Luesebrink introduced her work, "Califia," heralded as a hallmark of the newest generation of hypertext. Its 800 screens include not only text blocks but musical overlays and links to 2,400 images. The story begins with the lilting sound of a Spanish guitar, linking into old sepia-toned family photographs, maps, celestial navigation charts and blocks of text--told from three characters' points of view, depending on which thread the reader chooses to follow. It tells the story of the search for long-buried treasure and the history of a California family through several generations.

Caption: PHOTO: "I am very determined to make it possible to have the same kind of reading experience that I do with a book," says author Shelley Jackson.; PHOTOGRAPHER: Associated Press; PHOTO: One of 800 screens of text of Marjorie C. Luesebrink's CD-ROM novel "Califia." It contains musical overlays and links to 2,400 images.; PHOTO: A screen illuminates hypertext by Cathy Marshall, who created the work from a series of journals, and read it at the literary gathering.

The reading at the home of [Richard Bangs]--editor at large for the Expedia Inc. travel Web site--featured some of the best-known names in electronic literature, including Shelley Jackson, author of an electronic takeoff on the Frankenstein story called "Patchwork Girl"; Rob Wittig, founder of tank20 Literary Studios, reading from his hypertext novel about office politics and romance, "Friday's Big Meeting"; and Newport Beach writer Marjorie C. Luesebrink, a professor at Irvine Valley College who recently published the CD-ROM novel "Califia" under the pen name M.C. Coverley.