If you’re reading this at the very beginning of March, when the new WM comes out, and you’re interested in the exploring the creative possibilities of literature online, you’ve still got time to apply for a £2,500 creative commission from the International Literature Showcase. We posted the story on our website when it launched in mid-February (http://writ.rs/ilsroundtwo) and it provoked an interesting discussion in the WM office about creative ways of presenting literature online.
The moral of this story is not just that it’s worth checking our website on a regular basis because pretty much every day there’s a new post about a creative opportunity for writers. It’s also that the way we present written work online and via new media offers so many, constantly evolving, creative possibilities that exploring it is fascinating for anyone interested in words and how we communicate them.
Creative writing in new media is an evolving discipline, responding to the way innovations in technology and multimedia affect how we present and process the written word. It’s seen increasingly as an option for creative writing degrees at bachelors’ and masters’ levels. The New Media Writing Prize (http://newmediawritingprize.co.uk/) – which will run again later this year – is an annual highlight of the multimedia arts/writing scene, and Opening Up Digital Fiction, the UK’s first digital fiction competition, was launched last year by Sheffield Hallam University and Bangor University. It’s a growing field.