Can intelligent literature survive in the digital age?

A great article in the Independent this weekend, with assessments from the agent Clare Alexander, Sue Thomas (Professor of New Media at De Montfort University), authors Tracy Chevalier and Chris Meade, Penguin digital publisher Jeremy Ettinghausen and others.

Chris Meade also gets a great mention in another Independent article – ‘Who’ll be the bestsellers of tomorrow?‘:

Christopher Meade’s multimedia novella, In Search of Lost Tim, meanwhile, uses fictitious blogs (hosted at www.insearchoflosttim.net) and YouTube videos to tell the story of a blogger who is contacted by a boy who claims he lives in the 1960s and is communicating via his “Futurizer”). Young Tim is trying to contact his future self, the political activist and secret agent Lord Tim. It’s a jeux d’esprit, but also, just possibly, the future of fiction.

I have to admit to some favouritism here, as one of my last tasks as Digital Writer in Residence at DMU was to mentor Chris for ‘In Search of Lost Tim’. But I can’t take any credit… he really didn’t need any mentoring from me, to be honest. Well done Chris, it’s a great piece of electronic fiction!