What we’re about
This is a reading group that focuses exclusively on the art of short stories. Rather than a book club which reads novels, focusing on short fiction allows the group to explore more voices and ideas to be engaged with in a much shorter period of time.
With different stories every meeting, there is less pressure to keep up with readings if your busy life doesn’t allow you to join us each time. Reading fucking rocks and should never feel like a chore. As the group forms, decisions on scheduling and location will be decided collectively. In my opinion, the stories should be picked by group members through a turn-based system, but that ought to be decided by the group at one of the first get-togethers. I'm hoping to start something that gets legs of its own and is a community project with people who love to read, at any level of knowledge.
I'd kick the readings off for the first meeting or two, and might pull stories from authors such as Grace Paley, Haruki Murakami, Louise Erdrich, Juan Rulfo, Margaret Atwood, Stanislaw Lem, Asja Bakic, Greg Jackson, Alice Munro, George Sanders, Flannery O'Connor, Sabrina Orah Mark, Donald Barthelme, Eka Kurniawan, Kate Chopin, Shahi Bhat and Thomas Pynchon. Add any authors the rest of the group throws down and we’ll have ourselves an incredible selection.
I’ve just moved to San Jose from Los Angeles and don’t know this area well enough to determine where we’d possibly meet. I suspect we can bounce between local bookstores and libraries until something clicks. Any recommendations you might know are certainly welcome.
Once a few people have signed up, I can shoot out a .pdf of the first story and we’ll schedule the first meeting. Please let me know if you’re interested!