THE TWEETING writer of what must be the shortest stories in the world has now turned them into a gloriously entertaining book.

Hexham-based author David Williams tells each of the 1,000 tales he has produced so far within the 140-character limit of a single tweet.

Together, in HE and SHE: 1000 stories in 1000 tweets, they run the gamut of emotions and situations that arise in a relationship between a man and a woman.

Hope, happiness and despair, unrequited love, boredom and infidelity – you name it, David has tweeted about it.

Although his previous publications have included three novels and a book of short stories, as well as educational books and a long list of plays for BBC radio, but he says his latest work turned out to be one of his greatest challenges.

He got the idea partly from reading an article on the world’s shortest stories, partly from his attempts at making pithy observations via his Twitter account @writerinnorth

“I thought this would make an interesting book for readers to dip into,” he said.

“Not least, I thought some of the stories might inspire fellow-writers with a spark that they might go on to develop as a longer short story or even, who knows, a complete novel.

“After all, my own ideas-file contains many one and two sentence jottings that I hope to develop further, and some of my own novels and short stories have started in exactly that way.”

Despite the brevity of each of his epistles, he said he badly under-estimated how long it would actually take him to write a thousand.

As a result, the book has taken him almost three years to produce. “I wrote down things as they occurred,” he said. “The writing was hard enough, but the occurring got more and more difficult!”

His efforts have now finally seen the light of day, though, in both paperback form and as an eBook from Amazon. He is also about to embark on a series of talks about the subject, illustrating the art of micro-fiction with examples gathered from around the world as well as his own work.

The programme includes a free public event at Newcastle City Library on Monday, October 17, beginning at 5.30pm. Audience members are invited to participate by submitting a micro-story of their own on any subject, in not more than 140 characters, in advance.

David will read out the best of them on the night and the winner will receive a copy of his new book. More details about the event and this mini-competition are available by emailing: sharon.traill@newcastle.gov.uk