Literary Festival 2013: Fast Fiction: creative writing and changing technology [Audio]

Summary: Speaker(s): Jonathan Gibbs | Editor's note: This podcast contains writing exercises, which may mean some periods of silence during the recording, but we would encourage you to join in. It’s a truism that technology is changing the way we live our lives – but should this fact change just what we write about, or should it change the way we write too? In this workshop we will look at – and try out – various ways that writers have tried to keep pace with the new dynamics of the digital age, including flash fiction and Twitter fiction, as well as seeing what happens when we try to incorporate these new ways of understanding the world, and dealing with the information overload, into more tradition prose styles and forms. Bring a pad and paper, and a Twitter-enabled communication device (phone or laptop) ready to tweet – set up an account if you don’t have one. Jonathan Gibbs is currently finishing a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia, where he was awarded a Malcolm Bradbury memorial bursary, and graduate teacher of the Year. His story, Tiny Camels is published by www.shortfirepress.com and his novel Randall, or The Painted Grape is currently on submission. This is the first of three workshops, followed by Trying New Positions: how to spice up your text life at 11am, and Based on a True Story at 12noon. This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.