Ten Miles East Of England: The Quest For The Lost Stories.

I forgot to tell you. I’ve been so busy sorting and preparing that I forgot completely.  I’ve been awarded a Special Commission at the Humber Mouth Literature Festival.

Humber Mouth Literature Festival 6-16th November
Humber Mouth Literature Festival 6-16th November.

 

With Ten Miles East Of England: The Quest For The Lost Stories I’ll be connecting kids with words by using Minecraft. Over the next 3 weeks I’ll be working with one class in Alderman Cogan C.E. School. We’ll look at play scripts, lyrics, poems, comics, websites and generally play with words until we have a story to build in Minecraft for the festival in November. (You’ll notice a significant lack of the word BOOK in there.)

2015-09-27_07.53.56When I popped in to meet the class I would be working with I had no intention of raging on about books and their importance. There’s no greater turn off after all, than being told, preached at or ordered to do something. I took lots of different ‘books’ with me, all varying in game and visual tie in. The shiny covers of the Minecraft guide books were the most popular things on the table – and that’s before we actually start,  so let’s have less of “kids don’t read.” They just don’t always read what ‘we’ want them to read. It doesn’t mean we should devalue what they (and own up guys, what we) enjoy. It doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of narratives or stereotypes. These exist in formats outside of our much loved books. Let’s stop judging things by the cover.

What IS Ten miles east of England?
What IS Ten miles east of England?

I’ll be updating the commission website: www.story-craft.com throughout the coming weeks with various things. We’ll be recording our gameplay on You Tube, and inviting everyone to take part and write their own Minecraft stories too.

Drop by the website, write some stories of your own (check out the challenge page) and have a play on Minecraft turning those descriptive passages into biomes! (You may be there a while!) Or you could just share the website address on Twitter, Facebook and their other social media friends.