Two stories that we here at Newsweek know we’ll be covering for a while are the economic downturn and the continuing rise of social media. Recently, we’ve tried to get a good look at how the recession hits home with stories like Lisa Miller’s piece on worried investors stockpiling gold and our gallery of evictions across the country. We’ve also talked about how Twitter, one of the Web’s fastest-growing social networks, is revolutionizing communication and even, as Andrew Romano found out last week, changing how some entrepreneurs do business. The next step is to see how these stories converge, and to do that, we’d like your help.

Newsweek’s My Turn column is interested in publishing a few personal essays on Newsweek.com about how the recession is impacting our readers, but we also recognize that we can’t fully capture the effects of the downturn in one or two columns. To solve that problem, we’re calling for all of your personal recession stories, with one catch: we need them in 140 characters or fewer. This week, send your recession stories to us via Twitter. You can reach us @Newsweek (reply to one of our tweets about the contest), and use the tag #rcstory to help us keep track. All of the tweets will be streamed on Newsweek.com, and we’ll contact the authors of our favorites for a chance to write an 850-900 word My Turn column for our Web Site and earn $500. We’re teaming up with our friends at NPR’s Planet Money (@planetmoney) on this project, so some of the best tweets will also be read on their podcast.