Lunchtime Talks are a series of informal presentations at Watershed's Pervasive Media Studio. They normally take place at 13:00 on a Friday, are free and are open to everybody who is interested in what they do. Come along, bring a sandwich, and get to know more about the Studio community, current and up-coming projects, or residents' work.

Literary novelists Nikesh Shukla and Chris Killen have both written novels about the emotional impact of social media on our lives. As lines in the sand for how we live now and whether bare our souls online in 140-character confessionals, ‘Meatspace’ and ‘In Real Life’ both interrogate the very nature of over-familiarity and identity. They will be in conversation discussing just how to write about social media in a literary way, the impact of including transient language like Retweet and Favourite and Like in fiction and whether social media, in its infancy, is a good thing for people. There will be arguments, there will be references to Jane Austen, there will be confessions of their own searches for validation online, and there will be an investigation into whether the oldest form of ideas-communication, the novel, can keep up with the fast-paced nature of social interaction.

Nikesh Shukla is the author of ‘Meatspace’ and the award-nominated ‘Coconut Unlimited. He’s the editor of Rife magazine at Watershed and has written for The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday and BBC Radio 4. Chris Killen's debut novel, The Bird Room was published in 2009. Wizard's Way, a film he co-wrote, produced and starred in won the Best Comedy Feature award at London Independent Film Festival, and the Discovery Award at LOCO. Remake rights have been acquired by Jack Black. He currently lives in Manchester.

The Pervasive Media Studio is located within the Watershed building. Let us know if you'd like a tour and we'll be happy to show you around. Send an email to admin@pmstudio.co.uk

FFI:pmstudio.co.uk

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