Competition promises Future Voices of digital storytelling a new platform

A new short fiction anthology, judged by a panel of leading publishers and literary agents, is seeking the freshest up-and-coming voices in interactive writing, with a cash prize for the winning three entries.

Future Voices, which will be released worldwide for iPad and iPhone, will feature stories created with inklewriter, a free, easy-to-use website which allows any author to turn their hand to digital storytelling without the need for specialist coding knowledge.

Once complete, inklewriter stories can be shared on the Internet and read on a variety of devices. Readers can create their own route through branching and converging narratives, by making choices and conversing with characters.

inklewriter allows any author to turn their hand to digital storytelling

“This is an exciting new form of storytelling and we wanted to allow everyone to get involved. We hope the Future Voices anthology will appeal to great writers who might never have considering working interactively before,” says Jon Ingold, Creative Director of inkle, the software studio behind both Future Voices and inklewriter.

Future Voices is aimed at short fiction in any genre which takes under 20 minutes to read. The winning author will be awarded $250, with two runners-up receiving $100 and the ten best entries appearing in an anthology app available worldwide for iPhone and iPad.

The Future Voices competition brings together a prestigious panel of judges at the cutting-edge of electronic storytelling and literary adaptation, including: Michael Bhaskar, Digital Director at independent publisher Profile Books, which produced Frankenstein; literary agent Piers Blofeld of Sheil Land Associates, representatives of Rose Tremain, Melvyn Bragg, and Dave Morris; Alexis Kennedy, Chief Narrative Officer of Failbetter Games, creators of the award-winning browser- based game Fallen London; and Anna Faherty, Lecturer in Publishing at Kingston University and freelance designer of in non-linear narratives for interactive exhibitions.

Says Profile’s Michael Bhaskar: ‘Interactive storytelling is still evolving. No one knows where exactly it will end up – which is precisely why it is such an exciting area. We all have a unique opportunity to create the styles of the future, to push the boundaries and, of course, to tell some awesome stories on the way. What’s not to like about that?’

inkle was founded in 2011 by two former Sony game designers, and has received considerable praise for its fluid and creative adaptation of a literary classic in the interactive app Frankenstein, written by Dave Morris and published by Profile Books.

Frankenstein was widely praised for its subtle and compelling use of reader responses, and was praised by Kirkus Reviews as “the benchmark for interactive storytelling on tablet” and by Salon.com as “the best interactive fiction yet”. It reached the #2 position in both US and UK App Store book charts.

Ingold, himself the author of over a dozen award-winning interactive works, says “We’re really hoping to discover some blazing new talent!”

The closing date for Future Voices submissions is the 15th of September 2012. Entries must be original and previously unpublished. For more information, visit www.inklestudios.com/inklewriter/future-voices-competition.


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