Last week, we returned to Bath Spa University for the annual three-day MIX Digital Conference, held for the first time in the new Commons building on Newton Park Campus.

Writing Digital: MIX Digital 3, supported by partnerships with the Digital Cultures Research Centre (DCRC), The Writing Platform, and Conducttr, gave participants the chance to catch up with artists, writers and academics who are working at the forefront of where arts practice meets technology, where the artificial division between the digital and the analogue no longer exists.

Over the three days, there was a vibrant mix of academic papers, practitioner presentations, seminars, keynotes, discussions, workshops and an exhibition of the work by conference participants.

It was also the chance for The Writing Platform’s 2015 Bursary Recipients to showcase their work. Kate Pullinger, conference co-chair and co-founder of The Writing Platform, introduced the recipients: Victoria Bennett (writer), Adam Clarke (technologist), Kelly Jones (writer) and Linda Sandvik (technologist).

Victoria Bennett and Adam Clarke applied as a team and their project, My Mother’s House, used Minecraft to immerse the player in the experience of the poem and expand the idea of what literature and video games can be.

Speaking about their project, Victoria and Adam said, “Minecraft offers potential for shared expression and experience of literature in really interesting and playful ways.

“We are keen to share this work with the growing Minecraft community and see how it may seed new ideas.”

At the conference delegates witnessed a video walkthrough of My Mother’s House, which was an emotive experience for many delegates.

Elspeth Penny, tweeted: “Thanks for your touching poetry Minecraft film ‪@thecommonpeople at Mix. I am now going to join my kids on Minecraft and explore.”

The judging panel paired Kelly Jones and Linda Sandvik because, as judge Naomi Alderman prize-winning author and Professor of Creative Writing and Digital Media at Bath Spa noted, they both wanted to explore “telling a story that cannot help but be shaped by and respond to technology.”

Their project, 1.4 for copy, is an interactive sound sculpture with the ability to connect audience members throughout the conference space. Inspired by the real life meeting of Kelly’s parents on a CB radio in 1980 and the science of radio waves and their infinite but fading travel, Kelly and Linda have created a piece that takes us away from our phone screens and see’s us connecting with one another.

Kelly created a mock-up of the project in room 133 in Commons. In the discussion, Kelly took us through their installation explaining how it came about and why it was named 1.4 for copy, “1.4 is the channel but they always call it the one four…For copy means for someone to come back to me. It’s all a language.”

Naomi shared her enthusiasm for the bursary projects. “So often, in digital writing, either the ‘digital’ or the ‘writing’ ends up feeling like second fiddle, the bit that’s put in at the end when the other bit’s all dealt with. So I’m always thrilled when a digital writer has a story to tell – not just a new way to use the medium, but a story that cannot help but be shaped by and respond to technology.

“I was particularly excited, therefore, to see Kelly’s story of how her parents met over CB radio.

“It feels like precisely the thing I was looking for here – a story that is not only told via technology but is actually about how technology shapes our lives.”

The Bursary Programme has undoubtedly grown since its inception three years ago. In its first year, there were only four technologist applicants.

Joanna Ellis, co-founder of The Writing Platform, commented, “We had 218 applications for the 2015 programme, three times the number we had in 2013.”

MIX 03 highlights

Throughout the conference, there was a vibrant and diverse list of visiting speakers and discussions. Anna Gerber and Britt Iverson founders of London-based publishing house Visual Editions discussed its new project Editions at Play, a collaboration with Google Creative Labs. They hope to create a place to showcase, celebrate, and bring out digital books that are immersive, written and developed with the idea of being digital.

Chris Meade, writer and founder of if:book, kept delegates entertained throughout the conference, encouraging visitors to his pod to donate their “nearly” stories. He presented his transmedia novel in progress, What Didn’t Quite, about how we live with the things we’ve nearly done.

“Far more things nearly happen than happen,” he said. “The universe is held together by the dust of human kind’s nearlyincidence.”

‪Cardiff-based academic, Jenny Kidd took us through her collaborative research project with the creative marketing agency, yello brick, funded by REACT. “With New Eyes I see” explores whether documentary can become an experience or a journey beyond the screen. The project will research a site-specific documentary using torches, projection and RFID to trigger content as participants walk around Cathays Park in Cardiff.

Further highlights over the three days included:

• Bambo Soyinka chaired a great discussion on Digital Remediation: From Analogue to Digital with Dan Prichard, Sharon Clark and Miriam Rasch.
• Kate Pullinger’s presentation, “From dBook to pBook and Back Again”
• Naomi Alderman discussed her hugely successful apps, Zombies! Run, and The Walk
• Blast Theory – internationally renowned as one of the most adventurous artists’ groups using interactive media, creating new forms of performance and interactive art – discussed their current kickstarter-funded project, Karen.

One of the most thought-provoking events of the conference was the launch of James Coupe’s artwork “General Intellect” on Bath Spa’s MediaWall, an architectural scale portrait format gallery display, consisting of ten 55″ panels. At just under 4m wide and rising 7.5m from floor level it is uniquely positioned at the heart of the Commons building.

The project is a thirty channel video work, which uses video that has been acquired from Mechanical Turk an Amazon.com service, showing how computer algorithms can hire human beings to complete tasks that are hard for computers to do.

James says in a short video about the piece, “The work is largely concerned with labour, in particular digital labour. Most of the people on Mechanical Turk are completing tasks for which they have no idea who they’re working for or what the purpose of those jobs are.

“The work has something to say about relationships between humans and machines, between humans and algorithms, and the nature of dissociative, potentially disenfranchised, relationship with technological narratives.”

As the three days drew to a close, it became clear that technology really is transforming narrative.

Kelly Jones and Linda Sandvik are one of two teams we are supporting through the 2015 Writing Platform Bursary Programme, in association with Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Writer, Kelly, and technologist, Linda, applied to the programme as individuals and were paired by the selection panel because of their shared interests, complementary skill and their openness to collaborating with someone they had never met. 

Kelly’s and Linda’s project is inspired by Kelly’s parents meeting on illegal CB Radio and uses physical computing to explore the ideas of connection and intimacy, ephemerality and permanence.  

We spoke with Kelly and Linda about how 1.4 for Copy came into being, the collaboration process and where they will go from here.

You can read their previous diary entries, here and here.

Tell us about your project 1.4 for copy – what is it, how does it work, and where can people experience it?

Kelly: The initial idea for 1.4 for copy came from myself being inspired by the story of how my parents met on an illegal CB radio in Dagenham in 1981. CB is a great piece of kit, the first R&D (NTW Waleslab) I did on the piece we just played with CB radio to test it capability as a performance platform. There is something so beautiful about the static of CB, you can spend hours just waiting for a voice to appear, it’s quite mesmerizing.  CB is still very much alive in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. I met their local CB guru and we spoke about the science of radio waves and the technical side of how CB works. I think that’s informed the work.  The piece we have made for MIX is an interactive sound sculpture, that’s aim, is to connect the audience through out the conference space. Using the real sound clips of my parents and some written scenes performed by voice actors, the audience will have to work for the story.  The less people that fill the space the more distorted and fragmented the story becomes, there are CB radios in the space so they can radio other audience members to help them out.

Linda: We are using PIR sensors and arduinos on the entry and exit doors to count how many people are in the room, the more people the better you can hear the story.

What story are you telling through 1.4 for Copy and what do you hope to inspire or provoke in people?

Kelly: 1.4 for Copy is about connection. As a society I feel that we are quite disconnected from each other. Politically now is very much a replica of what was going on in the 1980s, tory government, recession, mass unemployment. In times of hardship we should be sticking together and helping each other out but this doesn’t seem to be the case. We very rarely help each other out anymore. The piece aims to take us away from our phones and social media and make us talk to one another. I hope to make people form new relationships and speak to people they may never have thought about. It’s not just about the story of two people meeting, I’d love the audience to share their own stories with each other.

How has the project evolved from when you first started working on it to the final piece?

Kelly: Originally when myself and Linda began to talk about the project we knew we didn’t want to make a website. Both myself and Linda have a love of immersive theatre gaming shows, which meant we were both thinking something a bit more audience participatory.  Originally we thought we’d make something a bit like a CB radio chat roulette. Each audience members getting CB licenses, booths being placed in different locations enabling them to talk to each other. However we both realized quite quickly that it was essentially just Skype and didn’t say what both interested us about the project. We met up to discuss the heart of the idea, why we liked the project, what interested us the most and what we liked. Which is when we came up with what we are doing for MIX. I think projects always naturally become through process what they were always meant to be.

You applied to the programme as individuals and were paired by the selection panel, what was it like embarking on an artistic collaboration with someone you had never met, let alone worked with? Did it throw up particular challenges and how did you handle them?

Kelly: At first I think I found it hard. It can take a long time to get used to a collaboration and because I live in Wales and Linda lives in London, every time we saw each other there was no time for testing each others working practice we just had to get down to business.  I think the collaboration found it’s own rhythm and actually as it worked out, we were well matched. In hindsight I think it may have been good to have arranged a workshop by an external party for us to get used to making together prior to actually making together. I don’t think the partnership didn’t work, actually myself and Linda have plans to continue working on the project together, I just wish we had more time to establish each others working process.

Kelly you applied as a writer and Linda, you applied as a technologist, what was your working process? Were their clear demarcations around who did what or was it more fluid than that?

Kelly: I’d say the process was quite a fluid one. After the initial meeting we kept chatting and batting ideas back and forth. I think for me and Linda this worked very well. It meant between meetings we had time to reflect back on what we had discussed and sift out anything that we felt didn’t work for the project.

I think my role in the project changed. I feel I started out being the writer but that quickly adapted to writer/maker. I think this helped us pull together our ideas. In my practice I am both a writer and maker so was happy that I got to use those skills. I also work quite visually and this comes from my maker background, this helped us look at the project from a different angle and imagine what the piece we were to make might look like.

What did you learn from making 1.4 for Copy? And what will you take away from your collaboration?

Kelly: Well, myself and Linda will be working together in the future, so the collaboration has helped shape a new creative partnership. I think I have learnt that when forming a new creative partnership it takes time and patience. It also means working around both of your workloads. Linda is very good at explaining the technical stuff to me so I have learnt a load about how to use a combination of gadgets to make a project work. A lot of the projects I work on have digital aspects, or at least I want them to, I have never had any idea how to execute them. I feel like I am now able to at least try to break it down in what needs to be in place in order to make it work and not just be an add on but an essential for the show.

Linda: I think what we have now is just the beginning and I’m really looking forward to working more with Kelly. When we started I had never even heard of CB radio, but the recordings of Kelly’s parents immediately fascinated me, and I was able to borrow a CB radio that I tried out.

What’s next for 1.4 for Copy?

Kelly: Well, I have a seed commission to write the play from NTW but myself and Linda have also been invited to apply for Experimentica Festival with the piece we are showing at MIX.

Linda: There are a lot of ways I want to improve/expand on 1.4 copy but most would require extra funding and money for equipment. A better way to count people using kinects would be good, as well as more walkie talkies/turning it into a collaborative treasure hunt game.

And what’s next for each of you – any projects in the pipeline that we should keep an eye out for?

Kelly: I am touring a show of mine THE DROWNED GIRL in Wales this autumn.  The Drowned Girl is a solo show about, unsuccessfully learning how to swim as a child vs. adult drowning and wading through life when grieving. It’s made up of stories from my life and a fusion of storytelling and concrete sound made up from the places in the story.

Linda: I am finishing my Knight-Mozilla fellowship at the Guardian, and dream of going to Antarctica or the Arctic and taking more aerial photographs with helium balloons and kites.

Victoria Bennett and Adam Clarke form one of two teams we are supporting through the 2015 Writing Platform Bursary Programme, in association with Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. 

Victoria’s and Adam’s project uses Minecraft to immerse the player in the experience of a poem and expand the idea of what literature and video games can be.

The final work, titled My Mother’s House, is a poem-world built in Minecraft. Since starting this project Victoria has been caring for her mother who is in the last phase of her life and the subject and form of the poem reflect the process of letting go of someone you love. My Mother’s House demonstrates how writing and gaming can come together and help us explore and engage with aspects of life that are difficult to talk about in a way that is accessible and unintimidating.

If you have Minecraft installed, you can download the free playable map.

Watch the video walkthrough of My Mother’s House by Victoria Bennett and Adam Clarke

Watch Victoria and Adam’s final video diary on the making of My Mother’s House.

Adam and Victoria will be showcasing My Mother’s House, and discussing their creative collaboration, at the MIX: Writing Digital conference on 2nd July 2015. Full conference programme and booking information is available here.

Victoria Bennett and Adam Clarke form one of two teams we are supporting through the 2015 Writing Platform Bursary Programme, in association with Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. 

Victoria’s and Adam’s project uses Minecraft to immerse the player in the experience of a poem and expand the idea of what literature and video games can be. They are documenting the evolution of their project and their collaboration through a series of video diaries recorded in Minecraft.

In this second video diary Victoria and Adam – and their chicken, Ted Hughes – take take us through the latest developments in their Minecraft poetry project, including: using command blocks to display text in different ways, using redstone repeaters to create a visual experience of how a poem might be heard, and using frames to trigger audio. They also delve deeper into the idea of the labyrinth, both as an established poetic form and as a way of creating an environmental experience or a poem within Minecraft, and share their vision of how they might pull it all together in order create an adventure for readers, players and listeners.

You can watch Victoria’s and Adam’s first video diary here, and read about the other bursary project, created by Kelly Jones and Linda Sandvik, here and here.

Kelly Jones and Linda Sandvik are one of two teams we are supporting through the 2015 Writing Platform Bursary Programme, in association with Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Writer, Kelly, and technologist, Linda, applied to the programme as individuals and were paired by the selection panel because of their shared interests, complementary skill and their openness to collaborating with someone they had never met. 

Kelly’s and Linda’s project is inspired by Kelly’s parents meeting on illegal CB Radio and uses physical computing to explore the ideas of connection and intimacy, ephemerality and permanence. This is the second in a series of diary posts by Kelly and Linda documenting the evolution of their project and their collaboration. You can read their first diary post here. 

So what exactly is a CB radio? I had no idea until I met Kelly Jones for this project. Despite having actually watched Convoy, a terrible movie centered around the use of CB radios and trucker culture. I’ve not really done anything with radio before, I think maybe in school once they made us make Crystal radio apparatus for receiving radio during a WW2 project, but never for transmitting. My first impression is it seems a bit like a walkie talkie. You hold in a button to speak, then release. The difference being whereas a walkie talkie has a range about 2 miles, the CB radio can do 20 miles (or more, with mod-ed equipment). They also operate on different frequencies, walkie-talkies are usually paired with another device, a CB radio can talk to any other CB radio within range. People might bring a receiver with them on the move, but have a home base to broadcast from. It was very popular with truckers. Metallic frames of the cars and trucks make an excellent groundplane which improves the range of the antenna. Kelly let me borrow a car antenna to play around with. “Try putting a biscuit tin on the base to expand the range” suggested one helpful enthusiast on twitter. “And run a wire from the antenna to the base”.

I set up the radio on my desk in my bedroom and turned it on. I say “turned it on”. What I do is I stick two loose wires into the power pack. It turns on briefly but when I move one of the wires fall out. I tape it on. When turned on it immediately goes to channel 9. “Oh shit this is the emergency channel I shouldn’t be on here aaah” I think and flick to channel 4, where I get a lovely static. I’ve been talking to people on twitter about CB radios. One person tells me their father still uses it. When there are storms or earthquakes he listens out on the emergency channel in case anyone needs help. Some situations could occur when you don’t have a phone or internet. But probably a mobile phone is more reliable these days.

I talked to a few CB radio enthusiasts about the rise and fall of CB. Newer technologies replaced it. In some cases IRC (internet relay chat, actually created well before the height of CB). Some said IRC was less intrusive. There’s a log you can read if you’re not there at the time. If you’re busy you can catch up later. There are some things they missed though. The voices. The mystery of not knowing the real name. If it’s just text on a computer screen you can’t really know for sure if you’re talking to a human. Talking over CB radio is more Snapchat-like. You have to be there, in the moment. I like that.

Most of the people I talk to on twitter who still use CB radio are drivers or truckers or live in the countryside in the US and spend a lot of time driving, across their ranch for instance. They mostly talk to other drivers. I guess traveling can be lonely. Unlike cellphones, there are no laws against using a CB radio while you’re driving.  The only people I’ve managed to talk to so far from my bedroom setup have been truckers. There are more channels busy in the early morning than in the evening. It’s interesting and strange to talk to them because I am a cyclist in London and trucks are the enemy. It feels weird to listen in to their chatting. That’s something you can do by the way, just listen without saying anything. Sometimes you may want to let people know you are there just by clicking your button quickly, without saying a word.

A friend told me her aunt and uncle met on CB radio, like Kelly’s parents. It’s probably equivalent to “we met on the internet”. But you’re a bit more likely to meet someone who lives close to where you live. I like that too. We can reach the whole world now but we have forgotten how to talk to those physically close to us. I live in London so of course I don’t know my neighbours or talk to people in my neighbourhood. I talk to people on twitter instead.

A few people tried to encourage me to get a ham radio license. They used to do CB radio before ham radio took over. All the cool kids are using it. I’ve been at the London Hackspace when they’ve tried talking to the ISS. Yes, even the International Space Station has a ham radio.

So how do we preserve the rich history and culture of CB radio for the future? Will archaeologists of the distant future be able to make receivers that can pick up these radio waves that are still floating around? What will they think of us?

Victoria Bennett and Adam Clarke form one of two teams we are supporting through the 2015 Writing Platform Bursary Programme, in association with Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. 

Victoria’s and Adam’s project uses Minecraft to immerse the player in the experience of a poem and expand the idea of what literature and video games can be. They are documenting the evolution of their project and their collaboration through a series of video diaries recorded in Minecraft.

In this first diary Adam and Victoria share their early ideas for the project – how they might go about building worlds from words, how players might experience and play with story in Minecraft, and draw interesting parallels between writing and building. As Victoria says:

“we started talking about how does that blank world relate to the blank page? As a writer, when I approach a blank page, I’m thinking, ‘what am I creating here?’ Each word that I place down is like a block, and this relates to how we create a world block by block within Minecraft”

We are also supporting Kelly Jones and Linda Sandvik through the bursary programme. Their project is inspired by Kelly’s parents meeting on illegal CB Radio and uses physical computing to explore the ideas of connection and intimacy, ephemerality and permanence. You can read their first diary post here.

Kelly Jones and Linda Sandvik are one of two teams we are supporting through the 2015 Writing Platform Bursary Programme, in association with Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Writer, Kelly, and technologist, Linda, applied to the programme as individuals and were paired by the selection panel because of their shared interests, complementary skill and their openness to collaborating with someone they had never met. 

Kelly’s and Linda’s project is inspired by Kelly’s parents meeting on illegal CB Radio and uses physical computing to explore the ideas of connection and intimacy, ephemerality and permanence. This is the first in a series of diary posts by Kelly and Linda documenting the evolution of their project and their collaboration. 

After a rainy journey up (or across) from Cardiff myself and Linda met today for the  second time since finding out that we were awarded the Writing Platform Bursary. Our initial meeting happened at Warren Street station, with both myself and Linda awkwardly eyeing each other thinking, ‘Is that the writer? – Is that the technologist?’ Thankfully, she was the technologist and I, her writer. Quite quickly it became apparent why we were paired to work together. With a shared interest in immersive theatre games and a love of tea, we began brainstorming ideas and exploring a way of pairing narrative with an interactive technological experience.

Today we’d arranged to meet by a statue outside a London train station, that’s coincidentally surrounded by statues, a clever idea , like saying – I’ll meet you over by that bit of water to a goldfish. Obviously if that Goldfish isn’t in a bowl of water at the time he needs to meet the meet-ee, their ‘meeting’ would be much easier than mine and Linda’s was. Eventually finding each other we spent the day in The British Library, sharing our developments with the project and trying to log onto the Wi-Fi.

When I applied for the Writing Platform the idea that I included on my application was for a project called ‘1.4 for copy’. ‘1.4 for copy’ is a play about how my parents met on an illegal CB radio in Dagenham in 1980. After a period of research and development it transformed into a piece no longer just based on how my parents met, but about connection. Specifically, how in 2015 it’s much easier to be connected, but we rarely do, our heads always down, looking at a screen. The other most interesting part of the project for me is the science, radio waves infinitely travelling through space, the signal eventually fades but when you think about it those stories of the past, especially on CB, are floating right above our heads. Very romantic. These are the things that Linda and I are looking at with our project. Can we make the audience connect and leave a lasting, yet fading impression of those connections they’ve made?

At the moment we are trying to find someone to build us two booths or sheds to test the idea that we have. The idea, yet vague, is something we are both very excited about. We would like to pitch up a CB booth in two different locations, probably Cardiff and Hackney, to test. After an introduction to the world of CB through the stories I am writing the player is moved onto the booth. They are given a CB license number, CB dictionary and instructions, after logging on (through the power of WI-FI) they connect to the person who is in the other booth. They won’t be able to see each other, just hear their voice, and at the end of their conversation they will be given a task to do that will get pinned to the other players CB license number, building up a library, a constellation of connection. We further need to explore the role of the voyeur and text/script within this project and how as a writer I can satisfy the requirements to not just have a great tech/theatre project, but that also has narrative and words. More on this in the next post.

If you can help Kelly and Linda build the booths they need you can reach out to them on Twitter @TheDrownedGirl and @hyper_linda or email us at hello[at]thewritingplatform.com and we’ll pass it on. 

We are also supporting Victoria Bennett and Adam Clarke the bursary programme. Their project uses Minecraft to immerse the player in the experience of a poem and expand the idea of what literature and video games can be. You can watch their first video diary here.

“Judging this year’s Writing Platform Bursary opened my eyes to the incredible diversity of writers and technologists working in literature in the UK. It buoys the heart to know there is so much innovation, experimentation and courage in the British literary landscape.”  Tom Uglow, Director, Google Creative Lab

• The selected projects will put poetry into Minecraft and use code and electronics to tell a different kind of love story
• Writer Naomi Alderman and Google’s Tom Uglow from the selection panel give their verdict

The Writing Platform is pleased to announce the 2015 beneficiaries of its bursary scheme, awarding two writer-technologist partnerships with £4000 each.

The bursary programme supports creative experimentation and inter-disciplinary learning between writers and technologists. Each bursary is 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 2015 bursary programme is supported by Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and Arts Council England (Grants for the Arts).

The 2015 bursary recipients are:

•  Victoria Bennett, writer, and Adam Clarke, technologist, who applied as a team; and whose project will use Minecraft to immerse the player in the experience of the poem and expand the idea of what literature and video games can be.
• Kelly Jones, writer, and Linda Sandvik, technologist, who were paired by the judging panel because, as judge Naomi Alderman noted, they both wanted to explore “telling a story that cannot help but be shaped by and respond to technology.”

The 2015 judging panel was 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

Speaking about the 2015 winners, Tom Uglow said:

“The work of Victoria and Adam will bring poetry out of books and explore new forms of digital poetry that are made possible in the reality of Minecraft – a place that is almost super-real to its players. It has been such a treat to be part of The Writing Platform bursary, ensuring that British literature in the 21st century is no wasteland of the parochial and the conventional.”

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

“So often, in digital writing, either the ‘digital’ or the ‘writing’ ends up feeling like second fiddle, the bit that’s put in at the end when the other bit’s all dealt with. So I’m always thrilled when a digital writer has a story to tell – not just a new way to use the medium, but a story that cannot help but be shaped by and respond to technology. 

I was particularly excited, therefore, to see Kelly Jones’ story of how her parents met over CB radio, and I’m thrilled to see what she and Linda will make of it. It feels like precisely the thing I was looking for here – a story that is not only told *via* technology but is actually *about* how technology shapes our lives.”

 Joanna Ellis, partner at the Literary Platform, co-founders of The Writing Platform, added:

“We received 218 applications, nearly three times the number we received in 2013, and I was delighted by the range and quality of the projects pitched. In terms of observable trends, hacking existing platforms for literary ends remained a popular theme, there was a decline in the number of entries pitching locative literature projects and an increase in the number of entries pitching projects that use pervasive media, biofeedback and physical computing. I’m really thrilled with our selection, and can’t wait to see the results.”

Speaking about their selection, Victoria Bennett and Adam Clarke said,

“Minecraft offers potential for shared expression and experience of literature in really interesting and playful ways. We want to dig into this and see what can happen. The chance to discover how the poem and the game can interact to create a whole new experience will be challenging and inspiring for us both and will extend and expand our mutual and individual creative practice. We are keen to share this work with the growing Minecraft community and see how it may seed new ideas.”

Speaking of her selection, Linda Sandvik, says:

“Recently at a hackday I came up with the idea of a text adventure alternate reality war game, and the easy bit was doing the coding. Writing the scenarios was so hard though, and I kept wishing there were writers at the hackday or that I knew any that I could collaborate with.”

Speaking of her selection, Kelly Jones, says:

“I look forward to working with Linda, learning new skills and forming new collaborations. I hope that we can create an exciting multiplatform piece that pushes and develops the art of storytelling and our individual professional practises.” 

Readers will be able to follow the progress of the two projects here on The Writing Platform website over the coming months, and finished works will be showcased at Bath Spa University’s MIX Digital 03 Conference, which takes place from 2^nd – 4^th July 2015.

More about the winners

Kelly Jones is Winner of the Wales Drama Award 2014. Originally from the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, she has been living and working in Wales since 2007. Her plays are rooted in real human stories and often take inspiration from personal experiences, her upbringing in Dagenham and rooting in Wales.

www.kellyjonestheatre.com | @TheDrownedGirl

Linda Sandvik is a creative technologist and Knight-Mozilla fellow 2015. She likes making things with code and electronics, and is interested in civic tech, serious games and loves a good story.

www.lindasandvik.info | @hyper_linda

Victoria Bennett is a poet, creative activist and full time home-educating mum, living in rural Eden, Cumbria. She is the Founder and Editor of Wild Women Press and Blissfool Books, she has facilitated creative experiences for the past 20 years, including the Wild Women Workshops and Salons. Winner of the Northern Promise Award and the Andrew Waterhouse Award for Poetry, Victoria has published 4 collections of poetry and performed live across the UK, including Glastonbury Festival.

www.invisible-orchard.com |

Adam Clarke is an artist who uses Minecraft, games, traditional art and technology to inspire and entertain, working globally with institutions, museums, schools and companies to find groundbreaking ways to interact with a young game playing demographic. He has worked across the UK providing workshops, experiential events and talks to inspire and engage and also produces online YouTube Channel “101 Ideas for Minecraft Learners” and “Everyday Minecraft”. His current project, Tateworlds, is a series of playable Minecraft maps where the player can literally explore and interact with famous artworks from the Tate collection.

 www.thecommonpeople.tv | @thecommonpeople

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.

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