Web & Mobile & Book integration: "Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight"

Book CoverPenguin Australia have launched a new book for the 13+ market: Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight. Written by Nick Earls and Rebecca Sparrow, the story is described as follows:

Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight is two weeks in the life of Joel Hedges and Cat Davis. Joel would prefer to get through his final year of high school without Cat Davis or his mother’s faux Spanish boyfriend and just hang-out with his best-friend Luke. Cat Davis has an annoying best-friend, and even more annoying little brother, and a deep abiding hatred of Joel Hedges.

Due to an unfortunate incident involving a leaking pen and suspected outbreak of Bird Flu, Joel and Cat are forced to sit next to each other in Extension English. To make matters worse, and to their mutual horror, they are paired together for a tandem story writing assignment. [source]

The story is delivered rotating between the POVs of the characters Joel and Cat and is linked by their tandem storytelling assignment; the writers, Nick and Rebecca, also wrote the story in a tandem storytelling style and the readers can also participate in the tandem storyelling assignment by submitting story threads on the website or SMS. The website was produced by IshMedia, which includes Kylie Robertson — the legend behind online & mobile interactive narrative works such as Jupiter Green (that I analysed for a journal), Girl Friday and Rock Chickz .

As I’ve said before, it is these sort of intimate and parallel media experiences that will increase over the next few years and will explore the potential of polymorphic narrative.

Check it out: http://www.joelandcat.com

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