Mangrove, an online quarterly, was first uploaded in December 1998. The premiere issue went online on 16 March 1999 and the second issue on 16 June 1999.
The title was intended to suggest the environmentally important but less commercially viable side of the Queensland landscape. Many people believe Queensland to be one long surf beach of pure white sand. They don't realise that the coast is dominated by swamps, tangled roots and mud. Also, a metaphor for cyberspace is suggested by the complex aerial root systems that characterise mangroves: a network of interconnected (hyper)links, not grounded anywhere in particular as, say, traditional printed text is 'rooted' to the page.
Mangrove e-zine was envisaged as a platform (boardwalk?) from which UQ's creative writing students could explore the possibilities of cyberspace.
