Edinburgh writers are Nesta storytelling prize finalists

Nesta, the innovation foundation, is supporting creators to revolutionise the age-old art of storytelling to fit a modern world, from InstaNovels to watching Romeo and Juliet’s relationship blossom over WhatsApp – and two of the shortlisted writers are from Edinburgh.  

• Nesta has shortlisted and supported 9 writers with £1.5k of development funding, mentor sessions with experienced digital writers and a creative technologist, and 3 months of R&D time
• In the autumn, one of these 9 writers will be awarded £15,000 based on innovation in form, interface and interactivity, as well as in overall quality of content
• The works can be tested and experienced on the BBC Taster website from 7 August until 14 September, with Nesta asking young people to give feedback to help select the final winner

The Alternarratives Prize encouraged storytellers to imagine how short stories told in creative ways could help re-engage young people with the act of reading, focusing on those aged 13-16.

In one of their recent reports the National Literacy Trust found that reading enjoyment levels in children and young people had continued to decline and are at their lowest since 2013, only 53% said they enjoyed reading in 2019 vs 58.63% in 2016.

Daily reading levels are also at their lowest, with just 25.8% of children in 2019 saying they read daily in their free time. Nesta is seeking ways to encourage young people to read more via accessible and familiar mediums, technology and language. 

The finalists include:

• Viccy Adams, Edinburgh – Explore an abandoned theme park in Berlin while you listen to this audio short story of teenage self-discovery. Spree is designed to be experienced on a computer: get your laptop out, turn up the volume and enjoy getting lost.
• Gavin Inglis, Edinburgh – The Reader Remix invites active participation in an audiobook by adding layers of music beneath the narration, which the reader can manipulate. The R&D period of this project will produce new spoken and musical content, and experiment with existing tools for their delivery.
• John Dinneen, London – Introducing the Insta Short, for a new generation of storytellers. This first-of-a-kind, contemporary Instagram short story tells the fictional account of Nel, an aspiring artist who finds support for her artwork online. Nel’s account is inseparable from social media and so naturally told through it. At the end of it all, Nel’s story will leave you ever more conflicted about the possibilities and the dangers of life lived online.
• Emma Hill, Manchester – “I have ten minutes to tell you everything.” After Words is a story to a young person, from the adult who cares for them, designed to last a lifetime of them being apart from each other. Read the story once straight through, and then read it again slowly, many times, exploring all the links on the page. Each read through tells a different piece of the story, exploring connection, distance and the stories we leave behind. 
• Rachael Hodge and Felicity Brown, Oxford – WillPlay: Romeo & Juliet will take the form of a WhatsApp-style group chat, allowing young people to engage with Shakespeare’s story and interact with his characters via a familiar, accessible medium. The reader/player will be cast as a character in three key scenes, invited to take part in the conversation, in order to move through the narrative, sending it in new and exciting directions.
• Thomas McMullan, London – The Unsettled Ground. A file lands on your desktop: the last documents of the journalist Angus Bead. A small town has been wiped off the map, and you must unravel what happened by searching through Bead’s articles, diaries, notes, strange stories and troubling testimony. Draw your own connections. Read like a detective.
• Jasmine Richards, Oxford – Earworm is an immersive short story experience on your phone that tells the tale of Ayesha and a creature called Earworm. The Earworm reveals people’s true intentions through sound and music. Using small sections of text, chat stories, and immersive soundscapes with embedded audio cues the reader will learn the truth of Earworm and the secrets of those around Ayesha. The reader will also get to produce their own piece of music.
• Ben Samuels at Limbik Theatre, London – The Garden combines the written word with ambisonic, spatial audio, bringing a new layer of immersion to the act of reading. The dark, magic realism of The Garden of Earthly Delights is designed to be accompanied by an ambisonic audio soundtrack, played through headphones linked to a phone or tablet. The soundscape supports the narrative, locating, placing, and immersing them within the world of the story.
• Shane Strachan, Aberdeen – Do we control technology or does it control us? Jenna took part in IMBED-X’s tech experiment in January 2020 and has since vanished. Adam needs Instagram, Google and you to help find her in this thrilling online mystery. Told across multiple Instagram stories and accounts, this narrative encourages readers to use online tools such as Google Translate and Google Books to help find Jenna by harnessing the power of language, literature and digital connection. Along the way, the story also encourages young readers to reflect on how embedded technology is in their lives and to question whether or not they have an over-reliance on it. 

Fran Sanderson, Nesta’s Director of Arts and Culture Programmes and Investments said: “With Alternarratives, our aim is to encourage writers to experiment in their practice. In this pilot year, we had the more specific target of changing the way young people think about and engage with reading.

“The way we consume narrative content has changed rapidly, and this has accelerated in the pandemic. The shift towards an experience economy, perhaps in addition to a more general sense of a lack of control, has led audiences to expect more agency and interaction, and we believe this can be an opportunity for literary storytelling. 

“We wanted to explore how we can support writers to be more innovative and think outside the linear format. We have been amazed by the creative ideas these writers had, and humbled by their tenacity and ingenuity in the R&D phase – it’s been a real privilege to see these projects turn into a reality, and we’re incredibly excited to share them with the public, especially the young people we’re hoping to reach.”