The Next Chapter and Canada Writes join forces once again to present the Literary Smackdown, our ongoing series where writers playfully joust on an issue related to the writing life. In this round, Brian Francis and C.S. Richardson square off over a question of self promotion: to tweet or not to tweet.

 

Brian Francis is the author of the novels Natural Order and Fruit, he writes the recipe blog Caker Cooking, and he is also an avid and creative tweeter.  Brian acknowledges that you can only do so much with 140 characters, but he argues that Twitter is a great space for authors to connect with their readers, especially at this moment when many independent book stores are struggling and closing.