Last week I had a look at a platform call MacGuffin that not-for-profit Manchester based publishers Comma Press are hosting. Comma Press have a wide range of publishing initiatives as part of their Arts Council ‘National Portfolio Initiative‘.
MacGuffin is basically a very stripped back blogging platform offering a simple self-publishing resource for short story writers and poets. Every story or poem published on MacGuffin is presented both as a text, and as an audio recording. It’s therefore aimed, in part, at bringing together audiences that like to be read to with authors who enjoy reading aloud (I suppose there must be some people who don’t!). I think that it is ‘early days’ for the platform, which could perhaps usefully develop one or two additional features (playlists, perhaps?) without sacrificing it’s pleasingly sparse format, but it’s an interesting idea.
As a test, I joined and added a walking poem called ‘The Fairy Hill‘ from a little while ago, extending the soundtrack to include some notes about the poem. It was all very easy and there is lots of helpful advice about recording audio if you’re new to this. One thing I found awkward was that I couldn’t see how to link to a page with a ‘read/listen’ option for my post – this might exist, but I couldn’t find it easily, only a link to the ‘read’ page. But instead here’s a search link that should offer both…
You can find out more about more about MacGuffin and find out how to join in here on Comma Press’s site.
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