselves, to publishing traditionally. I've added a "citation needed" to each, but if no citations are available wonder if they ought to be removed entirely. 64.134.226.130 (talk) 22:12, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

 * They're both issues, because they both affect the sales of the books. Publishers ultimately want things that sell.
 * An unknown author does not have a ready-made fan base (people that bought the previous book and might by more inclined to buy a subsequent one). The marketing requires more work.  (NB that these are relative barriers, not absolute:  The statement here is "given two essentially identical books, the publisher's going to pick the established author over the newbie", not "newbies never, ever, ever get published".)
 * A controversial topic might not have a market behind it. For example, a political book called New Evidence on 9/11:  Bush Did It might be controversial and still have a market; by contrast, a political book called Convicted Child Rapists are Good Adoptive Parents would certainly be controversial, but it would probably not have a profitable market.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:12, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

What?
The opening paragraph, especially the opening sentence, is false and I suspect one of the proponents in the self-pub/vanity press business slanted the article. As is clear from the comments above, the article once equated forms of self-publishing with vanity publishing, but now denies the association. Wikipedia articles are not supposed to be sales promotional pieces and I intend to correct this.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 01:39, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

 * I agree that there are problems with the lead, if only because there is are inconsistencies with the body of the article and, indeed, the lead itself. I've removed the problem lines, but much of this article is unsourced, so I think we should be looking at how to improve it as a whole as well. - Bilby (talk) 02:07, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

 * Good, Bilby! It annoys me when a company says one thing and means the opposite.

 * --UnicornTapestry (talk) 04:03, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Electronic publishing?
How about publishing directly to Kindle for example? Hcobb (talk) 21:37, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Would love to, but they discriminate against non-US authors. 144.136.176.82 (talk) 04:22, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

 * Hcobb, Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the  link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Kids
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/us/young-writers-find-a-devoted-publisher-thanks-mom-and-dad.html on kids self-publishing books might be interesting to add to thus article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Blanking
I agree that all this needs decent sources, but that's a lot of blanking, and I suspect that at least the basic information about who is responsible for marketing (e.g., that if a self-published book is going to get marketed, then the authors are the ones who have to do it, since there is no publisher) and the general advantages and disadvantages is not only easily WP:Verifiable, but some of it might even be WP:BLUE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:46, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Music
Please, add some informations about music self-publishing. --167.57.7.158 (talk) 23:49, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Unnecessary images
This article has a number of unnecessary images, especially in the latter section. In fact, some of them are used only symbolically! – Laundry Pizza 03  ( d c̄ ) 03:27, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Hey if you can find better images please swap them in to keep the article from becoming one long swath of text.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 11:00, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Style
This article is obviously not written like an encyclopedia article. Any suggestions on how to improve it? – Laundry Pizza 03  ( d c̄ ) 03:36, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Contributors are free to rewrite articles as they see fit; changes which keep the information and the references will be fine with me.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 09:20, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

CreateSpace
As of end of last year 2018, Createspace ceased to exist and was absorbed into Amazon's KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) I will remove segment https://writersweekly.com/angela-desk/createspace-vs-kdp-print-merger-lots-of-complaints Veryscarymary (talk) 16:48, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for updating.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:59, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Is publishing through amazon kindle really self publishing?
The article presents publishing through amazon as self publishing, but wouldn't amazon be the publisher here? What am I missing?--TZubiri (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's self-publishing. Amazon is the printing press, the distributor, the royalty collector, but you (are you thinking about self-publishing a book?) would be the real publisher. You've chosen to put your ideas out there, not Amazon.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 11:35, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Additionally, I'd just like to mention that your question is a good one, and maybe something should be added to the text to possibly address it? The way I've been thinking about it is this: to publish means to make a literary work public, to "put it out there", it's as if there's a crowd, and somebody gets on a box and shouts out, "hey everybody look at this". That, for me, is the essence of publishing. Now the traditional model, with an author and a traditional publisher, was that the author created the work, and the publisher was like the person on the box telling everybody to check out this work. These traditional publishers were both marketers and printing presses (two separate functions) that is, a typical publisher was a book marketer as well as a physical producer of printed books; but the traditional publishing house could still market the book while outsourcing the printing to a private facility, and the traditional publisher would still be the 'publisher'. Now, when self-publishing has come along, the author is both the creator of the literary work and the marketer, in effect the publisher, since the author is telling the public to pay attention to this new work. And Amazon, in the new model, is the printing press and distributor -- but not the 'publisher' per se. Does this explanation ring right?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:59, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Web fiction
There is a need to add some discussion of web fiction here. Rwood128 (talk) 12:45, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Self-publishing


text:
Green Party of Canada

The Green Party of Canada (Parti vert du Canada) is a federal political party in Canada, founded in 1983 with a focus on green politics.

The Green Party is currently the fifth largest party in the House of Commons by seat count. It elected its first member of Parliament (MP), leader Elizabeth May, in the 2011 election, winning in the Saanich—Gulf Islands. In the 2019 election, the party expanded its caucus to three. In the 2021 election, the party fell to two seats.

Elizabeth May was the party leader from 2006 to 2019, and again from 19 November 2022 to present. The deputy leader is Rainbow Eyes.

The Green Party is founded on six principles, including ecological wisdom, non-violence, social justice, sustainability, participatory democracy, and respect for diversity.

History
About two months before the 1980 federal election, eleven candidates, mostly from ridings in the Atlantic provinces, issued a joint press release declaring that they were running on a common platform. It called for a transition to a non-nuclear, conserver society. Although they ran as independents, they unofficially used the name "Small Party" as part of their declaration of unity, a reference to the "small is beautiful" philosophy of E. F. Schumacher. This was the most substantial early attempt to answer the call for an ecologically oriented Canadian political party. A key organizer (and one of the candidates) was Elizabeth May, who later became leader of the Greens in 2006.

The Green Party of Canada was founded at a conference held at Carleton University in Ottawa in 1983. Under its first leader, Trevor Hancock, the party ran 60 candidates in the 1984 Canadian federal election.

The Quebec wing hosted the 1990 Canadian Greens conference in Montreal. Soon after, Canada's constitutional problems interfered; as a result, many Quebec candidates abandoned the Greens in favour of a Quebec sovereigntist party, the Bloc Québécois. There were only six Green candidates from Quebec in the 1993 election. In the spring of 1996, although the hopes of electing a representative to the BC legislature proved premature, Andy Shadrack in the interior of the province received over 11% of the vote. Overall, the party's proportion of the popular vote surged to a new high. Shadrack was also the most popular Green candidate in the 1997 federal election, scoring over 6% of the popular vote in West Kootenay—Okanagan.

Joan Russow years
British Columbia's Joan Russow became leader of the Green Party of Canada on 13 April 1997. Russow won 52% of the ballots cast in the 1997 leadership race, surpassing Ontario's Jim Harris (39%) and Rachelle Small (8%). Immediately upon attaining the leadership, Russow was plunged into a federal general election. Russow's campaign in 1997 set a number of important precedents. The 1997 federal election was the first campaign in which the Greens conducted a national leader's tour, presented a national platform and a bilingual campaign. Previous campaigns, due in part to the party's few resources and, in part, to the party's constitutional straitjacket, had been characterized by policy and spokespeople operating, at best, province-by-province and, at worst, riding-by-riding. In her own riding of Victoria, Russow received just shy of 3000 votes and 6% of the popular vote.

In 1998, the party adopted a rule that forbids membership in any other federal political party. This was intended to prevent the party from being taken over. A small number of Greens who advocate the more cooperative approach to legislation objected to the rule not to hold cross-memberships, a tool they occasionally employed.

Since its inception, the party has been developing as an organization, expanding its membership and improving its showing at the polls. In the 2000 federal election, the party fielded 111 candidates, up from 78 in 1997.

Candidates were not run in Newfoundland and Labrador, as a result of ongoing divisions over Joan Russow's refusal to endorse the Green candidate in an earlier St. John's West by-election. (The candidate in question supported the seal hunt and mining development, as most locals did.) This caused much uncertainty and friction between Newfoundland's Terra Nova Green Party Association and the Green Party leader as the party gradually adapted to the realities of functioning as a true national party rather than a disorganized federation of local activists.

The conflicts left Russow isolated and alienated from most members of the party. Volunteer efforts were substantially absorbed in provincial campaigns between 2001 and 2003, and the federal party became dormant between elections, as was typical in the past. Chris Bradshaw served the party as interim leader from 2001 to February 2003. During his term, the party ended its sharing of office and staff with the Ontario party, establishing its own office in the national capital of Ottawa.

Russow left the party in 2001 and later criticized the Green Party for not following their policies. She re-joined the party in 2020 to support Dimitri Lascaris' campaign for the Green Party leadership.

Breakthrough under Jim Harris

In February 2003, Jim Harris, in his second bid for the leadership, defeated John Grogan of Valemount, British Columbia, and Jason Crummey. Crummey was originally from Newfoundland and involved with Newfoundland and Labrador Terra Nova Greens.

During the 2004 federal election, the Green Party of Canada became the fourth federal political party ever to run candidates in all the ridings. When the ballots were counted, the Green Party secured 4.3 percent of the popular vote, thereby surpassing the 2 percent threshold required for party financing under new Elections Canada rules.

Momentum continued to build around the Green Party of Canada and in the 2006 federal election the Green Party again ran 308 candidates and increased its share of the popular vote to 4.5 percent, once again securing federal financing as a result.

The party's 2006 election campaign was disrupted by allegations made by Matthew Pollesell, the party's former assistant national organizer, that Harris had not filed a proper accounting of money spent during his 2004 leadership campaign, as required by law. Pollesell issued a request that Elections Canada investigate. Pollesell and another former party member, Gretchen Schwarz, were subsequently warned by the party's legal counsel to retract allegations they had made or face a possible legal action. Dana Miller, who served in the party's shadow cabinet with responsibility for human-rights issues, made public her earlier complaints that the party has violated election law and its own constitution and has also asked for an Elections Canada investigation. Miller had been expelled from the party after filing a complaint within the party in April.

Some opponents of Harris's leadership of the Green Party formed the rival Peace and Ecology Party, which presumably disbanded after he stepped down as leader.

Arrival of Elizabeth May

A leadership vote was held at the party's August 2006 convention. On 24 April 2006, Jim Harris announced his intention not to stand for re-election as party leader. Three candidates officially entered the leadership race: David Chernushenko, Elizabeth May, and Jim Fannon. May won the leadership with 65% of the vote on the first ballot.

On 22 October 2006, Elizabeth May announced she would run in the federal by-election to be held on 27 November 2006, in London North Centre, Ontario. She finished second behind the Liberal candidate, but garnered 26% of the popular vote.

Even though they had never held a seat yet, Elizabeth May's Green Party began to receive more mainstream media attention on other party policy not directly related to the environment – for example, supporting labour rights and poppy legalization in Afghanistan.

On 30 August 2008, Vancouver area MP Blair Wilson became the first-ever Green member of Parliament, after sitting for nearly a year of the 39th Canadian Parliament as an independent. He had been a Liberal MP but stepped down voluntarily from the caucus earlier in the Parliament after anonymous allegations of campaign finance irregularities, most of which he was later cleared after a 9-month investigation by Elections Canada. Wilson had joined the Green Party during Parliament's summer recess and never sat in the House of Commons as a Green MP.

After initial opposition from three of the four major political parties, May was invited to the leaders' debates, a first for the party. In the 2008 federal election, the party increased its share of the popular vote by 2.33% (to 6.80%), being the only federally funded party to increase its total vote tally over 2006, attracting nearly 280,000 new votes. However, the party failed to elect a candidate. Some prominent Green Party members blamed the public discussion of strategic voting and the media's misrepresentation of May's comments during the election campaign for the failure of some promising candidates to reach Election Canada's 10% reimbursement threshold, as well as reducing the party's federal funding based on popular vote.

On 11 August 2010, 74% of Green Party members voted to hold a leadership review after the next election, instead of in August 2010, which was when May's four-year term as leader was set to end.

Greens in Parliament
On 2 May 2011, May became the first elected Green Party MP to sit in the House of Commons. She won the riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands in coastal British Columbia. In winning her seat, May also became one of the few Greens worldwide to be elected in a federal, single-seat election. On 13 December 2013, Thunder Bay—Superior North MP Bruce Hyer, who had left the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 2012 to sit as an independent after breaking party lines to vote in favour of a repeal of the Long Gun Registry, joined the party, resulting in a record two-member caucus in Parliament. In August 2014, party president-elect Paul Estrin published a blog post on the Green Party's website criticizing the actions of Hamas during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In his article, "Why Gaza Makes Me Sad", Estrin talked about Hamas' "desire to obliterate" the State of Israel and how the terrorist group uses children as human shields. Estrin's blog post was subsequently deleted by the party, with many party seniors and decision makers, including Elizabeth May, distancing themselves from Estrin, with a large majority of the party calling on him to resign. On 5 August, Estrin resigned, criticizing the party for betraying their commitment to values of inclusivity and open public discourse. Elizabeth May accepted the resignation of Estrin, stating that he was not forced to resign, but did so of his own volition. May has said that the problem with his statements were the "confusion" they caused because they differed from party lines, but confirmed that Estrin was indeed a "true Green".

In the lead up to the federal election on 19 October 2015, José Núñez-Melo joined the Green Party. Núñez-Melo, first elected in 2011 as a New Democrat in the riding of Laval, was barred by the NDP from seeking re-nomination after he publicly criticized the nomination process; after the dropping of the writ, Núñez-Melo announced he would run for re-election in Vimy as a Green Party candidate. As Parliament was dissolved for the election at the time of Núñez-Melo's change in affiliation, he was never formally recorded as a Green MP. Ultimately, May was re-elected in the riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands while both Hyer and Núñez-Melo were defeated, leaving May as the only member in the House.

In March 2018, Green Party leader Elizabeth May appointed journalist and broadcaster Jo-Ann Roberts as a deputy leader along with environmentalist Daniel Green of Montreal. Roberts ran as Green Party candidate in a Victoria, British Columbia, riding during the 2015 federal election and finished second.

On 6 May 2019, Paul Manly became the second MP elected under the party's banner, after winning a by-election in Nanaimo—Ladysmith. On 19 August 2019, a former NDP and briefly Independent MP Pierre Nantel joined the Green Party during the Parliament's summer recess.

During the 2019 federal election, both May and Manly were re-elected while Jenica Atwin was elected in her New Brunswick riding of Fredericton, making her the third elected Green MP in the federal parliament, and the first Green MP outside of British Columbia.

During the 2021 federal election, Mike Morrice was elected in Kitchener Centre, becoming the first Green MP elected in Ontario, and second Green MP outside of British Columbia, as well the former leader May was re-elected. However, Manly was defeated in Nanaimo—Ladysmith. In addition, Atwin won re-election as a Liberal candidate.

Division under Annamie Paul
On 4 November 2019, May announced she would be stepping down as leader of the Green Party of Canada. May continued to act as parliamentary leader and sit as a Green member of Parliament. The decision to step down came as a promise to May's daughter. A leadership election was held on 3 October 2020, and Toronto-based lawyer and activist Annamie Paul was elected to succeed Elizabeth May as Green Party leader. At the time, Annamie Paul had been described as a centrist.

Paul ran in the 2020 Toronto Centre federal by-election, where she placed second.

On 10 June 2021, Jenica Atwin crossed the floor, leaving the Green caucus to join the Liberal caucus. This came shortly after a public rift over the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Atwin had criticized party leader Paul's statement on the matter following Israeli airstrikes as "inadequate", which in turn prompted an advisor to Paul, Noah Zatzman, to vow to replace Atwin with a "Zionist" candidate. In a Facebook post, Zatzman stated: "We will work to defeat you and bring in progressive climate champions who are antifa and pro LGBT and pro indigenous sovereignty and Zionists!!!!!” Atwin cited "distractions" in the Green Party as a factor in her departure. The Green federal council subsequently passed a motion calling for Paul to repudiate Zatzman for his statements towards Atwin and other Green MPs, of which Paul refused to act on. Following Atwin's defection, the remaining two Green MPs, Elizabeth May and Paul Manly, reaffirmed their commitment to their party and expressed their disappointment, stating "the attack against Ms. Atwin by the Green party leader's chief spokesperson on May 14 created the conditions that led to this crisis".

In the 2021 election, the party's share of the vote fell to its lowest amount in 21 years. As well, the Green Party ran candidates in only 252 of the country's 338 ridings; limited resources and staff layoffs hampered any attempt at a co-ordinated countrywide campaign, which also lacked a national director during all five weeks of election campaigning. A week after the election, Paul announced her intention to resign as leader.

According to reporting by The Tyee, Paul confronted the federal council following her statement to intend to resign. She allegedly asked the council “How many of you think I resigned today?” and following her statement with "Well, I didn't. I just started the process of my resignation." Paul allegedly told Elizabeth May "not to talk to the media" regarding her exit, but May ignored her request and stated that Paul was "creating chaos". May, talking with The Tyee, stated that Paul was resistant to leave the building, and continued to control the party's communications. She cited an instance of an associate of Paul blocking Lorraine Rekmans, an Indigenous woman, from making a statement regarding the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and writing a statement instead. An internal report of the Green Party obtained by The Globe and Mail stated: "there is systemic racism at the governance level of the party, which needs to be, but is not being, addressed". Former leader Jim Harris was critical of Paul's statements on her experiences of racism within the Green Party and dismissed the existence of issues of systemic racism within the party, stating: "When she doesn"t get her way, she calls racism. Now, racism, sexism, and violent metaphors like 'walking over shards of glass' and 'spitting up blood' get headlines, but what we have to judge a leader by is their performance." A member of the Greens' federal council: Louise Comeau, stepped down following the internal turmoil, citing "[the] stress and anxiety of those meetings affected [her] physical and mental health", with regards to negotiations surrounding Paul's departure. May theorized Paul wished to negotiate a severance package before her departure as Green leader.

On October 28, 2021, Green members received a leadership review ballot regarding Paul's continued status as leader. Several days later, Paul told a press conference she was surprised by the review, and that it was unnecessary since she had previously announced her intention to resign. Paul's protracted departure was due to continued legal conflict between Paul and the Green Party's leadership, with Paul negotiating compensation for legal fees incurred due to arbitration following a previous attempt to remove Paul as leader. Paul officially resigned on November 10, 2021, as voting in the review was ongoing. Her resignation took effect on November 14, 2021 upon its acceptance by the party's federal council.

Rebuilding
On November 24, Amita Kuttner was appointed interim leader. Appointed at the age of 30, Kuttner was the youngest person to lead a federal political party, as well as the first transgender person and person of East Asian heritage.

The party's constitution required a leadership election to select a permanent leader to begin within six months of the appointment of an interim leader, and conclude within two years of their appointment. Kuttner had said that they did not wish to be the permanent leader. In December 2021, Kuttner said that they believed there should be a "longer period before launching a permanent leadership contest, and then a short leadership race."

In a press conference about a week after their appointment, Kuttner said they wanted to start the process of regrowth and to heal the party. The party had released a report indicating that it was threatened with insolvency, and was considering closing its office in Ottawa. The party had lost 499 monthly donors since July 2021, and 6,259 members in the same time. Kuttner acknowledged internal conflict over Annamie Paul's leadership had affected donations. The report also blamed negotiations concerning Annamie Paul's departure as leader of the party for significant legal costs. In a December 2021 media interview, Kuttner said that the party's financial position was getting "back on track" and was "turning around" pointing to fundraising including at the party's virtual general meeting about a week earlier.

On September 11, 2022, the president of the party, Lorraine Rekmans, announced her resignation. She was very critical of the party and the candidates in the ongoing leadership race, stating "The dream is dead." She was succeeded as party president by Ian Soutar.

Return of Elizabeth May
On November 19, 2022, Elizabeth May was elected leader of the party once again, promising to convert the current leadership model into a co-leadership model, with Jonathan Pedneault being her co-leader. May ran with Pedneault in the leadership race, and Pedneault served as the deputy leader of the party. In February 2025, party members were to vote on motions which, if passed, would have amended the party's constitution to implement a co-leadership model. However, Pednault was unsuccessful in his attempt to win a seat in the House of Commons through a byelection and the proposed constitutional amendment was not voted upon due to disagreement within the party. On July 9, 2024, Jonathan Pedneault resigned as deputy leader, citing personal reasons. May committed to remaining party leader through the next federal election, expected in 2025.

Political position
The Green Party officially rejects the traditional left–right political spectrum, describing it as "something of an anachronism". Instead, the Green Party believes that "voters in modern democracies [are] divided on lines … more to do with 'insiders' and 'outsiders.'" According to co-founder and former leader Trevor Hancock, "the perennial left vs. right squabbling about who gets to control and benefit from the ever-expanding pie is to completely miss the point; the pie cannot continue to expand, indeed it must contract … the struggle for social justice is deeply rooted in the fact that the limits to growth requires a radical global and societal redistribution of the Earth’s limited resources." In 2019, the Green Party under Elizabeth May ran on a campaign slogan of "Not Left. Not Right. Forward Together."

The party is noted as having a wide range of internal factions; the 2020 leadership election saw both self-described moderate and eco-socialist candidates. Writing in Maclean's, Anne Kingston described the party as an "ideological hybrid", combining left-leaning views on social issues and welfare with a right-leaning embrace of market solutions and tax shifting; in another article, Matt Gurney concurred with that description, but also said that "in practice" the Greens are "simply another centre-left party". Other political commentators, such as Andrew Coyne, Chantal Hébert and Heather Mallick, identify the party as being on the left.

Principles
The Green Party of Canada is founded on six key principles that were adopted at the 2002 convention of the Global Greens. These principles are:
 * Ecological wisdom
 * Non-violence
 * Social justice
 * Sustainability
 * Participatory democracy
 * Respect for diversity

Party leaders
Source: * May and Jonathan Pedneault ran in the 2022 leadership election as "co-leaders" but a constitutional amendment to allow for co-leadership was never passed and May solely had the title of leader. Pedneault served as deputy leader until he resigned on July 9, 2024.

Party parliamentary leaders
The position of parliamentary leader was created on 4 November 2019, when then-leader Elizabeth May announced that she was resigning as leader of the party, but would remain leader of the parliamentary caucus. The position ceased to exist after May re-assumed the party leadership in 2022.
 * Elizabeth May (2019–2022)

Election results
Source: History of Federal elections since 1867

Provincial and territorial parties
Nine provinces and one territory have an active Green party. While these parties and the Green Party of Canada share values and often supporters, they operate as independent entities and do not have common membership.

Currently, nine Green legislators sit in provincial legislative assemblies, including three in Prince Edward Island, two in British Columbia, three in New Brunswick, and two in Ontario. The Greens in Prince Edward Island were the first Green party to form the official opposition in any provincial assembly.

The only province without a Green party is Newfoundland and Labrador. An association called the Terra Nova Greens, created in 1996, was previously the Green Party of Canada's "official unit" for the province. TNG was never a registered party, but fielded independent candidates in three provincial general elections. They remained the federal party's "official unit" until 2007, but most supporters cut ties to the national party in 2006 (or earlier) over its opposition to the traditional Newfoundland seal hunt. As of 2021, there are ongoing efforts to establish a provincial green party in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Nunavut and the Northwest Territories have legislatures that use non-partisan consensus government. As such, there are no registered green parties (or any other parties) in these territories. However, one member of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly was known to be a member of the federal Green Party: Rylund Johnson of Yellowknife North.

title: Green Party of Canada


text:
Castle Hill

Castle Hill may refer to:

Australia

 * Castle Hill, a small hill and land area in Bicton, Western Australia
 * Castle Hill, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
 * Castle Hill, Queensland, a suburb of Townsville
 * Castle Hill, Townsville, a granite monolith

England

 * Castle Hill, Brighton, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Brighton, East Sussex
 * Castle Hill, Cambridge, a hill and street in Cambridge
 * Castle Hill, Chessington, a Local Nature Reserve in London
 * Castle Hill, Dudley Castle, West Midlands
 * Castle Hill, Englefield Green, Surrey
 * Castle Hill, Filleigh, a privately owned Palladian House in North Devon
 * Castle Hill, Folkestone, a hill on the North Downs near Folkestone, Kent
 * Castle Hill, Hampshire, Iron Age fortification the New Forest in Hampshire
 * Castle Hill, Huddersfield, in the county of West Yorkshire in England
 * Castle Hill, Malvern Hills, in the parish of Wichenford
 * Castle Hill, Mere, in Wiltshire, England
 * Castle Hill, Oxfordshire, part of Wittenham Clumps
 * Castle Hill, Rattray, Devon
 * Castle Hill, Stockport, Greater Manchester
 * Castle Hill, Ipswich, Suffolk, an area of Ipswich
 * Castle Hill Ward, Ipswich
 * Great Ashfield Castle, Suffolk, England
 * Castle Hill, Thetford, an earthwork fortification in Thetford, Norfolk
 * Castle Hill, Torrington, Iron Age earthworks and hill fort in Devon
 * Castle Hill, Winchester, Council Chamber for Hampshire County Council
 * Castle Hill, Wolverley, Worcestershire

Scotland

 * Castle Hill, Caprington, East Ayrshire.
 * Castlehill, Dumbarton, in Scotland
 * Castlehill, Edinburgh
 * Castlehill, Perth and Kinross, a location
 * Castlehill, South Ayrshire, a location
 * Castlehill, Scottish Borders, a location
 * Castlehill Fort, the Roman Fort on the Antonine Wall in Scotland, near Bearsden

Wales

 * Castle Hill, Ceredigion

Ireland

 * Castle Hill, Kerry, 600 m peak in Slieve Mish Mountains
 * Castlehill, County Mayo, a village in County Mayo, Ireland

United States

 * Castle Hill (Sitka, Alaska), an archaeological site
 * Castle Hill, California, a census-designated place
 * Castle Hill, Maine, a town in Aroostook County
 * Castle Hill (Ipswich, Massachusetts), a historic house
 * Castle Hill, Bronx, New York, a neighborhood in New York City
 * Castle Hill Light, Newport, Rhode Island, a historic lighthouse and inn
 * Castle Hill (Virginia), a historic plantation in Albemarle County
 * Castle Hills, Texas, a small city in Bexar County

Other countries

 * Castle Hill, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
 * Castle Hill (Buda), the oldest part of the Hungarian capital
 * Castle Hill, New Zealand
 * Castle Hill (Vilnius), Lithuania
 * Castle Hill, Ljubljana, Slovenia, the location of the Ljubljana Castle
 * Linnanmäki (Castle Hill), an amusement park in Helsinki, Finland
 * Zamkova Hora (Kyiv) (Castle Hill), Kyiv, Ukraine

Ships

 * SS Castle Hill, a British cargo ship in service 1949-50

title: Castle Hill


text:
ZOG (hypertext)

ZOG was an early hypertext system developed at Carnegie Mellon University during the 1970s by Donald McCracken and Robert Akscyn. ZOG was first developed by Allen Newell and George G. Robertson to serve as the front end for AI and Cognitive Science programs brought together at CMU for a summer workshop. The ZOG project was as an outgrowth of long-term artificial intelligence research led by Allen Newell and funded by the Office of Naval Research. A second version of ZOG was installed as the key interface between users and logistics on the Nimitz class carrier USS Carl Vinson in 1983.

Composition
ZOG consisted of "frames" that contained a title, a description, a line containing ZOG system commands, and selections (menu items) that led to other frames. ZOG pioneered the "frame" or "card" model of hypertext later popularized by HyperCard. In such systems, the frames or cards cannot scroll to show content that is part of the same document but held offscreen. Instead, text that exceeds the capacity of one screen must be placed in another (which then constitutes a separate frame or card)

The ZOG database became fully functional around 1977. Beginning in 1980, ZOG was ported from DEC VAX version (written in an experimental language called "L*") to the Pascal-based Three Rivers PERQ workstation and was used for a shipwide local area network on the American aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. In 1981, Rob Akscyn and Donald McCracken, two principals from the ZOG project, founded Knowledge Systems to develop and market a commercial follow-on to ZOG called KMS ("Knowledge Management System").

Syntax
An example of syntax from one dialect of ZOG:  This TITLE line summarizes the frame's contents

This TEXT expands the frame's main point of information, but is sometimes omitted. The OPTIONS below are used to point to subordinate sections or to provide an enumerated expansion of the main topic. LOCAL PADS do not have the connotation of leading to deeper detail, but rather to tangential points such as related material in another document or database. Invoking programs is another function typically reserved for LOCAL PADS. At the bottom of the frame is a set of general functions called GLOBAL PADS, which are available in every frame.

1. This OPTION leads to another frame 2. Options are often used like subpoints in an outline 3. -This option leads nowhere (indicated by the minus sign at the front)

title: ZOG (hypertext)