Narrative Magazine's Take on the Future of Reading.

Narrative describes itself as 'A nonprofit organisation dedicated to storytelling in the digital age.' It produces a high quality online magazine that can be read on Kindle, iPhone and iPad as well as on screen, featuring short fiction, poetry, cartoons, graphic stories and much more. I recommend you visit the site to see the quality of the offerings, which are free for subscribers to the newsletter.

The article below is their view of the future of reading.

This is a make-or-break moment for reading. While some folks are understandably anxious about the future of reading in the world, especially among youth, at Narrative we see the digital age as an opportunity to create new audiences for literary excellence.

New studies cited recently in the Washington Post and the New York Times found that today’s youth are not reading less, they’re just reading differently—on digital devices. Children and teens want to read more, using the new technologies.

This is excellent news for literature and a mandate for Narrative’s mission to advance reading in the digital age. As the preeminent online literary magazine, Narrative is in exactly the right place to engage the next generation of readers.

Every day we bring great writing online, to readers across the globe. In 2010 our subscribers skyrocketed to 100,000, nearly the number of hallmark print publications such as The Atlantic. Free and available to all, Narrative is being used in classrooms from Seoul, Korea, to Moscow to Youngstown, Ohio.

Also this year Narrative stories were awarded the prestigious laurels of the print age—the O. Henry and Pushcart Prizes—and were named among the Best American Short Stories. Best yet, our readers found those stories via today’s most innovative platforms: the iPhone and iPad, the Kindle, and even customizable applications.

Your support makes all this possible. Because of you, Narrative is an international resource that promotes literacy and enables education. Because of you, Narrative can find the stand-out stories and support writers and artists, teachers and students. Because of you, Narrativeis everywhere our readers are—online, on mobile devices, and on the printed page.

We’re giving new life to literature at an important time. But there’s so much more we can do. Your tax-deductible contribution will support: 

• Narrative in the Schools, an educational initiative that delivers tailored content to secondary school systems struggling to afford textbooks and seeking to enable new ways of learning.
• Narrative30Below, which discovers, nurtures, and celebrates our next generation of writers and artists.
• Our modern library of stories—free and portable to readers around the world, of all socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.

We know that great stories have a timeless ability to engage and inspire the readers who find them. And those readers are more than twice as likely as nonreaders to vote, to volunteer, and to be active participants in their communities. That is why Narrative is paving the way in bringing the best new stories to the digital world and to readers of all ages.