Short Answer: No.
Not that I heard anyone say it was. But with Twitter being the "in" tool this year, and storytellers jumping in, I wanted to add my two cents.
Do I use Twitter? Yes. I appreciate its functionality for those times when I need to be connected in real time. I'm impressed that its fans have been able to build online relationships despite the tools built in limitations, namely, the 140 character limit for each message.
I don't see these two primary features (real-time messaging, and limited length) as essential to storytelling.
That there's a tool, ie Twitter, that lets me receive messages in real-time from friends, relations, colleagues, celebrities, politicians, and NASA missions is cool. I like being connected, being reminded on these people-- those that I have a relationship with in real life, well, it helps "grease the wheel" of that relationship during that time when we're not in contact. But Twitter is about the "what I'm doing now" not about "remember when we..." or "once upon a time."
Could you use Twitter to tell a story? Yes, of course. But it's an inelegant tool.
(I'll grant that when it comes to stories for journalism, however, Twitter is useful as a tool for gathering information of stories-as-they-happen, as events in San Diego, Mumbai, and the Hudson River have shown us)
But in terms of spinning narratives: using Twitter is like selecting a toothpick to paint on a canvas that's meant to fill a room.
Partly it's the 140 character limit. Now, Flash fiction is nothing new. Storytellers from Vishnu Sarma to Aesop to Jesus were using the short short form long before the publishing world took a shine to very short tales in the 1990s. Setting limits, even arbitrary ones, can prompt some very creative output, so I can see the appeal of using Twitter to share these mini works of fiction.
Some of my favorites:
This bit of magical realism/spy novel and this melodrama from David Vanadia.
This retelling of a fable from Jerrold Connors.
Two writers in particular, I've found, who use Twitter to write nanofiction. I would categorize their work as character sketches and platforms --more seeds of stories that could be than actual beginning-middle-end kernels, but sometimes worth a look:
@arjunbasu
@nickwarren (I especially like Nick's use of first person, since it plays within the Twitterverse milieu nicely)
Smith Magazine, home of the six word story, set the bar higher (or tighter, I guess. You can fit a lot more than 6 words on Twitter). It's difficult to pull off a good six-word story, so you have to wade through a lot of dross to find the gems, and then, there's not so much a haiku feeling as a "wish they served dinner instead of hors d'oeuvres"... still, Twitter seems an excellent channel for them to utilize: @smithmag
Portland Story Theater sneaks around the limitations of length and genre with a serial format:
@pdxstorytheater
Do you follow anyone on Twitter that is creating interesting stories? Post them in the comments!
(And just so we're clear: "creating interesting stories" does NOT mean "promoting their business" (story-based or otherwise)
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So maybe you're not looking for Twitter to deliver bite-sized stories. Maybe you just think it'd be cool (for this year anyway) to receive real-time messages from working storytellers. In that case, here are some current storytellers with active or semi-active Twitter accounts:
Baba the Storyteller: @Djeliba
Hope Baugh: @Hope_Baugh
Karol Brown: @Browntones
Buck P Creacy: @BuckPCreacy
Lynn Duddy: @storywoman
EthNohTec: @ethnohtec
Tim Ereneta: @tereneta
Stephen Hollen: @mountainstories
Sean Buvala: @storyteller
Terry Free: @TerryFree
Rachel Hedman: @StorytellingAdv
Priscilla Howe: @priscillahowe
Dale Jarvis: @DaleJarvis
Carol Knarr: @ckanrr
Debra Olson-Tolar: @storytolar
Laura Packer: @storylaura
Ellouise Schoettler: @ellouisestory
Tim Sheppard: @TimSheppard
Dianne de las Casas: @storyconnection
BZ Smith: @bzsmith
Teresa Clark: @teresaclark
Limor Shiponi: @Storyteling
David Vanadia @Vanadia
Eric Wolf: @Ericwolf2
(Yes, I left out a bunch of "organizational narrative" and "corporate storytellers" who are very active on Twitter. That's by design. They've got their own blogs. When the day comes that they tell a story around a campfire, then I'll add them to my list here.)
