-
What we’re reading on our new iPad Mini: Deborah Blum’s true crime bestseller Angel Killer.
-
In 1920s New York, children were mysteriously disappearing. Deborah Blum tells the haunting story of what happened to them in Angel Killer, a new enhanced ebook from The Atavist.
-
Dan Barry’s series on Elyria, Ohio, is presented beautifully in this interactive feature.
-
Listen to Josh Neufeld and Tori Marlan talk to PRI’s The World about their new interactive nonfiction comic, Stowaway.
-
A quick note on Atavist happenings
You may have seen in the news, via reporting from David Carr, that we’ve recently entered in to a partnership with a new venture called Brightline—the brainchild of Scott Rudin, Frances Coady, and Barry Diller. It’s a big deal for us, and we’re really excited about it. It’s also a bit unconventional, so we just wanted to let those of you who are Atavist readers (of our stories) and/or users (of our software) know what it means for us.
In short, it means we’re going to be doing more. On the publishing side, we’re going to be producing more stories and books—some of which will be entirely our creations, some of which will be entirely Brightline’s creations under the vision of Frances Coady. All of them will appear under the Atavist name. On our side of things, we’ll still be telling the kinds of stories we have been: longform, reported, narrative nonfiction between magazine and book length. We’ll still be paying fees and splitting the royalties with our authors, like always. We’ll still be creating multimedia stories, experimenting with new technology and forms (see our most recent nonfiction comic, by Josh Neufeld and Tori Marlan), and also selling our stories as singles on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and Google.
With our platform, as well, we’re not changing course. We’ll continue working with great publishers and organizations like TED, The Paris Review, and many more to help them produce apps, digital magazines, and ebooks. The individual author version of our software, Atavist Create, is still in closed beta, and we’ve been taking our time to refine it, but we’re grinding the gears towards a wider release of that later this year.
So in sum: This is an investment and a collaboration, with some folks we’re really thrilled to work with, enabling us to do a lot of new things that we think you’ll like.
Thanks for supporting us, we wouldn’t exist without the readers and users who’ve trusted us along the way. Speaking of which, check out our latest story! (Or any of the old ones.)
Evan
-
An interactive newspaper that plays audio.
-
Stories from the Midwest, for your e-reader.
-
D For Deception: The Performance
The Role of Performance in Multimedia Storytelling
Atavist No. 16, D For Deception, by Tina Rosenberg, marks The Atavist’s foray into a new medium: live storytelling. On Wednesday at the New America foundation, we premiered D For Deception: The Performance. The short theater piece starred Rosenberg as herself guiding the audience through Dennis Wheatley’s world with the help of audio recordings, live music, images, video, props, and two actors. Sharon Mashihi served as Rosenberg’s subconscious, while actor Gregory Mozgala played the role of Dennis Wheatley, silently acting out his favorite pastimes: drinking, smoking, writing, reading, and womanizing.
During the performance, Rosenberg brought to life her Atavist piece, which traces the forgotten history of a spy novelist turned spy named Dennis Wheatley. Although Wheatley was once called the “Prince of Thriller Writers” in Britain, few today have heard of him.
Wheatley was not just a master storyteller (though not the best prose writer), he was also a multimedia storytelling pioneer. In the 1930s, he penned a series of crime dossiers that replaced the traditional mystery novel with police transcripts, documents, photographs, fingerprints and even physical evidence, thrusting his readers into the active role of detective.
Considering Wheatley’s craft for multimedia thinking, it is fitting to present his history in multimedia form. Rosenberg’s enhanced eBook includes an interactive excerpt from one of Wheatley’s crime dossiers, photographs, illustrations, historical documents, archival footage, maps, timelines, and a slew of other digital media that immerse the reader into Wheatley’s fascinating and decadent world. We were excited to add the layer of performance to that media list.
There is something special about a group of people coming together in a room to share a moment. The performance allowed the audience to experience the author as actor and creator, exposing her relationship to the story—and Wheatley—in a unique way.
Of course, we couldn’t have done it without the fabulous live storytelling troupe known as Radio Cabaret (Kaitlin Prest, Sharon Mashihi and Audrey Quinn), the wonderful musical ensemble Seth Kessel and the Two Cent Band, and our hosts at The New America Foundation, who were extremely supportive of this crazy experiment.
For those of you who missed the performance, plans are in the works for more in the near future. Stay tuned!
—Olivia Koski, Senior Producer
-
