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Tag: Fiction

  • Here’s a Creepy 14-Tweet Story from R.L. Stine

    It doesn’t take a lot of words to tell a creepy, compelling tale.

    Short fiction writers know this, and they’ve been using Twitter as a medium for their brief–but-–powerful stories for years. Twitter’s recently embraced this – even holding its own fiction festivals.

    R.L. Stine, master of scaring the living shit our of children, has used Twitter to tell stories before. He’s just done it again, and it’s pretty fun. Stine’s 14-tweet story shows just how much a writer can accomplish in a couple thousand characters.

    And here’s the story:

    Happy Halloween!

    Image via wandersick, Flickr Creative Commons, via CNN

  • Costco Sorry for Putting Bible in Fiction Aisle

    A Costco store branch in Simi Valley, California is under fire after a local pastor discovered that Bibles had been cataloged in the fiction section of the books aisle.

    Pastor Caleb Kaltenbach of Discovery Church, was browsing for a gift for his wife when he came across Bibles labelled as “fiction.” He then took to Twitter, adding the caption, “Costco has Bibles for sale under the genre of fiction…hmmmm.” Members of Kaltenbach’s congregation, as well as a significant number of people worldwide, were outraged.

    Costco quickly issued a public apology:

    “Costco’s distributor mislabeled a small percentage of the Bibles, however we take responsibility and should have caught the mistake. We are correcting this with them for future distribution.”

    The membership-only warehouse club added, “In addition, we are immediately relabeling all mislabeled Bibles. We greatly apologize for this error.”

    Here is Kaltenbach’s initial tweet, followed by some extra thoughts on the matter, including his belief that Costco had plainly made a mistake:

    Other Discovery Church members were not so understanding. Member Shellie Dungan said, “I was completely offended. I believe the Bible is real and it shouldn’t be marked fiction.”

    Costco was founded in 1976 by James (Jim) Sinegal and Jeffrey H. Brotman ins San Diego, California, and is headquartered in Issaquah, Washington. Costco has a total of 632 locations spanning the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Spain and the United States.

    Below are some more Tweets concerning the incident:

    Image via Facebook.

  • Costco Bibles Labeled As Fiction

    The Costco in Simi Valley has issued an apology after a pastor snapped a picture and posted it on Twitter of a Bible labeled as fiction.

    Pastor Caleb Kaltenbach was browsing through Costco, searching for a gift, when he saw something that caught his eye…a bible with a $14.99 fiction label. He took a picture of the Bible and posted it to his personal Twitter profile with a caption that read, “Costco has Bibles for sale under the genre of FICTION Hmmmm…”

    Not only was his congregation in an uproar, but his photo has seemed to cause controversy all over the United States. “It’s caused a lot of controversy, it’s caused a lot of conversation, which I think conversation is good,” Kaltenbach told KCBS-TV.

    “I was completely offended. It’s wrong, and I believe that the Bible is real and it shouldn’t be marked fiction,” Shellie Dungan, a member of Kaltenbach’s congregation.

    On Wednesday, Costco issued an apology saying that the Bibles were mislabeled and they were taking action to prevent this from happening in the future

    “Costco’s distributor mislabeled a small percentage of the Bibles, however we take responsibility and should have caught the mistake. We are correcting this with them for future distribution,” the statement read. “In addition, we are immediately relabeling all mislabeled Bibles. We greatly apologize for this error.”

    Image via Twitter

  • Twitter to Hold Its Own Fiction Festival, a “Virtual Storytelling Celebration”

    Twitter has changed a lot of things when it comes to how the world receives information. It’s most definitely turned journalism on its head by making everyone an amateur reporter, and it’s also affected the way people communicate in real life – 140 characters is a hard constraint to shake off.

    But fiction? Could Twitter become a place for great storytelling?

    Twitter thinks so. And to prove that, they have just announced the Twitter Fiction Festival. That contest will kick off on November 28th and run for five days.

    “Tell us how you are going to explore content formats that already exist on Twitter — short story in Tweets, a Twitter chat, live-tweeting — or, even better, how you’ll create a new one. How will you work with our real-time global platform, where anyone can contribute to your story at any moment? The proposal must fit into the time window of our five day festival— but that means that a project could run for the length of the festival, or just for an hour,” says Twitter in a blog post.

    Twitter obviously has a pretty expansive view of what constitutes “fiction” as far this contest goes. Some people have already experimented with Twitter as a fiction medium. Take for instance author Jennifer Egan, who tweeted her story “Black Box” 140 characters at a time back in May.

    Or what about The Guardian’s #140novel challenge, which saw authors take a stab at a 140-character story.

    It’s not just flash fiction that Twitter’s after. They even point to @MayorEmanuel, a parody account, as an example of Twitter fiction.

    If you want to participate and you think you have a good idea, you can submit it here. Twitter will announce the participants of the festival on November 19th.

  • Awkward Meetups In The Nerd World

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    Ironman vs. Batman

    Ever had that awkward moment where you run into someone like an ex-girlfriend while you are out on a date? Or run into your boss when you are calling in sick? Those kinds of awkward moments are what life is made of. And this set of images falls in line with the UFCF piece that I did a couple days ago. What if 2 characters from fiction met who weren’t suppose to meet?

    An artist named Berk Senturk from Paris, France has done his best to continue the quest for answers to these questions. He has created several pieces that put together 2 characters that are related in their adventures but not in the same universe. Check out all of his work here and let him know what you think. There are several more pieces, these were just my favorites:

    Wolverine vs. Edward Scissor Hands

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    Marty McFly vs. T800

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    Ghostbusters vs. Freddy Krueger

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