Transmedia storytelling experience comes to Portsmouth for the first time – here's how you can get involved

After I apologise, Matt tells me he needs to channel himself ‘out of his writing world and into this one’ – and then he’s ready to begin.

The 52-year-old has had a busy year with the project Cursed City: Dark Tide now on the horizon. Inspired by his popular novel The Snow Witch, Matt’s work was the catalyst for a transmedia experience that’s coming to Portsmouth for the first time.

As part of DarkFest 2019, Cursed City: Dark Tide is an interactive story that will unfold on social media, in street art, live events and even a live gig at a secret location.

Along the way, people can either watch for fun as the story unfolds or help solve the clues through deciphering the secret messages by going to locations across the city to pick up subtle signs that will point them to the next part of the game.

But what kick-started a unique project that now encompasses more than 40 local artists, collaborative writers and city venues was a walk though Southsea by Matt in 2013.

He says: ‘I was inspired by a couple of buskers I came across in Palmerston Road. They were very charismatic violin and guitar players. I found them so interesting.

‘I approached them when they’d finished and bought them coffee. She and her partner explained they were catching the next ferry out of Portsmouth to travel around Europe, funding their trip through busking.

‘I went away with this image in my head, planning for the novel to have a magical feel but I seem to have a dark sense of storytelling.

‘I decided to let it sit and I finally came back to it in 2016 and just went for it.

‘I just followed my gut instinct. There’s a big twist and even I had no idea it was coming,’ says Matt.

The Snow Witch was published in 2017 and has received glowing reviews in The Folklore Podcast and Folk Horror Revival.

The novel tells the story of an enigmatic young woman, Donitza, who arrives in Portsmouth in a snow storm and as the story unfolds, the reader discovers she is a far more powerful woman than was first realised.

And while Matt thought the dust had settled surrounding the craze of his magic-realism masterpiece, Roy Hanney’s transmedia idea was just beginning.

Roy, 58, says: ‘I first read The Snow Witch in early 2018. I thought it was remarkable.

‘I’ve always had an interest in magic realism and for me, it generated an interest in European culture and music.

‘The novel also celebrated Portsmouth so beautifully. I could imagine myself in the pub where the characters were.’

Roy is a lecturer for the media production course at Solent University, Southampton, and transmedia was one of the new modules he was required to teach.

‘I was intrigued and didn’t know what transmedia was so I began an online course by the University of New South Wales, Australia,’ he explains.