The Shorter the Better: The Short Story Reading Club

Hi! Welcome to The Shorter the Better: The Short Story Reading Club. This club has been going on since Monday, 30 November 2020.

Before explaining how this activity works, I would like to make two prior points:

-Me and any co-host or co-organizer reserve all rights in the organisation of this activity.
-Me and any co-host or co-organizer reserve the right to refuse service. This is a free activity, and if you want to change how it is run and / or organised, maybe it just means that this activity is not for you. There are other groups on meetup.com, or even consider starting up your own activity so that you can organise things the way you seem fit. By all means, please give us a try, and see if you like The Shorter the Better or not. But after some years with the club, it is unlikely that I'll make any big organisational changes. I'm happy with the club as it is.

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 a videoconference app, like 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.

A rule that keeps on being conflictive, and attendees tend to disregard:

I have a THREE-MEETINGS-BOOKED-BUT-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.
However, if you just don't show up to a meeting which you've booked your spot for, depending on the existence of the dreaded Waiting List, you'll hear from me sooner rather than later

If in around a year 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, stop reading it and don't attend the meeting. If you have already booked a place, cancel it by RSVPing Not Going. You have no obligation to attend all the meetings; you can pick and choose those you are interested in, so if you are being hurt by anything on a short story, just stop reading it and push it aside. Think of your own happiness and well-being first.

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 for you and me. Meetup.com is quite good at telling you what your local time is, so check it out in every meeting convocatory.
2. the choice of short story.
3. the number of attendees, maximum 20. Unfortunately, this means that there are limited spaces and that people may be not able to attend a particular meeting. This number is not going to be increased: 20 is already a huge group of people to discuss a short story.

How things usually roll down at every meeting:

I will wait ten minutes speaking about other topics - greetings, the weather, how the club is going, chitchating, etc- It is OK if someone arrives late, but bear in mind that in that case the conversation may have already started. There is a button in the apps you can press when you want to raise your hand.
Also, the meetings tend to be quite lengthy, so when you want to go, just wave goodbye, or write goodbye on the chat of the meeting and go.

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 spot 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 usually already be up for grabs.

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:

- translations and classics
- ground-braking and experimental stories
- different genres
- literary, popular or written by amateurs
- flash fiction, fan fiction
- even children's stories
- written by writers from every continent in the world, although I am not sure I will be ever going to be able to find any writer from Antarctica

The meetings sometimes become very long. If you want / need to leave the meeting beforetime, just say or wave goodbye, or announce that you're leaving on the chat. Attendees don't need to stay the whole of the discussion.

How to contact me:

Feel free to write to me or to ask me any questions. I will reply as soon as I can (if I know the answer). There is a private message function that you can use. I am not the quickest of repliers, but I can promise that I will read every private message at some point.

Repeating myself like a broken record:

I request everybody to update their RSVP as soon as they learn that they won't be able to attend. There may be people on the waiting list that would like to occupy that spot: please think of them. So if for whatever the reason you need or want to skip a meeting you have booked a spot, PLEASE RSVP Not Going. It is not a problem, even if you have to do this several weeks on a row. You can do this by clicking on the notification message you'll receive in your email (if you have allowed this notification), or going to the list of attendees in that specific meeting, and click in your own meetup name.

Thank you for your interest and hopefully see you around.

A big electronic hug to you!

Rosaura