Twitter’s Inaugural Fiction Festival

This year, Twitter put together it first Fiction Festival. The celebration kicked off November 28th and ended this past Sunday, December 2nd. Those participating in the festivities seemed to have had a great time, but, in any event, the Fest was an excellent opportunity for Twitter to promote itself.

Like every other player in the content game, Twitter is trying to figure out how to ratchet up interest in the content its platform presents, so who better than established, and ascendant, literary personages to play with the Twitter content form? Over twenty authors were selected to tweet their “twitterature” before a nicely set stage — well, at least a designated “Showcase Page.”

Though said showcase page may not have been, exactly, the most bewitching of backdrops, there was some real excitement surrounding the Fest. Ryan Chapman, who was among eight publishers on the Fest’s selection panel, even mentioned to The Los Angeles Times a possible tweeting ur-text, Ernest Hemingway’s six-word story, which in its entirety reads: “For sale: baby shoes — never worn.”

Scott Hutchins, Alina Simone, Lucy Coats, Elliot Holt, and Andrew Schaffer were among the 20-plus authors Chapman and company selected to participate in the Fest. Though the festival is over, its rapid-fire output can still be read at the showcase page and at the respective authors’ Twitter pages.

Read more:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/first-official-twitter-fiction-festival-begins/