I am not, as I have said  (most recently in this interview) particularly adept at the whole social media world, but I was nevertheless delighted to be asked to be a “featured author” in the upcoming Twitter Fiction Festival.

I am always game for a—well, a game—a challenge—a fun new way to tell a story.  

The story I’ll be telling—tweeting—is called Free Charlton Connors. It plays out in real time over one hour, as a desperate man takes over a bank demanding that his brother be released from  prison.  It’s a classic multiple-POV kind of story, with five different narrators weaving the tale from their varying and overlapping and sometimes contradictory points of view.

To play along you’ll need to be online and on Twitter from 2 to 3 pm on Thursday, March 13. 

AND sometime before then, follow these Twitter accounts:

@AtleeMiller (that’s the man who has taken over the bank, demanding his brother’s release, and has hostages with him in the vault)

@UplandNB14thSt (that’s the official account for the bank)

@UplandPD (the local police)

@USPDanvers (the official account for the federal penitentiary where Charlton Connors is serving a life sentence for a murder he may or may not have committed)

@UplandBEE (the local newspaper)

So come play along, and let me know what you think! (And be sure to check out the listings for the rest of the festival — the line up is quite remarkable, and includes friends of mine like the admirably twitter-savvy Eric Smith.)

Here is the official description of my story, from the festival homepage:

So please tell