The Writing Platform Launches 2015 Bursary Programme

The Writing Platform launches 2015 Bursary Programme, in association with Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Writer Naomi Alderman and Google’s Tom Uglow join selection panel.

There are two bursaries available for writers and technologists to embark on exciting collaborations.

Application forms and eligibility criteria are available here. The deadline for applications is 5pm GMT on Thursday 4th December 2015.

The Writing Platform Bursary, which supports experimentation, collaboration and learning between writers and technologists, announces its 2015 Programme delivered in association with Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

The Writing Platform will be making two bursaries of £4000 available. Each bursary will be awarded to a team made up of one writer and one technologist to work together on a writing project over a period of three months.

The programme is open to individual writers and individual technologists, who will be paired by the selection panel according to shared areas of interest, and to ready-made teams of writers and technologists.

A selection panel made up of Tom Uglow, Director Google Creative Labs; Naomi Alderman, writer and professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University and Joanna Ellis, Partner at The Literary Platform, co-founders of The Writing Platform, will award the bursaries.

Tom Uglow, Creative Director of Google Creative Lab says:

“My paperback may have been usurped by my phone (just like everything else) but, in my idle moments I’m still reading avidly, against the lure of streams and news. It is wonderful to be involved in supporting a new generation of writers experimenting and exploring the novel forms that these devices promise. Bursaries like The Writing Platform are amazing in allowing writers to openly challenge our preconceptions and show us nascent forms of literature’s next incarnation.”

Naomi Alderman, Writer and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University says:

 “The digital revolution is even more profound and significant than the print revolution of Gutenberg which kick-started the Reformation. We have no idea where the next 200 years will take us in terms of what writing and creativity can produce, become, and mean. What we know is that experimentation is vital, and giving creative people the opportunity to explore their boldest ideas is the best way to find out what works, and what doesn’t! I’ll be looking for ideas I haven’t seen before – ways of using technology that really push the bounds of the possible. And I’m excited to see what we find!”

Joanna Ellis, co-founder of The Writing Platform and Partner at The Literary Platform, says today,

 “The Writing Platform is dedicated to supporting writers in the digital age and we are delighted to be able to provide this opportunity to writers and technologists to collaborate, experiment and learn with each other and make work they would not be able to make on their own. We were thrilled with the projects created by our 2013 recipients and I can’t wait to see what emerges this time round”

For more information please contact Joanna Ellis: joanna [at] theliteraryplatform [dot] com

NOTES TO EDITORS

• About The Writing Platform

The Writing Platform is a website and programme of live events dedicated supporting writers in their creative practice and career choices.

The website is a free online resource for writers who are looking for information and inspiration about writing in a digital age. It also serves as a platform for writers to reflect and share insight about their own practice and experiences.

The Writing Platform launched in spring 2013. It is run by The Literary Platform and Kate Pullinger in association with  Bath Spa University and Queensland University of Technology

The Writing Platform Bursary Programme 2015 is funded by Bath Spa University and the National Lottery, and supported by Arts Council England (Grants for the Arts).

• About Bath Spa University

Bath Spa University (BSU) is a leading university for creativity, culture, enterprise and education. Based in the world heritage city of Bath, it hosts one of the UK’s leading centres for teaching creative writing at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The Creative Writing Department, within the School of Humanities and Cultural Industries, recently appointed 10 new teaching and research professors — all highly acclaimed in their creative fields — to join a distinguished team of practitioner researchers. Two of these appointments, Kate Pullinger and Naomi Alderman, reflect the vital role and priority BSU has given to questions of writing and digital technology, as well as the digital future of the writing industry more generally.

•  Judges Biographies

Tom Uglow, Director at Google Creative Lab, has worked at Google for nearly 8 years, starting Google’s Creative Lab in Europe and, since 2012, building a Creative Lab in Sydney, Australia. His team work on experimental projects that help connect people and that use Google, Android and YouTube’s products in creative ways.

Previous projects include Hangouts in History, Dream40 with the RSC, buildwithchrome.com, Web Lab, Live in a Day, and the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. Most of his projects are collaborations with charities, agencies and cultural organisations around the world that help artists and creators explore new forms of creative practice using digital tools.

Tom speaks on innovation around the world; tweets, posts and blogs on digital creativity; he is a trustee of D&AD and AWARD and has judged, presented, and enthused on TV, online, and in print. He is a Sunday-coder, a traditional creative, and a fuzzy strategist. Occasionally he knits.

Naomi Alderman, Writer and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University

Naomi Alderman is a novelist, broadcaster and games designer. She’s won numerous awards for her literary fiction which includes Disobedience and The Liars’ Gospel. She broadcasts regularly on BBC radio, and has a regular monthly column in the Observer. She is the co-creator and lead writer of the best-selling smartphone fitness game Zombies, Run! In 2012 she was selected by Granta as one of their once-a-decade list of Best of Young British Novelists, and in 2013 she was picked for the Rolex Arts Initiative as the mentee of Margaret Atwood.

Joanna Ellis is Partner at The Literary Platform, a consultancy that specialises in the publishing sector and which is also the founder of two programmes for writers: The Writing Platform and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. Before joining The Literary Platform Joanna worked in publishing for 14 years, most recently as the marketing director at Faber & Faber.

Download the press release.