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Collaborative Storytelling at SXSW Interactive!

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:36:56 +0000

We’re big fans of SXSW Interactive here at Fourth Story Media, and this year we thought that in addition to attending the festivities, and sitting on a panel, we’d try out a little storytelling experiment…

Starting this Friday, March 12th at 10 AM central time, we’ll be hosting an interactive storytelling exquisite corpse-esque competition over at The Future of the Story. How it works:

Follow us on Twitter to receive the kickoff sentence for each story (contributed by some of your favorite web storytellers)

@ reply to @itwasadarkand with what you think happens next; your sentence will show up here

Vote up the best sentence

Every round, the winning sentence becomes part of the story and it’s time to write the next!

Once each story closes, we’ll be adding it to our story archive where it will be given a title and illustrated by Figure-1. AND (just to make things super extra saucy fun) we’ll be choosing one contributor from each story at random to win a choice of radtastic books (either Miranda July’s Learning to Love You More, or Jeffrey Zeldman’s A Book Apart), AND the original, signed illustration that accompanied their story!

Anyone and everyone is invited to play. We’ll be starting things off easy with two stories on Friday (new lines added approximately every 30 minutes, second story up around 4 PM), and we’ll ramp up from there depending on how feverishly you type. If you’re at SXSW, be sure to look for our buttons inside of your Big Bags, and watch for FSM’s Lisa Holton and Erin Kissane handing out our limited edition totes (both pictured here). Whoohoo! UPDATE: The first story “Bearly Noir” is complete! Read it now. Read all of the finished stories!

SXSW 2010: New Publishing & Web Content

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:50:52 +0000

Are you heading to the always invigorating SXSW Interactive this year? Are you obsessed with the future of publishing? Storytelling? Print media? Digital media? Writing? Reading? Words? Awesomeness? Be sure to check out New Publishing & Web Content on Saturday March 13th @ 5PM CT in Ballroom A. Hosted by Happy Cog’s Jeffrey Zeldman, the panel will “explore the creative, strategic, and marketing challenges of traditional and new (internet hybrid) book publishing and online magazine publishing, and how these fields intersect with content strategy and client services.”

Fantastic (if we do say so ourselves) panelists include:

Lisa Holton – CEO + Founder, FSM
Erin Kissane – Web Project + Community Manager, FSM / Blogger, Incisive.nu
Mandy Brown – Creative Director, Etsy
Paul Ford – Novelist / Blogger, FTrain.com / Editor, Harper’s

Hope to see you there!

Flickr Pools: Vintage Children’s Book Illustrations

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:12:33 +0000

Jamie over on illustration blog Pikaland directed us to this amazing Flickr pool dedicated to vintage children’s book illustrations. We love the monkey (at right) from The Circus by Brian Wildsmith. Clicking around, we also found pools dedicated to vintage children’s book covers, Little Golden books, Wonder Books, and new and vintage pop-up books for children.

Wired + Adobe Air Demo a New Way of Reading for the iPad

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:34:02 +0000

The above video caught our eye when Aaron Brashear and Pablo Medina played it during their talk – Print Design Now – at TODA last night.

As Chris Anderson, Wired’s Editor-In-Chief says:

“We’ve been waiting for an opportunity to use all these visual tools at our disposal to tell these stories in a way that is efficient, that is multi-dimensional. But, we also think it’s an opportunity to reset the economics for the first time. People may value this experience so much that they pay for it.”

We recommend watching the whole thing (it’s not that long, and there is some sweet music), but at least check out the:

Dual access navigation (sidescroll from page to page, downscroll to dig deeper into a story) – 1:50
Interactive ads (check out the spinny car) – 1:35

It’s pretty hot.

AOL’s JSYK, HarperTeen, & The Amanda Project Team Up for a Week-Long Clue Hunt!

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:51:57 +0000

The Amanda Project is teaming up with AOL’s teen blog JSYK and HarperTeen to host a week-long clue hunt! Every day this week JSYK is posting a hint to a daily clue. Want to test your clue hunting prowess? Here’s the link to Clue #1! Readers are playing for both the chance to win prizes of a material variety (signed copies of Invisible I, a pink iPod Nano) as well as narrative goodies (the chance to finally discover how main character Hal Bennett got to Crab Apple Hill that fateful night!)

We’ll continue adding links to the hints here as they roll in….Good luck Sherlocks!

UPDATE: Here’s Clue #2, Clue #3, and Clue #4 – Remember you need them all to solve Friday’s big puzzle!

(More about the contest via @JSYK)

Lisa Holton Talks Innovations in Interactive Children’s Publishing

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:50:51 +0000

MediaBistro recently posted this video of Lisa Holton discussing innovations in interactive children’s publishing. Enjoy!

Talking Monkeys, Helpful Robots, and Cars That Run on Trash

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:48:07 +0000

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s adorable Decade in Preview: The Youthful Vision interviews “experts” (kids mostly under 13) on how the world will be different in 2020. Although no one makes predictions about books, robots, female presidents, and lasers look like they’re going to play a central role in our lives.

Some highlights:

I think in 10 years there will be a device that makes monkeys talk to you in English. It will be the next big hit in the U.S. (Lexi, 8 )
Robots will take over the world. They will have lasers. (Jorah, 12)
I think in 2020 there’s going to be a woman president, TVs will have touch screens, and I think I’ll be a famous/rich artist. (Robyn, 11)
There may not be any blue sky. (Annie, 7)
By 2020 I think there will be screens on every desk in school, and trains that run under water (not in tunnels). (Blaise, 12)

Read the full piece here.

(via Buzzfeed)

FSM CEO Lisa Holton to speak at Reading in a Digital Age

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:14:30 +0000

Every day brings a new story—about ebooks, enhanced digital content, new reading devices. But what will the technological advances of today mean for the way we read tomorrow? How and what will we read in the future?

On Wednesday, November 11, 6 – 8pm, come hear the Founder and CEO of Fourth Story Media Lisa Holton speak at Reading in a Digital Age – a panel discussion about the future of newspapers, magazines, and books – moderated by Bill Goldstein, former founding editor of the books site of nytimes.com and book critic for NBC’s “Weekend Today in New York.”

Also on the panel:

Adam Moss, editor of New York Magazine
Ben Vershbow, New York Public Library (and previously a fellow at Institute for the Future of the Book)
Ann Kirschner, University Dean and author

For more info, view the full invite. We hope to see you there!

Happy Halloween from Fourth Story Media!

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:34:43 +0000

A big thank you to our fabulous Editorial Assistant Ariana for putting this together. Happy Halloween!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Invisible I Now in Stores!

admin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:09:25 +0000

Invisible I, the first book in The Amanda Project series is now in stores! Written by Melissa Kantor (under the series pen name Stella Lennon), Invisible I tells Amanda’s story from Callie’s point of view.

Callie Leary has exactly one thing, and one thing only, in common with Nia Rivera and Hal Bennett: They were each chosen by Amanda to be her guide. When Amanda arrived at Endeavor High, she told Callie she moves around a lot and always picks one person to help her navigate the choppy waters of a new school. Why did Amanda lie?

Following a course that they suspect Amanda deliberately plotted, Callie, Nia, and Hal piece together some cryptic clues. But they find more questions than answers and quickly realize that before they can figure out what happened to Amanda—the girl who changed their lives—they’ll need to solve the most important mystery of all: Who is Amanda Valentino?

Browse inside, and read the first 8 chapters here!