Colin Teevan to judge tweetathon short story
Birkbeck lecturer, Colin Teevan will be judging one of the stories created by authors and tweeters during The Society of Authors' 'tweetathon'.
Birkbeck lecturer, Colin Teevan will be judging one of the stories created by authors and tweeters during The Society of Authors' ‘tweetathon’. The collaborative short stories will be part of a campaign against proposed cuts to BBC Radio 4 short story scheduling. Authors involved in the project include: Ian Rankin, Joanne Harris, Neil Gaiman, Sarah Waters and Simon Brett.
Each week during the tweetathon, one of the five authors will contribute the first line then tweeters will have half an hour to submit the next sentence. Each hour the best one will be selected by a guest judge until the story is complete. The first one, a thriller, was started by a sentence from Ian Rankin and can be read on The Societys’ website.
In addition, Brenda Blethyn, who’s filming a new story written by Colin Teevan for the detective drama Vera on ITV, will be recording one or more of the winning short stories as a podcast.
The tweetathon is part of a wider campaign to urge Radio 4 to keep its current three short stories a week. Over 6,500 signatures have already been collected on the online petition site. It’s hoped this collaborative project for dynamic short fiction will convince the BBC decision makers that the short story form is thriving and deserves its place in Radio 4 scheduling.
Colin is the Convenor of the BA Creative Writing and lectures on Playwriting at both BA and MA level.
Related links
Society of Authors tweetathon page