The Digital Futures Institute is set to explore the future of storytelling this June with a three-day Festival of Storytelling taking place in London from 2nd to 4th June. Bringing together academics, writers, journalists, broadcasters and creatives, the festival will examine how stories shape culture, communication and our understanding of the future across media ranging from games and fiction to podcasts, journalism and AI.
Organised in partnership with our friends at the Arthur C Clarke Award, the programme has a particularly strong speculative storytelling focus this year, making it especially relevant to audiences working in games, transmedia and interactive entertainment.
Highlights include sessions on “Game Narratives and Nonlinear Storytelling”, “Applied science fiction for participatory futures”, “Preserving the uncanny(?) – Digital Folklore in the Age of AI”, and “Hope, Anger and Writing: science fiction vs the doomscroll”.
The festival also features practical workshops and discussions spanning role-playing games, podcasting, comedy, journalism and digital creativity, alongside appearances from notable figures including author qntm, novelist Sarah Perry and broadcaster Samira Ahmed.
In partnership with the Arthur C Clarke Award
One of the key events for science fiction fans and future-facing creatives takes place on the evening of 4th June, when Samira Ahmed delivers the keynote “Analogue tech: Our storytelling saviour or nostalgic retreat?” at King’s College London. The free session explores the resurgence of “slow media” and changing attitudes towards physical and analogue creative experiences.
Immediately afterwards, organisers will unveil the shortlist for the 2026 Arthur C Clarke Award science fiction book of the year.
The 2026 Clarke Award marks the 40th anniversary of the prize, with this year’s judging panel receiving a record-breaking 132 submissions from 52 publishers and independent authors.
The annual Arthur C Clarke Award is given for the best science fiction novel first published in the UK during the previous year. The judges are a voluntary body with members nominated each year by the award’s supporting organisations, currently the British Science Fiction Association, the Science Fiction Foundation and the Sci-Fi-London film festival. Last year’s Arthur C Clarke Award was won by Sierra Greer for the novel Annie Bot.
The Digital Futures Institute Festival of Storytelling takes place across venues at King’s College London and Science Gallery London from 2nd to 4th June, with many events free to attend.
Professional geek Dave is General Manager of Steel Media, the company behind Beyond Games. He leads the company strategy, especially its events, marketing and editorial teams. Dave started his career writing game reviews in the 1990s and has since served as editor-in-chief of publications including the official Microsoft magazine and SFX, the leading science fiction magazine. He is a contributor to The Screen Traveller’s Guide book from DK, and has since co-authored a book about the depiction of AI in literature and film for Bloomsbury. He curates the AI Gamechangers newsletter.
