*̩̩͙₊⋆☃️🎄New Yorker Short Story Reading: Holiday Book Swap Party 🎄🎁🦌☃･:*:｡

Calling all literary fiction lovers of the greater Austin Area for our 158th event! We are reading "Lara's Theme" by Madhuri Vijay. The link for the text and audio files are given in the Comments section. The links will become visible once you RSVP for the event.

SPECIAL EVENT NOTE: We are hosting our Annual Holiday Party and having a Book Swap for this meetup. If you decide to participate in the book-swap then please bring along a book wrapped in gift paper. We would love to see you come & participate in the festivities with us! The organizers will be treating you all with sweets and non-alcoholic drinks! (due to legal liability, we can't have alcoholic drinks at our party). Dressing up is encouraged! We plan to go to Hopfields 3110 Guadalupe St. for an after-party!

Please Note: WE WILL START OUR DISCUSSION AT 7:30PM. Gift Swap will be at 8:15pm.
Are you a bookish type that loves to keep up with The New Yorker's short story of the week? Interested in being a part of meaningful conversations on life, love, and contemporary short fiction? Miss reading and having friends who read, but don't have the time to linger over a 300-page novel?

Welcome: We have been searching for y'all and would be pleased to co-create a fun lil literary community together! Come join our group weekly for a lively, thoughtful in-person discussion of the latest and greatest work of short fiction from The New Yorker.

Whether you're a longtime lover of literature or just curious to see what all the fuss is about when it comes to Murakami and pals, we’d love to have you either way; reading, like most everything else in life, is just more fun with friends!

Please note that this is an inclusive community space, welcoming of LGBTQIA+, queer, transgender, and nonbinary people. Event attendees will be asked to share their preferred pronouns and to respect the preferred pronouns shared by other discussion participants.

People of color seeking a diverse community and reading selection are also especially encouraged to attend. Not that they're perfect (or that we are, for that matter), but part of the reason why we read The New Yorker's short stories is that the editorial staff has done a fairly good job in recent years of publishing writers of color and promoting, more generally, a diverse selection of American & international literary voices. Our reading group is also fairly diverse in terms of ethnic and cultural background, although like most social communities in Austin, there's more that we could be doing in terms of community outreach. We would be happy to take suggestions in this regard, if y'all have any!

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https://discord.gg/9jjufDeZ5Q

Cover illustrations by Diobelle Cerna and Tabitha Brown