The Shorter the Better: The Short Story Reading Club

Hi! Welcome to the The Shorter the Better: The Short Story Reading Club, since Monday, 30 November 2020.

Basic instructions for this activity:

This is a book club to all effects. So please, read the short story beforehand. When you attend a meeting, please be ready to participate in the conversation or don't show up at all.

The reason behind it all:

I love reading, and I thought about starting up a group focused on short stories. I would like to select short stories from different genres and authors, some modern, some classic. Some of them will be translations. I will be reading these short stories at the same time as you, so I won’t be able to know the short story’s topics beforehand, but I hope that we will find different topics, themes, ideas and styles as the weeks go by.

The workings of the meetings:

We will read short stories and then we will discuss them online by means of an app, meet.google.com, zoom or similar. I want the discussion to be as animated as possible, full of different opinions! Please respect everybody. No bullying, insulting, harassment - you will be blocked.

I will choose stories freely available on different websites (newyorker.com, gutenberg.org...) The length limit is 25 pages, so that everybody may be able to read the specific short story in a week. If we read a NOVELLA, there will be plenty of warning beforehand, and more time will be given.

I have a THREE-MEETINGS-NOT-ATTENDED-AND-YOU'RE-OUT rule. I don't always follow it strictly, but please RSVP "Not Going" as soon as you know you won't be able to attend. Also, if in 3 MONTHS you have not even checked the activities in the group, I will take you out of the group.

WARNING:

As I have not read the short stories beforehand, I won't be able to assess if there are any OFFENSIVE topics, or TRIGGERING topics like suicide, rape, self-harm, etc... So if you feel that a short story goes to a place you don´t like, don´t read it. If you have already booked a place, cancel it. You have no obligation to attend all the meetings; you can pick and choose those you are interested in.

There are some decisions about this reading club that I am reserving for myself; for example (but not only):

1. the schedule and timing of the meeting. At this moment, it is Monday at 20:00, London time.
2. the choice of short story.
3. the number of attendees, currently limited to 15.

About each meeting:

I will wait ten minutes speaking about other topics - greetings, the weather, how the club is going, chitchating, etc- It is OK if somebody arrives a bit late, but bear in mind that in that case the conversation may have already started.

I will do my best to encourage everybody to speak, even if it is only a little. All attendees should be ready to make at least a contribution, (meaning everybody is expected to say something every meeting.) Please TAKE THIS RULE SERIOUSLY. This is not a podcast, the cinema, a language school or a show for your entertainment. Foreign people and non-native speakers are welcome - I am one myself, but participating means actively commenting and discussing the short story of the week.

We are meeting online by means of an app, and the specific link to each meeting will show up to the right of your screen, under Online Event, but only those who have secured a place will be able to see it.

Feel free to look around at the short stories we have already read and the forthcoming ones. It is not necessary to attend to all the meetings - you can pick and choose those that are appealing to you. The following five short stories will be already available.

I want this Reading Club to have a lot of variety so I have chosen very different short stories. Throughout the weeks, we will be reading examples of (in no particular order):

- translations (e.g Eva is Inside Her Cat by Gabriel García Márquez)
- classics (e. g. The Lady of the Dog by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov)
- experimental (e. g. Outright Enright by Mike Bozart)
- sci-fi  (e. g. Beyond Lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick)
- folklore
- literary (e. g. Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf)
- short stories written by amateurs (
- flash fiction (e. g. The Dinosaur by Augusto Monterroso)
- fan fiction
- genre fiction (like westerns, chick lit, romance, erotic, pulp, horror, espionage...)
- fantasy (Black Box by Jennifer Egan)
- young adult (Kelly Link)
- children's 
- from every continent in the world, although I am not sure I will be able to find any writer from Antarctica
~~~ Africa: Chinua Achebe
~~~America: Jorge Luis Borges
~~~ Antarctica: [I wish I could find an author from here!]
~~~Asia: Yoko Ogawa
~~~ Australian continent: Witi Ihimaera
~~~ Europe: Emilia Pardo Bazán

- winners of competitions (e. g. Grace jones by Irenosen Okojie)
- finalists of competitions (e. g. Akua by Zamo Mbhele)
- groundbreaking (e. g. Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian)
- or a mixture of all that

Also, if you need to leave the meeting beforetime, just say goodbye. Participants don't need to stay the whole of the discussion. Some of the stories may not offer that many points of discussion, so the reading club will be shorter, but sometimes the discussion will be longer.

Feel free to browse around or to ask me any questions. I will reply as soon as I can (if I know the answer), or I will tell you that I don't know the answer (if I don't.)

I will also request to update your RSVP as soon as you learn that you won't be able to attend. There may be people on the waiting list that would like to occupy that seat.

Thank you for your interest and see you around.

A big electronic hug to you!

Rosaura