Literary Twitter Bots
I carry all of my favorite books with me. Not literally — although I do keep an awful lot of them in the Kindle app on my phone — but in my mind. There are characters who live there rent free, and there are bits of writing, lines of dialogue, descriptions I can’t forget. Sometimes I feel like a walking book-and-movie-quote dispenser, thinking in other people’s words instead of my own.
But I don’t have the recall to always come up with the perfect quote for a situation. Most of the time, I write my own dialogue (as it were) and I revisit my favorite books to read and reread their words. But I’ve discovered a really fun way to interact with those words, without cracking a single spine (or opening my Kindle app): literary bots on Twitter. People with far more patience, technical know-how, and (in some cases) creativity than me have done the work to create Twitter accounts that post book quotes, character moments, and more.
Now, I’m not talking about fan accounts, necessarily, although as far as I can tell these are all fan-run, nor am I talking about official author accounts run by other people (with a couple of exceptions). These are accounts that either use a fancy script to create tweets or manually pre-schedule them. There are several types, as you will see below!
The Book-Specific Bot
Red, White & Royal Bot
This bot posts a quote from Red, White & Royal Blue every three hours. If you’ve followed it for long enough, you will see repeat quotes pop up on your timeline, because of course they aren’t tweeting the entire book (that would violate Casey McQuiston’s copyright). It’s a delightful little break into my timeline.
Get a Life, Chloe Brown Bot
This bot tweets quotes from the Brown Sisters books by Talia Hibbert! According to the bio, tweets go up every hour, but it is actually more erratic than that.
Author-Specific Bots
Shirley Jackson Bot
This recent find (it’s been around since October 2021) tweets quotes from all of Shirley Jackson’s books, including Hangsaman, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and Life Among the Savages.
Octavia E. Butler
This is the exception noted above — this account is not a bot, but is managed by Octavia E. Butler’s estate, and tweets (and retweets) news and information about Butler’s books, legacy, and more.
The Epistolary Bot
Vita & Virginia Bot
Possibly my favorite of all the bots, this one tweets excerpts from letters between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West.
BTS Epistolary Bot
This is the most out there bot I found, and I am one thousand percent positive it will appeal to some Book Riot readers! This bot takes popular BTS ships and posts them with a quote from a real love letter. The quotes are all properly sourced here and are from authors, musicians, and other public figures.
The Best Friends Bot
Frog and Toad Bot
I am Toad and my best friend is Frog, so of course I adore this bot (run by a real person who is lovely) that posts quotes and images from the Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel!
The Poetry Bot
Sappho Bot
Every three hours, a quote from one of Sappho’s poems or fragments, taken from Anne Carson’s translations in If Not, Winter, sometimes modified slightly to fit in a tweet.
The Imaginary Bot
This last category is book-adjacent, rather than actually book specific. These are the bots that tweet story seeds, and they are, well, magical. It is my understanding that these are the most bot-like, pulling from lists of options to create plot scenarios (but please understand that I literally don’t know how they work and think they are really just magic).
Magical Realism Bot
Step aside, Gabriel García Márquez! (Just kidding, he is deceased.) This bot has been around since 2013 and was created by two PhD students in Australia.
Southern Gothic Bot
This bot was created by Alix E. Harrow, author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, and coded by her brother!
While I’m sure the well is deep, those are my favorite literary bots, plus a few others I found interesting! If you’re looking to find a Twitter bot for your favorite, try searching for an author or book name plus the word bot or the word quote!
