Most Recent Twisted Updates

A Missive on the Singularity by Claire Rye
Monday night and a forgettable dream wakes me from my slumber. I look over at the clock. 11.53pm. My mind starts a conversation with itself.. It’s past midday in London. They have announced the winners. You were going to wait until morning. But i can check now… Go back to sleep you have to work

The Spark by Bethany White
I was studying screenwriting as part of my undergrad degree when I heard about Create50. I always dreaded writing dialogue, and I’d finally come to the decision to focus on refining it within my writing. Little did I know, this was the first spark. Create50 stood out to me as an idea more than anything;

‘Frank’… a story inspired by Create50
Before a friend suggested the Singularity competition, I’d never really written a short story. I ended up submitting four, all featuring the everyman character, Frank. It was great to have two stories short-listed. Something I don’t think would have happened without the constructive feedback of the Create 50 writing community. And to have, By Any

So those law studies weren’t wasted, after all… by Vera Mark
Question: What happens to a lawyer who sees the light? Answer: She becomes a writer. Update, several years later: She wonders if it really was such a great idea to chuck a solid career with good income… and… and… and… Yes it was. Thanks to a fine little Sci-Fi anthology called “The Singularity”. Over the

Disclosure: I’d never written a single word of science-fiction… By Carmen Radtke
Disclosure: I’d never written a single word of science-fiction. Read, sure, watched, hell yes, but writing? Then along came Singularity50, and while I loved the concept I had no intention to take part. More importantly, I also had no time. None. Zilch. Which is why a few days before the deadline I woke up with

Family Business by Vera Mark
Writers are weird, in general. Horror writers are twisted. Sci-fi writers are visionaries. Comet writers are… trailblazers? And they’re all part of the Create50 community, my weird, beloved family. I joined Create50 in 2015 with my short script Psukhe for the “Courage and Kindness” project. This resulted in a Best Script Award at the British

‘Rothschild’s Giraffe’ and the Little Brown Job
On the basis (a) of Chris Jones’s call for blogs and (b) that this blog may well be better than my story ‘Rothschild’s Giraffe’, here goes. (It’s not so much a blog as a plea for redemption.) The suggested timeline for The Singularity included one event that intrigued me very much viz. the resurrection of

How a Sci-Fi Screenplay Ended up in an Anthology of Short Stories
Back in 2015, before the invention of Brexit and Trump, I wrote a short screenplay called Automatic Drive. Inspired by the development of driverless vehicles, I imagined a future in which corporations responsible for automated highways used nefarious methods to keep the traffic flowing at all costs. The script was well received by all who

Finding Your Confidence by Ashlee Renz-Hotz
The Create50 community imparts something incredibly valuable to its writers – almost like finding gold at the end of a rainbow. Not only does it instill a sense of accomplishment, bringing an urgency to write, but also through the writer feedback, it helps impart a sense of confidence in your own work. The collaboration and

The Power of Feedback by Clive Howard
An exciting aspect of Create50 was the opportunity to get feedback from other writers. As a writer, I know well the value of feedback. That said, it can be very difficult to hear. Despite several years of experience, I can still have a negative response to other people’s thoughts on my work – akin to

A Novice Writer by Howard Ellison
Offering up my first-ever short story to Twisted 50 was a challenge, but eased along by the kind practical advice of other far more experienced writers and by its being autobiographical. There was little need for imagination: ‘Charcoal Granny’ had evidently lurked in my head for six decades, and alarmed me when it sprang forth!

A few thoughts from writers in the Singularity 50 process
Now we are underway with the reading of The Singularity stories I thought I would share a few comments from writers that I have had via email… ‘I loved the process of Singularity 50! So far as I am aware it is unique in that others give feedback so subsequent drafts that can be refined