Wanted: Dunedin's emerging writers to deliver digital tour of Dunedin's literary hotspot

Posted: Saturday Dec 20, 2014

The Digital Writers Festival is calling out for emerging writers to pitch their ideas for showcasing a live 20 minute streamed tour of Dunedin’s great literary city.

The Digital Writers Festival 2015 aims to equip writers with new ideas and inspiration about how to share their stories and words with audiences online. The world’s first online writers’ festival conference was held in Hobart last year and the second is to be held in Melbourne in mid February 2015.

Festival organisers are promoting this year’s event by taking its audience members on a literary tour of the globe with the help of the world’s UNESCO Cities of Literature.

The organisers are asking emerging writers in any of the Cities of Literature - Edinburgh, Melbourne, Iowa City, Dublin, Reykjavik, Norwich, Krakow, Dunedin, Heidelberg, Prague and Granada to create a 20 minute livecast stream of their favourite literary hotspots, bookstores and cafes around their city while answering questions about their own work via Twitter.

Armed with two smartphones and a 3G/4G data connection an emerging writer and a partner are given the challenge of checking out local writers to see what they are up to and maybe end up with a street reading, or any other literary quirk they conjure.

City of Literature bid Coordinator Liz Knowles says the competition helps to pull together the synergies of the two recent big announcements for the city – taking the Gigatown crown and being recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature.

“This competition highlights both the need for speed via Gigabit technology in bringing the world closer to Dunedin and the opportunities that becoming a City of Literature bring with it both culturally and economically.”

“This competition gives the chance for two of Dunedin’s emerging writers to collaborate and promote both the city and themselves on a world stage. It is an exciting time to be a Dunedinite!”

Applications are now open and close January 5 2015. The Festival runs from February 11-22 2015.

To apply please visit www.digitalwritersfestival.com