Monday, August 02, 2010

The First Story Sunday on Twitter

After leaving Facebook a few months ago, I've been using and enjoying Twitter much more than before, for its simplicity (no farmville, no distracting games!) and its usefulness, with people posting links to interesting and relevant articles, blog posts etc...Yesterday, I decided to start something up and see what happened: #StorySunday. If you're not familiar with Twitter, this is what's called a "hashtag", in other words it is how you set the topic of your tweet. And then people can search by topic. So, for example, #UKelection is a hashtag, or #WorldCup.

There is already #FollowFriday, where you post a tweet with names of people you follow on Twitter that you recommend to others, and #WriterWendesday, and also #FridayFlash, which is something I'm not completely clear about, but it sounds good!

The idea behind #StorySunday is that you link to a short story by somebody else that you've enjoyed recently. I was inspired by Sarah Salway's speech at the Bristol Short Story Prize awards ceremony where she said, stop having those discussions about whether the short story is alive or dead, if someone starts that, then just recommend some excellent stories for them to read instead. Such a great idea, something practical, show not tell!

For those of you who missed this and you are on Twitter, you can go and search for StorySunday. But I thought I'd also post all the stories people recommended here, so everyone can enjoy them, along with the name of those who Tweeted:

@taniahershman: The Father of Modern Chemistry" by Stefanie Freele in @PrimeNumberMag http://to.ly/5M7A

@danpowfiction: here's a link to Dorothee Lang's 'Sky Blue @Metazen http://bit.ly/a6eelA top piece of flash fiction

 @
jonpinnockI enjoyed this one by @orbific this week: http://bit.ly/bXWb31


@sara_crowley Enjoyed http://birdvillemag.com/i2-logan.html by @kirstylogan today (loved "squick of wet trainers...)  

@ benjaminjudge I'll add http://bit.ly/cruCzx by @lonlonranch to the mix if that's ok

@kirstylogan "I take long leisure tipping the velvet..." Still wildly in love with this Rachel Swirsky story: http://is.gd/dWIB8 

@SteveHimmer Mark Neely, "Self-Portrait on the Mountain" @wigleaf http://bit.ly/bwCnri 
@Jo_Simmonds Great story 'Spring never grows old' by Sam Jordison: http://bit.ly/dc9Z5P Love 3am magazine 

@sarahsalway one of my absolute favourites, A Real Doll by A M Homes - http://tinyurl.com/6qbj4c

@JHammons "Stations of the Cross" by Maggie Sokolik on @fictionaut http://bit.ly/dhLzhq

@sarahsalway   And here is interview with Alice Elliott Dark, author of the story I raved about at @BristolPrize - http://tinyurl.com/39w89gt
 
@AJAshworth Just taught me at Arvon, he's fab - Peter Hobbs, Deep Blue Sea http://www.theshortstory.org.uk/stories/index.php4?storyid=2

@OscarWindsor My first submission - a short short: http://tinyurl.com/34qj7b4 
This is one of my fave, recent, shorties: http://tinyurl.com/5pus5r

@scMFA   A  terrific story by @scMFA faculty member David Bajo archived at @FiveChapters: http://www.fivechapters.com/2009/lichen/

@ OscarWindsor  http://bit.ly/bIKmrb --A quirky, bloky, funny and really quite intellectual story from a fine short story wordsmith

@ Perednia   What You Pawn I Will Redeem by Sherman Alexie: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/04/21/030421fi_fiction

So there you go, StorySunday recommendations for this week! Hopefully it will spread further next Sunday. May we all spend the week discovering wonderful new stories to share!

Addendum:
I managed to add a widget - see right - to display the latest #StorySunday Tweets! I'm quite proud of this.

9 comments:

dan powell said...

Not a bad haul for the first week. Will be dipping into this list over the next few days to check out ones I missed.

Sue Guiney said...

Fantastic idea. Although I've been on twitter for months, I still haven't got the hang of it and can never find things to get involved with. Thanks!

Lynne Perednia said...

What a terrific first week. Looking forward to this ongoing resource of wonderful stories.

Oscar Windsor-Smith said...

Hi Tania. A great start to #shortstorysunday. Nice one. And thanks so much for including both my suggestions in you blog piece. One small problem, the link in my second one doesn't seem to have 'taken'. Shame as it's a really excellent story. Best. Oscar

Tania Hershman said...

dan, I hope it'll become a great resource for finding good stories to read when you've got a spare minute. that's how I'll use it.

Sue - it takes a while to understand it all, doesn't it?!

Lynne, nice to meet you, so glad you like the idea.

Oscar, my pleasure, you were so enthusiastic! Both links work for me, can you try again?

Oscar Windsor-Smith said...

No, sorry, Tania. And the link still doesn't show as underlined or in the correct colour - you know, as links should.

Best

David Hartley said...

Hi Tania, thanks for including my story 'Your Cat'. Unfortunately Ben Judge spelt my twitter name wrong but he's already grovelled at my boots for apology so I've stayed his execution for now.

it should read @lonlonranch

thanks again,

Dave

Tania Hershman said...

Dave, sorted it out now!

Benjamin Judge said...

Yeah, I'm an idiot. Sorry about that.