Our Work
Did You Know?
Did You Know? is a collection of fiction and nonfiction eBooks for young readers around the world, purposefully designed with flexible, non-profit-friendly digital licenses. Each book in the collection explores a single topic in a fun, accessible way, to inspire in the minds of young readers a lifelong curiosity about the world and a new excitement about the possibilities a reading habit provides. All libraries, schools, and parents who purchase books will also receive the accompanying InDesign files so that the texts can be easily translated into languages all around the world.
Amazon original stories collections
Since 2018, Plympton has partnered with Amazon Original Stories to bring Amazon Prime members contemporary short fiction by critically acclaimed and best-selling writers. We have published small collections of socially relevant stories, as well as standalone stories. These digitally published stories are available online to over 100 million Prime members in the United States alone and in all English-speaking countries. Audio versions accompany the stories and are narrated by some of the most celebrated actors in the U.S.
Stories in Motion: Digital Shorts for the Subway Library
Plympton is proud to be one of the main content partners for Subway Library, an initiative launched by the New York Public Library and Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City. By connecting to the subway's Wi-fi network, commuters can access high-quality shorts during their commute, directly on their mobile devices. We curated and provided hundreds of shorts to the NYPL, including: Pulitzer Prize-winning and National Magazine Award-winning pieces, Hugo Award-winning science fiction, contemporary fiction from top literary journals, short stories for kids and young adults, and works in translation from around the world.
Recovering the classics and 50x50
Recovering the Classics is a crowdsourced collection of original covers for great works in the public domain. Sadly, many of the greatest classics in the public domain have poorly designed or auto-generated covers that fail to capture what makes these books exciting and inspiring to us. So we invited illustrators, typographers, and designers of all stripes to create new covers for 100 of the greatest works in the public domain. As part of an initiative announced by the White House, we've partnered with the New York Public Library and the Digital Public Library of America to create 50x50, a movement to bring these amazing covers to libraries and schools in all 50 states.
Literary Virtual RealiTY: Lincoln In the Bardo
Lincoln in the Bardo, based on the novel by MacArthur Prize winner George Saunders, is the first ever virtual reality adaptation of a novel. We produced the film in conjunction with The New York Times, Sensorium, and Graham Sack.
On February 22, 1862, Willie Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's youngest son, is laid to rest in a marble crypt in a Georgetown cemetery. That night, in the midst of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln arrives at the cemetery shattered by grief and visits the crypt to spend time with his son's body. Lincoln in the Bardo viewers inhabit a dead soul newly arrived in the afterlife, granting them a front-row seat to Lincoln's night of mourning.
Reanimation!: Science Conversations about Frankenstein
Reanimation! is a seven-part animated series that explores the longstanding scientific, ethical, and philosophical lessons found in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Co-produced by Plympton and Massive Science in partnership with Arizona State University’s Frankenstein Bicentennial Project, MIT Press, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the series features the work of seven world-renowned animation teams, along with the expert insights of scientists, writers, engineers, physicists, and archaeologists. With conversations ranging from the evolution of human intelligence to the future of physical bodies, Reanimation! shines light on our modern preoccupations by diving deep into Shelley’s time-tested novel.
Literary Residencies in Downtown Las Vegas
In partnership with The Writer’s Block bookstore in Las Vegas, Plympton launched a writing residency program. Fellows spend a month in the vibrant heart of downtown Las Vegas, engaging with and becoming a part of the city’s quirky, thriving arts scene. The fellowship is designed to give talented writers and other creatives the space, time, and freedom to work on their longform projects, and the bibliophilic joy of living in a fully furnished apartment near Las Vegas’ literary hub.
Twitter FictIon Festival
Plympton helped launch the Twitter Fiction Festival in 2012 with Andrew Fitzgerald at the New York Public Library. The Twitter Fiction Festival became a five-day, virtual writing celebration held entirely on Twitter. Storytellers from around the world created characters, crowdsourced plots, used imagery to convey narrative, and crafted multiple handles to weave together tales in real-time.
CODEX Literary Hackathon
CODEX Hackathon is an annual celebration of the intersection between literature and technology. Once a year, programmers, designers, writers, librarians, publishers, and readers come together to imagine, innovate, and create the future of reading. It has been held twice at MIT Media Lab and once in San Francisco. CODEX proudly provides travel stipends, thanks in large part to the generosity of sponsorships. This allows us to increase the diversity of the event, so that every CODEX Hackathon brings together a balanced group of participants, of all backgrounds and skill-sets. Sponsors have included Google, Wattpad, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Mailchimp, Bookbub and others.
DAILYLIT: Bite sized Serial reading
Founded in 2007, DailyLit was a project that let readers access literary classics and great new fiction in short installments that they could pick up and put down anytime. Once you’ve found a book, just select when you want your installments to arrive in your inbox. Before you know it, you’ll be knee-deep in Ulysses and actually looking forward to your morning bus ride.