Twitter fiction festival kicks off Wednesday

Twenty-nine storytelling projects from around the world are being showcased from Wednesday in the first-ever Twitter fiction festival, held over five days on the microblogging site.

The virtual event, taking place in five languages Arabic, English, French, Italian and Spanish will run from November 28 to December 2, according to the social network's official blog (blog.twitter.com).

While everyone is free to take part under the #twitterfiction hashtag, the festival's selection panel, made up of US publishing industry experts, picked 29 entries from around the world to highlight on a dedicated page, at mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/twitterfiction.

The Twitter media team's head of research and development Andrew Fitzgerald stressed the festival was "not a competition."

"There will be no winner, we just want to showcase creative storytelling," he told AFP ahead of the event.

A young American women, Elliott Holt (@elliottholt), will open the ball on Wednesday at 2400 GMT, with a crime story that plays on the idea of a Twitter feed used as evidence.

Among the tales on offer which come from a mix of published and novice writers Lucy Coats (@lucycoats) from Northampton in Britain will re-tell 100 Greek myths in 100 Tweets.

London-based Faiq Muneef will be tweeting an Arabic language story called "The Crying Canary" from Sunday at 1300 GMT.

From Thursday to Sunday at 0900 GMT, @00serialTW will be unfurling a stream of tales inspired by the work of Italian writer Italo Calvino.

And Marc Capelle (@marccapelle), the head of the French journalism school ESJ, will tell the story of Marcel Lasoen (@MarcelLasoen), an elderly man using Twitter to reconnect with his family, from Thursday to Sunday at 1100 GMT.

Bookworms can tune in using the #twitterfiction hashtag, or consult the webpage set up for the festival, at twitter.com/hashtag/twitterfiction.