Penguin UK have launched their much-anticipated We Tell Stories project.
This is a new locative storytelling project produced in collaboration with alternative reality gamers Six to Start. Six Penguin authors will publish new digital stories, inspired by six Penguin classics, over six weeks. The first, launched on Wednesday, is 21 Steps by Charles Cumming, inspired by the famous 39 Steps and set in Google maps. It’s interactive, fun and, as I’m discovering, a little addictive. Plus rumour has it there’s a mystery seventh story for users to discover somewhere on the site. Mmmmm… sticky content.
I love this project. It’s not a boring PDF of an out-of-print book. It’s a switched-on publisher genuinely embracing new forms of storytelling in a native digital context, but supported by a platform that enables them to promote their authors and books. I look forward to seeing how successful it is but I’m also a little chuffed since this is not far distant from two of the regional writing projects for new media we’re working on at QWC with the support of Arts Queensland.
Kate Eltham is a writer and creative industries professional based in Brisbane, Australia. She is Chief Executive Officer of 
kate.eltham {at} gmail.com
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What a brilliant concept… love it when technology is used to create a truly exciting project!
Me too! And while there’ll be plenty of alternative reality gamers that think this is relatively tame, I think this is very clearly an attempt to reach out to a mainstream audience. Hope they succeed!