Have you ever wanted to walk the city alongside the characters in a favourite novel? Or experience what it might be like to amble the streets under the guidance of an all-knowing narrator, someone who knew your story even before you did?

Since 2014, the VPSN’s Active Fiction project has brought a mashup of public art, literary fiction and walking tours to the streets of Vancouver. And now, starting Saturday, May 13, you can borrow a brand-new interactive ebook of the stories from the VPSN’s Active Fiction project! We’re publishing the ebook in partnership with the Vancouver Public Library as part of VPL’s Write On event celebrating local writers.

So if you missed out on some of the past stories, or you want to try out new options and endings in some of your favourite stories, follow this link to borrow the ebook from VPL’s local writers collection, using your VPL library card.

Where public space and literature intersect

As fans know, Active Fiction brings real-life “create your own adventure” stories to Vancouver, where readers follow a short fictional story as it unravels in the city’s streets. We work with local writers to create stories that take place in a Vancouver neighbourhood. The stories feature you, the reader, as the protagonist. Chapters are “hidden” in public spaces throughout the same neighbourhood in which the story takes place.

Literary adventures in public space. Photo: Kari Lund Teigen

Active Fiction allows readers to experience a story that they discover by walking or biking through the same neighbourhood in which the story unfolds.​ In this way, the reader plays an active role both in shaping the narrative and in actually moving through the story’s physical space.

In Active Fiction, Vancouver’s streets, neighbourhoods, local shops, parks and cemeteries offer dimensions for readers to explore. The project explores what might happen when a private act, like reading, becomes something that can be easily shared with friends and neighbours. This playful approach to engaging with a neighbourhood blurs the lines between fiction and reality and offers readers a new experience – one that brings them closer to the story than in the traditional manner of reading a book.

The city’s public spaces are great commons: places for encountering others, for understanding our points of connection with strangers passing in the street, for creating our own stories of who we – and others – are. Active Fiction echoes our collective experience of the social life of public spaces, reminding us that, just as in real life, the streets are where the stories are. 

More Active Fiction on the way

To read some of the previous Active Fiction stories, don’t forget to check out the ebook.

Want to experience it ‘in real life’? We’ll be bringing new Active Fiction stories to Vancouver streets later this year, so sign up for our mailing list and be the first to know!

Image courtesy of Vancouver Courier

VPSN and VIVA Vancouver are bringing back the Karaoke Kiosk to heart of Vancouver this August. Designed by Urban Republic, the Kiosk is an outdoor karaoke booth that allows you to choose your favourite song from a touch screen display and sing for the adoring public on the streets of downtown Vancouver. More info about the Kiosk can be found at this link: http://www.urbanrepublic.ca/sing/about/

VPSN is seeking volunteers to help with the Karaoke Kiosk. The event will run on the following dates and locations:

-Sunday Aug. 12th, 2pm-6pm at 700 block of Granville St. (between Robson St. and Georgia St.)

-Sunday Aug. 19th, 2pm-6pm at the Vancouver Art Gallery steps (800 block of Robson St. between Hornby St. and Howe St.)

-Sunday Aug. 26th, 2pm-6pm at the Library Square steps (300 block Robson St. @ Homer St.)

We are looking for help in two main areas:

1) Before and after event: transport, set up and tear down
2) During event: minor crowd management, assisting public, general help where needed

For job # 1, we’ll need some strong bodies to be available beforehand from 12pm to 2pm to help transport the structure on a dolly from the Pacific Centre underground parking lot to the respective event site. On site there will also be set up of computers and a PA system that will be unloaded from a van. Then we do the same thing in reverse when we wrap up at 6pm.

For job #2, physical strength isn’t necessary as you’d be helping the public with related issues with the kiosk, managing the crowd, watching equipment during transport/set-up, etc.

A minimum two-hour commitment is preferable, but not mandatory. Snacks and refreshments will be provided. Contact simon [at] vancouverpublicspace.ca if interested.

Don’t you love it when the good people in your life hook up?

Our good friends at HB Lanarc have been working on a project for the Vancouver Public Library called “Free-for-all: Reimagining Your Library.” It’s pretty cool stuff!

Over the next 10 months, they’ll be working together to explore the concepts of public space and learning spaces; the future of library collections; the role and purpose of public programming; and supporting children and families. As part of all this, they’re engaging staff, stakeholders, the board of trustees, and the public to reimagine what the library will be for all of us in the coming years. The results of this process will feed into a subsequent Strategic Plan for VPL.

The first public event is this coming Tuesday, November 29, from 4:00 – 8:00 pm @ Central Branch (350 W. Georgia St.). The theme is “Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA),” based on the self-directed adventure books many of you will remember from your own childhood.

Come do a real-life CYOA as you navigate through activity stations throughout the Central Branch and give your ideas about the future of the library – will your choices result in fame and fortune or disaster? Only you can decide this!

If you can’t make the event, please take the time to check out the online Conversation Kit (also modeled after a Choose Your Own Adventure book!) – you can find that here.

And just in time for the holiday season… there will be 3 prizes awarded on December 15th for those who take part in the event and/or who fill out a Conversation Kit online. The prizes are:

1. 1. A trip up to the VPL Main Branch Green Roof
2. 2. An iPod Nano
3. 3. A bag of great Books

Click to page one and get started!