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A project has been launched to build an online "networked book" around responses to the work of 19th century poet-illustrator William Blake.
Songs of Imagination and Digitisation has been developed by literary think tank if:book London and is being funded by the Arts Council. The final product will be available online, for free, in the New Year.
Networked books are open pieces of work, which can be edited and added to from within the network. Currently if:book has 10 collaborators, including actor Toby Jones, technology journalist Bill Thompson, writers Lisa Gee and Tim Wright, and Tom Heath, chair of the Blake Society. Written as either fiction or non-fiction, every chapter will be a response to a piece of Blake’s work. Design work will be carried out by the artist Toni LeBusque.
Chris Meade, director of if:book, said he hoped it would be "a bold introduction" into creating new types of digital book content. He said: "Blake seized on what was available to get his message across - he used the technology available to him in a full-bodied way.
"He may be very much studied, and some may see him as difficult or obscure, but Blake was very creative and made great use of multi-media, so we thought he was a source of inspiration for what a networked book might be."
Meade said the project would also aim to blur the lines between "creative reading and creative writing" by allowing readers to respond. But he added there was "no plan of what might come out" during the scheme. "Like all of our things, it’s an experiment," he said.
if:book has also recently launched an online book group, focused around Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook. Meade said the strong response to the concept boded well for other similar projects. He said: "If it works with such a big book as Lessing’s, it seems like something we should repeat."
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