Reading Time: 4 minutes The creation, presentation and publication of new creative work has been a core element of undergraduate teaching programs at Queensland University of Technology for over four decades now. What started as the writing and performance of works for the stage by drama and dance students, has been transformed via a tsunami of consumer-led technologies and… Read more »
Reading Time: 5 minutes The ‘digital turn’ brings opportunities and challenges for creative writers. One of the few things we can be sure of is ongoing change. This article is about how to navigate that change. New technologies and corresponding new genres emerge apace, social media platforms and conventions morph and mutate. We can get caught out. We can’t… Read more »
Reading Time: 7 minutes There was nowhere to park. As if it wasn’t daunting enough to throw myself into the alien world of tech-heads and program-people, now I was late. I found the Loft – a boutique entertainment venue on Plymouth Sutton Harbour – and launched myself up the stairs, down a deserted corridor and towards the sound of… Read more »
Reading Time: 8 minutes The great Festival is in two days. The weary pilgrim, teasing her larchwood beads through her fingers and fearing that she will never see the Temple hung lousy with banners, or smell the grilling of sacred cat-meat, wonders whether to take the lonely and ill-kept track through the deep-cut hills, or instead continue along the… Read more »
Reading Time: 3 minutes There were a lot of things to like about the Episodic conference that took place in London in October. Run by the Storythings team, it featured a range of interesting speakers working in podcasts, games, comics, and TV, an engaging host in Anna Higgs, and a lovely, friendly audience. I hope they do another one…. Read more »
Reading Time: 4 minutes Many writers have explored the use of new forms of software to supplement their writing practice, such as the use of a preferred interface to increase focus, or an application that boosts productivity. Equally notable are the advancements and innovations taking place in emergent technology such as: VR, AI, facial recognition, algorithms, and creative code,… Read more »
Reading Time: 2 minutes This article first appeared in Write: The Magazine of The Writers’ Union of Canada, and is reproduced here with kind permission of the author. How do you create strong disabled characters? The question goads me. Where disability’s concerned, there’s so much banal, shitty writing out there. Countless authors have resorted to clichés and stereotypes when creating… Read more »
Reading Time: 4 minutes My recent experience of playing Bamboo on the Storyjacker site was my first involvement with any kind of digital writing game. As such, I was very intrigued, and somewhat apprehensive, about what might happen – a state of mind that I think is, or should be, integral to the experience of writing. In a certain… Read more »
Reading Time: 4 minutes There is a statue in Paddington Station: A trench soldier, with a scarf around his neck and a letter torn open in his hands. His lips curve in a smile or a grimace. I have seen him in the early hours of the morning with face bright in the flush of dawn, and I have… Read more »
Reading Time: < 1 minute Are creative writing courses a “waste of time” as author Hanif Kureishi stated earlier this year? Or are they a good way for writers to develop and hone their craft? In this podcast Arifa Akbar, Literary Editor of the Independent, is joined by novelists and creative writing tutors Naomi Wood and Gerard Woodward, for a… Read more »