It amazes me the power of twitter. The ability to create an evening of great conversation in a friendly, relaxed environment, with fellow ‘tweeters’ – surrounding ourselves by people who work in the same industry, have similar visions and most importantly are able to learn from each others experiences and views.

I’ve been using twitter now for a few months and there are certain people who just get how it works. These people make you feel like you know them, who, by updating their ‘page’ using 140 characters periodically, manage to command an online presence. The kind of people you feel you should know. I mean, how clever is that? With just 140 characters you can almost be ‘famous’ (if you’re into that kind of thing of course….!).

So, last Thursday was good, very good. It had been mainly organised by Sam (@samatlounge). Although I’d never met her I knew where she lived, where she worked and that she was a fan of Glee! The frequency of her tweets showed that she’d worked really hard at putting this event together.

On the night she wowed us even more – we were given bags (everyone likes a treat); she shared advice about how to set up our own night (it’s happening on the 30th, watch this space – @book_machine) and introduced us to her colleagues (we all like to meet people). I think this event can only get better and better. (and thanks so much for the hints Sam, if our second night is half as good as yours, we’ll be laughing!)

So who else was there? @benjohncock, whose voice I’d heard before (makes two podcasts); knew what he was reading and even what computer he has. Great to see him in the flesh! @druceydrama – who’s recently written a great article for the SYP on finding work in publishing; @jonslack – setting up the first South Asian Litterature festival (looks ace); @mafunyane (real name Anna Faherty) who is about to start lecturing in publishing to share her knowledge (good luck on your first day of term!) and plenty more inspirational and interesting people…. (I could go on naming but it would take forever!). 

So thanks Sam, and the rest of the @futurebook team for being such an inspiration to all of us fellow ‘tweeters’ – hope to see you on the 30th!