My research aims to gain insight into the potential role of digital media in co-authorship of a community novel. I shall be working in the parish of Mylor, a village and surrounding settlements on the south Cornwall coast. I work with community writing groups who, traditionally, use pen and paper and basic word processing. I want to find out whether digital media can be integrated into a process of writing together, with a group of volunteers some of whom use digital media in their daily lives and for work, and others who do not. As well as a writing group, the project will engage with a village archive and local book groups. There will be an element of social sharing and the novel will be written as a relay, with opportunities for readers to critique and influence further installments (as in the 19th centre serial novel). My role is to curate, produce and facilitate the novel , testing ways to use a range of platforms, apps and techniques from gaming, alongside traditional methods of writing and sharing, in a process to which all contributors have equal access. As a practitioner of writing in the community, rather than within education, the research will test a potential new model of inclusive practice from which no one is excluded because of access to digital media, or attitudes to its relation to their creative work. Impact will be measured in terms of creative practice, skills, social capital, and wellbeing.
Supervision Team: Dr Kym Martindale (Director of Studies), Dr Meredith Miller, Dr Danielle Barrios-O’Neill
Contact: jane.moss@falmouth.ac.uk
Website: www.janemoss.com
Website: www.thewritingretreat.co.uk
