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Twitter Fiction and Poetry Markets

Sunday 20 February 2011

Last updated: September 2014

As regular readers will be painfully familiar, I do enjoy writing Twitter fiction and poetry. For several reasons. Partly it's the immediacy of such a short form. When you're 50,000 words into a 100,000 word novel it's lovely to just start and complete something quickly. It's also the challenge of creating something satisfying/intriguing/amusing in 140 characters. Plus I can write them in my head while I'm supposedly doing other things ...

But I haven't come across a definitive list of Twitter fiction markets, so I thought I'd compile my own. I'll try and keep it up to date. If you know of any others, do please let me know. Note that I haven't included markets for other short forms such as haiku that could coincidentally fit very well into a tweet.


Nanoism (web site, twitterstream, guidelines) PAYS
Publishes all genres but concentrates on literary fiction : "stories that move us with their writing, stories that stay with us longer than the few seconds it takes to read them."
Pays $1.50 per original story.


7x20 (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
Publishes "literary and speculative work." Fiction and poetry.


Cuento (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
Publishes "mainstream and literary micro pieces (prose and poetry) though we like any work that surprises, pleases, teaches, or confounds."


unFold (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
Publishes "digestible poems written in present tense that mobile phone users will enjoy to the point of forwarding." A Folded Word publication.


Cellpoems (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
Condensed poetry : "strange, profound, weird, and memorable language condensed into 140 characters or less."



Dead or Stopped Moving

The following may look active from their web sites, but so far as I can see they're all defunct or at least currently inactive on the Twitter fiction/poetry front. Beware.

Twiction Addiction (twitterstreamguidelines)
Opens March 1st 2014. Submit up to three stories at a time.


Confettifall (web sitetwitterstreamguidelines)
"An online literary magazine that publishes sparkly stories the length of a tweet, no forever-long descriptions, none of that never ending suspense"


Trapeze (web sitetwitterstreamguidelines)
Publishes "science fiction, horror, fantasy, speculative or surreal" stories. No mainstream literature. There's a great piece by editor Jessica Otto on the joys of Twitter fiction here.


PicFic (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
Closing in favour of mini chapbooks that will feature Twitter fiction. More details to follow.


Outshine (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
"A Twitterzine for optimistic, near future prose poems." None have been published for a long time ...


Thaumatrope (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
Closed - but perhaps to return in some form one day?


Tweet The Meat (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
Horror/weird/speculative. Stopped publishing in June 2010. Never to return?


Microcosms (twitterstream) PAYSSpeculative (SF/F/H) poetry. Reopened for submissions 1st February 2011 to start publishing again in April 2011. Publishes 3 poems from a "featured poet" per week. Send 5-10 with a Twitter-length bio.
Pays $1.00 per original poem.


One Forty Fiction (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
"We welcome stories from master craftspeople, journeymen, dilettantes, and amateurs—just make sure it’s a good story."


Escarp (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
Publishes "original, user-submitted poems and stories".


Seedpod (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
Publishes stories that "create emotive experiences for the reader, uncovering something about what it means to be human. We’re interested in real stories. Literary stories."


Textofiction (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
"Textofiction is an online literary publication dedicated to bringing the best writing in under 140 characters."


Shortz (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
"We'd like to read your stories!"


Reorbit (web site, twitterstream, guidelines)
An experiment in social media theatre: pick a well-known character and tweet as them. "A reanimation of well-known historical and literary figures personified by less well-known authors slash actors today; performed in real-time 140-character byte-sized bits to an online audience of followers"


Did I miss any? Let me know!

10 comments:

  1. This is useful. I hadn't heard of most of these and I didn't know that Thaumatrope is inactive.

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  2. fairyhedgehog,

    Glad it's of use. Yes, shame about Thaumatrope. I hope it returns.

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  3. Thanks for compiling this list — it's just what I need at the moment.

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  4. Good gracious, I had no idea there was such a massive market for these things! Interesting. Thanks, Simon.

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  5. Twitfic.com was in par my attempt to make such a definitive list :)

    Thanks for the update!

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  6. Kaolin Fire,

    I know, and twitfic.com goes much further of course. Ddin't want to take anything away from your site, just provide a quick list for folks.

    In fact, I'll add a link to twitfic.com to my article.

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  7. I think I'm going to need these...Write 1 / Sub 1 will catch me soon.

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  8. Aaron,

    Yes, must admit they come in handy ...

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I'd love to know what you think.