Books

The #TwitterFiction Festival Is On, And It's Great

Short n' sweet doesn't only apply to humans — (full disclosure, I'm 5'0", so don't mind my completely un-journalistic bias) — it applies to stories, too. At least, that's the motto the writers participating in the 2015 Twitter Fiction Festival will need to keep in mind. The annual festival, which launched Monday morning, will feature 45 writers sharing original stories, 140 characters at a time. In addition to words, the participating writers can also use pictures, videos, and crowd-sourced material. #TwitterFiction will run through Friday, and you can peek the full schedule on the Twitter Fiction Festival website. You can also follow @twfictionfest for a consolidated collection of up-to-date stories.

Participating writers include some big names, like Margaret Atwood (@margaretatwood), Lauren Beukes (@laurenbeukes), Maggie Stiefvater (@mstiefvater), and Lemony Snicket (@lemonysnicket), who told Mashable that his "story will largely be improvised, and it will be, to some degree, interactive." So tune in on Thursday at 4 p.m. to get in on the Snickety action.

Bestselling author Celeste Ng kicked off the the Twitter Fiction Festival with a multimedia story, the premise of which is as follows: "While working in her local library, author Celeste Ng stumbled across a hidden note bearing only a call number. That note led to a book--and a most unusual love story." It all started when she came across this mysterious Post-It note:

Intrigued? You can check out Ng's full story on Storify, or on her Twitter (@pronounced_ing)

For those of you who haven't kept tabs on Twitter Fiction Fests in past years, a word of warning: it's totally addicting. You know how I'll be spending the rest of my week.