Twitter Stories competition kicks off in the Middle East

In an innovative storytelling initiative in the Middle East, Project Pen and Inches Social Media Solutions (Inches Solutions) are co-launching the region’s first Twitter Stories competition which will run till the en of November.

The four-week competition challenges writers in the region to tell a story in less than 140 characters on Twitter, exploring new forms of storytelling in both English and Arabic.

Project Pen Founder, John Lillywhite said Twitter should also be looked at as creative space, “people tell stories on Twitter all the time; the idea behind the competition is to promote Twitter as a space for the imagination and to inspire young people to create new kinds of stories in 140 characters or less.

“Twitter Stories is a digital storytelling project open to anyone on Twitter who has a story to tell and has a way with words,” he added.

To participate, interested individuals must tweet their stories using the hashtag, #ProjectPen. Entries will be judged by a panel consisting of prominent bloggers, Project Pen organizers and Inches Solutions representatives based on the criteria of story creativity, completeness and clarity. Every week of the competition, one English and one Arabic winning entry will be chosen, while two grand-prize winners – one from each language – will be announced at the end of the fourth week.

More information on the initiative and the competition can be found here.