I am writing from Ljubljana, where I have been since early September on my annual visit. This has been the most important visit to Slovenia. I am now in the process of presenting the work of ISSV and Thezaurus.com to a number of Slovenian organisations, which provide finances for projects for the benefit of Slovenia and Slovenes living outside Slovenia's borders.

On the 18th September I presented our landmark project to the Slovenian media at a press conference held at the Društvo slovenskih pisateljev (Slovenian PEN) -Slovene Writers' Association - in Ljubljana. It was attended by representatives of major newspapers, radio and television. Reports appeared in the major print publications, two Internet publications, on radio and television.The September statistics of visitors on Literator.net, showed an extraordinary number of 24,000. hits in only 13 days. The Slovene Writers' Association is now in the process of appointing an editorial board, representing existing literary circles. The next step is establishing a financial basis for the undertaking and awaiting the decision of the relevant Ministries.

Since 1999, Thezaurus.com has become a major Slovenian cultural web destination, with monthly hits averaging 30 000. It is interesting and pleasing to gain (45% in USA, 30% in Australia, 10% in Slovenia, and the rest among 44 other countries), such an impressive audience for a greatly underfunded cultural site of a numerically small language group.

My task has been to make Thezaurus known to Slovenian institutions and getting financial support for the growing web-site, which now appears on all major search engines and databases as a Slovenian language and cultural resource.This involves meetings with the Ministries to showcase our major projects, and consulting with individuals and institutions in Ljubljana. Also I am presenting details of our Slovenian On-line Course to the Ministry for Education, Science and Sport. The submission includes a developed course structure and a proposal for Internet application.

I have been fortunate to participate in this year's annual international literary gathering known as the Vilenica Festival.

This year the Vilenica Festival, had about 126 participants. These are poets and writers of most Central and Eastern European countries, and from: America, Australia, Brazil, Great Britain, India, Japan and Morocco. The purpose of the festival is to develop a platform for writers and their literature. The Slovene Writers' Association organizes the readings, presentations, meetings and roundtables. It publishes a yearly edition of Vilenica, with works of selected writers and poets in the original language and in English translation.

The beginnings of the Vilenica concept were in bringing together writers and poets of the neighbouring regions of Slovenia and Italy. The conference was initiated in 1986 by The Slovene Writers' Association. It grew into the broader concept of Central Europe as a characteristic and independent cultural and historical European space and has expanded to include world literature and merge Central Europe into global and planetary networks and trends.

The Slovene Writers' Association confers two awards within the framework of the International Writers' Festival.The International Literary Award Vilenica, is presented by the President of the Slovene Writers' Association at a special awards ceremony held in the Vilenica caves.

This award is given to the poet or writer of the year, and who is from Central Europe. In 2001, the recipient of the award was Jan Kaplinski, the Estonian naturalist and poet.

The following authors have been awarded the Vilenica Prize:
Fulvio Tomizza, Peter Handke, Peter Esterházy, Jan Skácel, Tomas Venclova, Zbignew Herbert, Milan Kundera, Libuše Moníková, Josip Osti, Adolf Muschg, Adam Zagajewski, Pavel Vilikovsky, Péter Nádas, Erica Pedretti, Slavko Mihalic, Jan Kaplinski.
The other award - The Kristal Vilenice Award, is presented by the President of the temporarily appointed international jury at the Castle of Štanjel. At the end of the meeting a special international jury, selected from among the invited guests, presents the so-called Crystal Vilenica Award.

The literary awards were initiated by Slovenian PEN (Slovene Writers' Association) in 1986. The Vilenica International Literary Awards is a part of the official cultural programme of the Central European Initiative (CEI). It is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of Slovenia; the Central European Initiative; the Municipal Community of Sezana; and private sponsors.

The Festival traditionally takes place in the magnificent main hall of the Vilenica Cave (the festival is named after this Karst cave), in Lipica, at the fortified village Štanjel, and in Ljubljana. The participants have the opportunity to see the many sights and landmarks of Lipica and the beautiful surrounding area and Ljubljana. The events take place in several localities, and transportation provided between the venues.

I was fortunate to also be given the opportunity to chair the Round Table at the Hotel Union, in Ljubljana. The theme was; Can literature save the world? The participants discussed enthusiastically, expressing greatly varied points of view on the issue, and turning it into a series of questions. Several of the points were:

we must first define what literature is. Literature is dead, there is no such thing as literature any more, nobody is reading literature, we are swamped by white noise of electronic media, and are soon rendered incapable reading anything at all.

It was a very interesting session - a forum for people airing their worst fears. Among them some urged the use of Internet as a tool to empower world-wide communication between marginalised (art) communities.