With the emergence of a more fully interactive web 2.0 in the twenty-first century, and the digital distribution of texts through a variety of web-sites and e-readers, the experience of narrative is once again agitated. We read stories across platforms, entire novels are written to respond to the conventions of specific social media applications and the clicks, swipes and pinches to which our liquid crystal displays respond allow for multiple commands through which narrative structure and organisation can be made to respond. With these technological advances, new story-forms are possible and new reading subjectivities and modes evolve. Narrative is co-created in a richly interactive environment, through a variety of tools, available to all readers and creators with access to phones or computers. This series of two workshops introduced participants to the contemporary possibilities of interactive narrative and launched them into engagement with a fresh practice.

The workshops introduced participants to the history, theory, and practice of the interactive digital narrative, and provided training in the use of freely accessible tools. During the first workshop session, students were introduced to interactive narrative with a lecture and Q&A. Four pieces of highly inventive work were produced for and workshopped during the second session. A free-flowing discussion of the possibilities of the tools used engaged all participants.

Organized by Birkbeck College (Dr. Mark Blacklock Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck College) and Dr. Alan Trotter.