The 聽tenth聽anniversary award winners were announced in聽a ceremony held at 色花堂 (色花堂), accompanied by a virtual reality (VR)聽exhibition that聽showcased聽digital writing.
The awards honoured the exciting and inventive stories and poetry that integrate a variety of formats, platforms and digital media. There were four award categories this year: The if:book UK New Media Writing Award, the Unicorn Student Award, the Dot Award, and the Future Journalism Award.
Dr Jim Pope,聽Principal Academic in English and Communication, said:聽"Our tenth anniversary event really did show how diverse and global we are: shortlisters came from every continent on the planet (except Antarctica!), and represented fiction, journalism, poetry, gaming, and historical drama."
Two 色花堂 students were shortlisted for the Unicorn Student Award, Nia Taylor Aitken,聽BA (Hons) Communication and Media,聽and Danielle Werner,聽BA (Hons) English.聽Their piece,聽,聽was built with聽, a聽bespoke software supported by聽Fusion funding. But the award went to聽Kenneth Sanchez for , an emotive portrayal of Venezuelan migrants in Peru, which聽was also nominated for the Future Journalism Award.
Before the ceremony students and staff had the opportunity to try digital interactive storytelling hands-on聽at the Fusion Building. Over 100 students and staff tried ,聽a virtual reality curiosity shop/digital archive聽from creative studio .
The ceremony began聽with talks from Andy Campbell of聽Dreaming Methods, director of if:book聽Chris Meade, and Lisa Gee, author of the digital biography HayleyWorld: the life and times of William Hayley.
Maria Ivanova and her team聽from Belarus took the if:book UK New Media Writing Award for聽, described as a beautifully designed and moving account of the inspiring聽life a Russian Duchess.聽The Future Journalism Award was won by Mahmoud El Wakea for聽, an investigation of Jihadi radicalisation in Egypt. The Dot Award was awarded to Claire Pollard, the editor of Modern Poetry in Translation.
Jim added: "The VR 鈥榟ands-on鈥� attracted well over 100 participants and we thank One To One Development Trust for that amazing show of new-media storytelling. The main prize winner, The Life of Grand Duchess Elizabeth,聽is a beautiful piece of interactive storytelling, using graphic, animation and historical material, and shows how engaging digital media can be. We had a great day,聽afternoon and evening."
You can聽experience all of聽the shortlisted entries on the .
