Twenty-nine storytelling projects from around the world are being showcased in the first-ever Twitter fiction festival, held over five days on the microblogging site.

The virtual event, taking place in five languages – Arabic, English, French, Italian and Spanish – kicked off on Wednesday and runs until Sunday, according to the social network’s official blog (blog.twitter.com).

While everyone is free to take part under the #twitterfiction hashtag, the festival’s selection panel, made up of US publishing industry experts, picked 29 entries from around the world to highlight on a dedicated page, at mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/twitterfiction.

The Twitter media team’s head of research and development Andrew Fitzgerald stressed the festival was “not a competition”.

“There will be no winner, we just want to showcase creative storytelling,” he said.

A young American women, Elliott Holt (@elliottholt), opened the ball on Wednesday with a crime story that plays on the idea of a Twitter feed used as evidence.

Among the tales on offer – which come from a mix of published and novice writers – Lucy Coats (@lucycoats) from Northampton in Britain is retelling 100 Greek myths in 100 Tweets.

London-based Faiq Muneef is tweeting an Arabic language story called The Crying Canary, while @00serialTW will be unfurling a stream of tales inspired by the work of Italian writer Italo Calvino. Marc Capelle (@marccapelle), the head of the French journalism school ESJ, is telling the story of Marcel Lasoen (@MarcelLasoen), an elderly man using Twitter to reconnect with his family.

Bookworms can tune in using the #twitterfiction hashtag, or consult the webpage set up for the festival, at twitter.com/hashtag/twitterfiction. (AFP)