Last week, on March 12-16, Brandy Panagos’ multimedia publications students participated in the 2014 Twitter Fiction Festival.
Panagos described twitter fiction as being a “true experiment.” Twitter has been around since 2006 as a social media site, but its use as a writing medium has been more recent, with the very first Twitter Fiction Festival occurring in 2012, according to the Twitter Fiction Festival website. Panagos said this means “the writers in the classroom had just as much experience as professional writers” in this medium.
According to Panagos, participating in the festival also allowed students to see just “how small the world can be on social media.” It gave students many chances to interact with some big name writers and with the world at large.
New York writer and artist Dugaldo Estrada drew a pug wearing a fedora upon the request of Panagos’ second block class as part of his Twitter fiction project.
Alanis Craig even got some unexpected contact when her fake character received a job offer. Emily Bohatch also had the privilege of seeing one of her tweets displayed on the Twitter Fiction Festival website.
Of course, these are just a few examples of how writers interacted with twitter fiction. Every student who tweeted got a chance to share their storytelling abilities with the world, and many others were able to tweet at and talk to famous authors participating in the event.
Twitter fiction also complimented the technology theme of the 2013-14 Bob Jones High School literary magazine. Panagos also said she felt that Twitter fiction was an intriguing event because it was an example of “technology influencing future literature,” rather than “literature influencing future technology.”
Bob Jones High School students enjoyed various things about the assignment and their experience with the medium.
Jon Harper, one of Panagos’ students, enjoyed the fact that the stories via Twitter were short and that he could post from nearly anywhere. He said his favorite part overall though was the hashtags, because “hashtags are always funny.”
Jade Chambers, whose story involved references to My Little Pony, said she liked “photoshopping Fluttershy as pregnant and being able to share that.” Meanwhile, Thomas Baldwin liked that he was “able to tell the story in real time.”
Overall, participation in the festival gave students a chance to explore and become familiar with a new storytelling medium, and the social media aspect allowed them to interact with and observe professional writers utilizing the same avenue.
