The Boy Detective Fails
by Joe Meno
Fourth Story Media
A fresh perspective in storytelling
The Flash Player and a browser with Javascript support are needed..
Welcome to Fourth Story Media
We are a new media company. We tell stories that unfold across books, the web, mobile phones and other forms of media. We invite kids to participate in the stories they read...
Traditionally, stories would be told through one medium. A film would exist as a film. A book would exist as a book. Now, the internet and new forms of technology are enabling storytellers to tell their stories not through one medium, but through every conceivable form of media.
— Michael Smith, CEO & Owner, Mind Candy and Perplex City
What We Are Reading
Blue is for Nightmares
by Laurie Faria Stolarz
A Gate at the Stairs
by Lorrie Moore
Invisible I
by Melissa Kantor & Stella Lennon
Today I Wrote Nothing
by Danil Kharms
Latest Conversations
November 2, 2009
Galley Cat Describes TAP as an “Alternative Reality Soap Opera for Teen Readers”
Last week, MediaBistro’s Ron Hogan stopped by our offices to chat with us about The Amanda Project and what we’re up to at Fourth Story Media in general. We had a great time – jumping into a discussion about immersive fiction – soap operas, ARGs and role-playing games, books – the works! From his post:
“The effect, we commented to Holton, was like a participatory soap opera, or a massive Dungeons & Dragons campaign with one dungeonmaster and hundreds of players; she brought up the classic text-based puzzle games Infocom created for home computer owners in the 1980s, which set us both on a nostalgia kick for their adaptation of The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, one of the truly great interactive fictions. (Interestingly, that was the second time this month we’d found ourselves in that conversation!)
“A lot of adults had a really hard time grasping this,” Holton says of the way the books and the website link together into one overarching immersive narrative, “but I would explain it to a 13-year-old girl and ” (she snaps! her fingers) “she’d get it in 30 seconds. In fact, beta users used to tell us it took them a long time to figure the website out, and it would turn out ‘a long time’ was five minutes.” Inspired by the initial success of The Amanda Project, Fourth Story is already preparing another series, a science-fiction-themed narrative aimed at young male readers. “In some ways, this is radically different than what I’d been doing for the last 20 years,” Holton reflects, “but the basics are still the same… What’s the story? And how do you think readers will be interested by it?”
October 29, 2009
FSM CEO Lisa Holton to speak at Reading in a Digital Age
Every day brings a new story—about ebooks, enhanced digital content, new reading devices. But what will the technological advances of today mean for the way we read tomorrow? How and what will we read in the future?
On Wednesday, November 11, 6 – 8pm, come hear the Founder and CEO of Fourth Story Media Lisa Holton speak at Reading in a Digital Age – a panel discussion about the future of newspapers, magazines, and books – moderated by Bill Goldstein, former founding editor of the books site of nytimes.com and book critic for NBC’s “Weekend Today in New York.”
Also on the panel:
- Adam Moss, editor of New York Magazine
- Ben Vershbow, New York Public Library (and previously a fellow at Institute for the Future of the Book)
- Ann Kirschner, University Dean and author
For more info, view the full invite. We hope to see you there!