Our Blog — The Literary Type

I think this counts as a novel use of Twitter: Tish Cohen, a Toronto writer, was asked by her publisher to release a short story on Twitter.  So she wrote a story that will be released in those delightful <140 character tidbits.

Editing the story down to twitter-sized chunks makes Cohen feel  “like an artist working in pencil or oil or watercolour,” she says in a National Post article. “I don’t believe Facebook and Twitter mark the end of publishing – Margaret Atwood is Tweeting! I’d never fear Twitter in terms of being damaging to books.”

The idea is interesting and flashy, and I like the idea of using the length of posts to create an interesting rhythm.  But I have to wonder…who really wants to read a  short story in bite-sized pieces?  Especially given the fact that the tweets are posted last to first, so catching up with the story will require clicking backward and then reading bottom to top.  I can’t even commit to catching up on a long stream of unconnected tweets, but maybe that’s just me.  Still, it’s a novel promotional campaign–she’ll be publishing the story as a novella in print form next month.

Would you have the patience to read a twitter novella?