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Alexander McCall Smith and Elizabeth Fremantle are among the authors taking part in the second #TwitterFiction festival, starting today (March 12th).
The “digital storytelling event” features amateur writers as well as published authors.
McCall-Smith (@McCallSmith) will run several stories in 20 to 30 single tweet chapters, entitled The Intern, Love in the Alps, The Sociopaths’ Ball and How to sing Grand Opera. Fremantle (@lizfremantle), author of Queen’s Gambit (Michael Joseph) will tell the story of #TudorDog, recounting the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn from the canine’s perspective.
Alongside invited authors there will be more than 50 writers taking part who submitted ideas to the #TwitterFiction festival, including four from Britain. Londoner Tom Avery (@TeamAvery), author of children’s novels for Frances Lincoln Children’s Books and Andersen Press, will be creating a story called "What remains", a first person murder mystery told in real time over the five days of the festival.
Meanwhile Oxford’s Lynne Shepherd (@Lynn_Shepherd) plans to mimic the way reality shows like "The X Factor" play out on Twitter by having 18th-century writers Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding battle it out live for the title Father of the Novel. Her "show" will be called "Who’s the Daddy?" and will use the hashtag #WTD. Shepherd is the author of books including The Solitary House (Bantam) and A Fatal Likeness (Delacorte Press).
Tom Mitchell (@tommycm), from London, will chart the efforts of fictional failed actor Kay Richardson to fall in love through a choose your own adventure story. Katie Kahn (@Katy_Kahn), also from London, will be predicting the future one flash screenplay at a time, through her project @TimeUnravels, which will combine “topical news stories with tongue-in-cheek creative license, to screenshot the future before it can be known”.
Other authors from across the world taking part include David Javerbaum (@TheTweetofGod), who will tweet an entirely new book of the Bible, the Book of Bieb. It will relay the saga of the rise and fall of Justin Bieber, the younger brother of Jesus.
The festival takes place from today to March 16th, and is sponsored by the Association of American Publishers, Penguin Random House and Twitter.