Twitter has announced the second #TwitterFiction festival will take place in March this year, giving professional and budding storytellers the opportunity to experience fiction in new creative ways.
In preparation for the festival – to be held from March 12-16 and hosted in conjunction with the Association of American Publishers and Penguin Random House – Twitter users can submit applications to become featured storytellers, by submitting ideas which make innovative uses of Twitter functionalities to tell a story.
A panel of judges – executives from festival co-host the Association of American Publishers – will select featured storytellers from applications received by February 5, to be highlighted throughout the festival alongside professional authors who will be participating.
“The #TwitterFiction festival offers a chance to be a featured storyteller and create 140-character blasts of fiction on Twitter alongside established and emerging authors,” said Andrew Fitzgerald, of Twitter’s media partnerships team.
“Twitter is a wide-open frontier for creative experimentation, and #TwitterFiction is a wonderful way to push traditional boundaries.
“The panel will highlight select participants to create fiction on Twitter as part of the week-long, real-time digital festival. These featured authors will be a part of the official schedule, and will be chosen based on creativity, writing talent and unique use of Twitter functionality.”
Story ideas should make the most of Twitter’s functions, for example, stories can be told through Twitter pictures and Vine, or by making use of multiple Twitter handles to craft a multi-character story.
Twitter poetry is another example of fiction that will be included in the festival, and crowdsourced stories – using the reply function – also qualify.
Those not selected as official featured storytellers can still participate in the festival contributing fictional works via the #TwitterFiction hashtag.
