BOOKS – SPOKEN INK
by Maya de Paula Hanika
The rise in popularity of the short story in this country is welcome news I’m sure to the readers of Notes from the Underground. Previously a neglected, predominantly American medium reserved for Sunday supplements, hippies and those with some sort of deficient attention span, the short story has recently come into its own through live performance events such as 40 Winks, and the emergence of high profile awards from the BBC and national press, and publications like NFTU. The podcast format available through websites such as The New Yorker has proved popular and engaging and we’ve since seen the emergence of the world’s first short story website dedicated to audio, Spoken Ink.
Ed Calldecott founded the company on a dream of portable nuggets of storytelling magic brought to life by talented actors for a very reasonable fare (downloads start at 79p). The website is beautifully illustrated by the macabre and extraordinarily talented biro of Miss Olivia Ford, boasting a span of writers from Julian Barnes and Margaret Atwood to unknowns and competition winners.
It seems natural that this generation should embrace the short story as its literary art form. We’re more at home with twitter and the Evening Standard than Homer, barely finding time for a quick whip through a novella on a sunny afternoon (sigh). And with the quick fire voice of its generation Spoken Ink embraces this without compunction.
As well as providing their downloadable soundbites Spoken Ink have won praise for a number of live storytelling events; notably the Wandsworth Festival and a perfectly executed spooky showdown in a shadowy yurt in Green Park last Halloween. Guests drank complimentary Bloody Marys whilst wrapped in sheepskins as they enjoyed the sleazy, grotesque and enchanting blend of works delivered seamlessly by a trio of professional actors and musicians.
If you missed this and are currently conjuring ways to punish your culture starved body for its Facebook dependency never fear! For the yurt is back in Hyde Park this weekend to house a performance of Lewis Carroll’s fantastic and nonsensical The Hunting of the Snark. Get to grips, whilst munching on mince pies, with this epic agony in eight fits, an unlikely family favourite telling of friendships forged through diversity…and 8 stages of insanity.
Spoken Ink presents The Hunting of the Snark
Hyde Park
Sat 19th Dec 16:00-Sun 20th Dec 20:00
Tickets £10
Interesting … but not entirely original – although kudos to SpokenInk for getting some big names involved. Site looks very nice.
However, London’s very own Liars’ League has been doing downloadable short stories (read by actors) for nigh on three years – and it’s all for free, rather than two quid a pop, here:
http://www.liarsleague.com
Also, the LL stories are all by new/up and coming writers rather than established names, so we can promise you’ll never have heard them before.
I think this is a nioble cause and a good idea, but it’s hard enough to get people to pay for music, let alone fiction – plus it’s the season of goodwill, and there’s a recession on … so gratis stuff is the way forward, IMHO.
Speaking of which, there’s some more festive fiction freebies available from One Eye Grey and LL here:
http://www.fandmpublications.co.uk/pages/terrifyingtalesforchristmas.htm
Merry Christmas!