Winners of the New Media Writing Prize revealed at BU
A complimentary poetry game, a cinematic look inside the troubled mind of a demolition expert, and a nightmarish quest inspired by Edgar Allen Poe have all been named winners in the New Media Writing Prize.
The international competition, now in its fifth year, showcases innovative and interactive story-telling designed to be accessed through new media devices.
This year’s New Media Writing Prize attracted more than 100 entries from around the world, with the winners revealed in an awards ceremony at Bournemouth University.
Dr James Pope, BA English Framework Leader at BU and competition director for the New Media Writing Prize, said: “It’s been the biggest ever and I think the quality of the work has been amazing. I think that speaks really well of the health of this field.
“It is about storytelling, it is about using media in the most interactive and creative way, and it generally does attract great interest from the writers and storytelling community.”
The overall prize of £1,000 was won by Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzaro, from Lose Angeles, for their work Pry – an app which uses gaming, video and text to tell the story of a demolition expert who has returned from the Gulf War.
Receiving their award over Skype, they said: “We really care about developing the story and technology and design simultaneously.
“It’s something that we have worked on for so long, so to see some of the responses has been brilliant.”
Winner of the People’s Choice Award – decided by an online vote – was nothing you have done deserves such praise, by Jason Nelson from Brisbane, Australia.
It is a satirical online poetry game, which compliments the player as they progress through different levels and challenges, and received over 500 votes to be named People’s Choice winner.
Herm Holland, who is studying English and Contemporary Media at Cardiff Metropolitan University, won the Student Prize for his work A Dream Within A Dream, an interactive story inspired by an Edgar Allen Poe poem.
He was presented his award by Peter Phillips, CEO of Unicorn Training (Bournemouth) who sponsored the Student Prize.
Herm, whose prize is a three-month paid internship with Unicorn Training, said: “I entered the competition because I thought it could be fun and it sounded interesting.
“Coming here at all has been really helpful and winning has shown me that I am going in the right direction, which is really encouraging. It’s fantastic.”
The awards ceremony also featured talks by two of the Prize judges – Chris Meade, writer and founder of if:book UK, and artist-researcher Maria Mencia.
Maria said: “This has been my first year of doing this and it was quite exciting to see the amount of work submitted.
“The ones that we selected were really good quality, amazing and outstanding work.”
