August Highland is the Director of Culture Animal, a literary production company. Culture Animal presents tens of thousands of literary works by August Highland under multiple personae. This conceptual literary performance is called "Metapoetics Theatre". Culture Animal has developed over 30 projects. For each project, Highland designs an individual website. The work is presented by one or more personae who produce literary work in a particular genre or subgenre originated by Highland himself. All the personae of Culture Animal are members of one of three simulated literary movements. They are the "Worldwide Literati Mobilization Network, the "International Belles Lettres Federation" and the "Superheroes of Humanities". The literary genres that August Highland has originated are "Hyper-Literary Fiction", "Microlinear Storytelling", "Next-Gen Nanopoetics", and "Genre-Splicing". There are over 80 personae who collectively have produced over 100,000 literary works that are generally 1,000 pages in length. Each volume of text produced by Highland is sold as a one-of-a-kind literary work. Like a work on canvas, once the original is bought, the owner owns the only copy of this Highland work. The cost of an individual literary work by August Highland is $350-$500. Each volume is presented on high-grade archival paper, unbound, in a custom-designed box that is available in one of three different wood types.

August Highland is also Editor and Pulisher of an online international literary quarterly. The "Muse Apprentice Guild" first appeared online in August, 2002. The premiere issue contained 60 writers and 100 literary works. The Spring, 2003 issue of the M.A.G. presented over 4,000 literary works by 600 writers. The M.A.G. has 35 contributing editors or "liaisons" around the world and is the Internet's largest and most widely read international literary quarterly.

Alphanumeric Labs, which is being spotlighted by Turbulence, is the first project presented by a member of the "Superheroes of Humanities". The persona is Howard Fineman. The genre is "Genre-Splicing."

Highland wrote for over 25 years before making the transition from traditional Literary Fiction to the genres he practices today.

August Highland was born in 1957 in Los Angeles, California. He attended UCLA and the University of California at Berkeley where he studied the Classics and Romance Languages. Highland also studied Hebrew and Aramaic. He earned his Bachelor's Degree in Western and Buddhist Psychology at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

He met his wife, Mary, in 1991 and they were married in 1995. Mary is a Psychotherapist and publishes a print and online directory, which is used as a resource by mental health practioners for referring clients, and by individuals searching for a suitable therapist for himself/herself.

Today August Highland lives with his family in San Diego, California, where he works as a writer and editor.

To learn more about August Highland, visit Culture Animal

"Massive Production Versus Mass Production"

August Highland has set about the task of changing everything conventional about the publishing industry. In the same way that he creates new genres of fiction and has modified the production process of literature, Highland is also interested in the modification of the traditional means by which literature is printed and distributed. A book has always been a mass-produced medium as compared to a painting which is produced and sold as an individual work of art. To give a literary work the same intrinsic material value as a painting, Highland conceived of the "Massive Production" publishing model. Instead of producing one book and selling thousands of copies of that book to readers, each one of whom own a re-printed, disposable object, Highland produces thousands of one-of-a-kind books and sells only the original copy of that book to one person who then owns a work of art with the same intrinsic value of a painting or sculpture.

This is called "Massive Production". The owner of a literary work by August Highland is the sole owner of that work, and the value of that work is intrinsic and capable of growing in value over time as the importance of Highland's work grows in value over time. Massive Production ensures that every collector possesses a literary work that no other collector possesses. The collector is purchasing a valuable instead of a mechanical reproduction of a valuable.

Highland applies the same production ethic to Alphanumeric Labs. Like all the projects by the "Superheroes of Humanities" the visual work by Alphanumeric Labs are literary works that have migrated across the boundary line where literature morphs from text intended to be read (library material) to text intended to be viewed (museum material). Currently there are four series in the Howard Fineman Collection. Highland has 20 series planned for Alphanumeric Labs. Each series will contain 1,000 works. Alphanumeric Labs was conceived as a digital arts project as well as a digital arts vehicle for presenting fine art that is intended for installation in a gallery or museum. The individual works are professionally converted from a digital art piece to a "painting" of momumental size. Like Highland's purely literary works, the paintings by Alphanumeric Labs are sold as one-of-a-kind artworks. Each owner owns an unreproduced original. The cost of an individual literary graphic work by August Highland is $2500-$5000.