Day One of 365 Short Stories Starts TOMORROW

A list with links — and a reading guide.

Wait, am I really gonna do this? Read a short story every single day? In the midst of regular life, which demands so much of me (us) already? Why am I doing this??

Because I am a writer, and writers love self-punishment?

Maybe.

Because I am a writer, and I know that reading a short story every day will teach me a lot about writing short stories?

Definitely.

Because I believe in the power and magic of short stories, the pure craft of them, and I want to share them with the world? By reading stories written by writers known and unknown?

Absolutely.

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Will I post every day? Hm. I don’t know. I want to. I hope I will. But I may not. I have an autoimmune disease, and I know that on some days everything feels like too much.

But I will read a story each day, and I will write about that story, whether it’s in an individual post or in a roundup.

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It’s been snowing like heck here in Seattle, and cold. Not a regular occurrence. Hopefully on the 2nd I can get my holds from the library, pick up all the books I need to read all the stories I said I would read. But here’s the thing! Every single story in the first week of stories can be found online. I made it that way on purpose, because I’m a pantser.

Do you know what a pantser is? It’s someone who flies by the seat of their pants. It’s just the way I do things. Sometimes they work and sometimes (most of the time?) they don’t. It’s cool. This will work. I am committed.

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Will you be reading along with me?

I wanna know, are you going to be reading along with me? Do you have plans to read any or all of the stories with me? Maybe you can commit to one a week, or two. If you’d like, you can declare your commitment in the comments so we all know about it and you feel more like it’s actually a thing you’re doing. It helps. Trust me, I know.

Remember that I made this handy PDF which lists all the stories. Print it out and play along. I can’t wait to get started!

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5.65MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Here are the stories, with links:

January 1: Gabriel Bump: “To Buffalo Eastward” (available in American Best Short Stories 2021)

January 2: Rita Chang-Eppig: “My Father, the Morning Star”

January 3: James Baldwin: “Sonny’s Blues” (reread)

January 4: Jamaica Kincaid: “Girl” (reread)

January 5: Nafissa Thompson-Spires “Suicide, Watch” (reread)

January 6: Anthony Veasna So: “The Shop” (reread)

January 7: Sejal Shah: “The Half King”

January 8: Raymond Carver: “Call If You Need Me”

January 9: Flannery O’Connor (undecided which story, tell me in comments!)

January 10: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah “Zimmer Land” (reread)

January 11: Tobias Wolff: “Bullet in the Brain” (reread)

January 12: Amy Hempl: “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried”

January 13: Miranda July: “Roy Spivy”

January 14: Andrew Zhou: “Inheritance”

January 15: Donald Barthelme “The School” (reread)

January 16: Jorge Luis Borges, "The Aleph"

January 17: Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"

January 18: Nikolay Gogol's "The Nose"

January 19: Mariana Enríquez, "Spiderweb"

January 20: Su Sin Far, "Mrs. Spring Fragrance"

January 21: Alicia Elliot, "Unearth" (Appears in Best Short Stories 2018)

January 22: Fay Weldon, "Weekend"

January 23: Ray Bradbury, "The Veldt"

January 24: Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"

January 25: Leo Tolstoy, "The Death of Ivan Ilych"

January 26: Leo Tolstoy, "The Death of Ivan Ilych"

January 27: Zadie Smith, "The Embassy of Cambodia"

January 28: Lydia Davis, "The Outing"

January 29: Hugh Behm-Steinberg, “Taylor Swift”

January 30: Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl"

January 31: TBD

Jamaica Kincaid’s short story, “Girl,” captures so many things with so few words.

What Do We Look For When We Read Short Stories?

You can read them for pleasure, sure. Yes. My rule of thumb is to read every short story twice. The first read is an immersive experience. Let the story drench you, envelop you. If I find myself disliking a story I always continue reading, and I always ask myself, what is it that I am disliking? Is it the writing itself, or something I am carrying? I try to set aside any dislike and continue to be open.

After my first read, I put the story down, make some tea (or live my life) and then pick it up an hour or a couple days later (clearly it will be an hour in this case). My second read is investigative. How did the writer do what they did? Every writer has their strengths. To learn as writers, we can ask questions like these:

1. The opening paragraph: how does the writer begin their story? How much information does the reader get, and where does that information direct them? Think of the opening paragraph as an entryway— you can tell so much about who lives in a house simply by the state of their entryway.

2. Temporality, or time travel: How is the writer moving through time? Is the story told entirely in the present moment (rare)? If not, then how does the writer create seamless transitions from the present to the past (or future)?

3. Narration: who is narrating the story and how close are we to their perspective? There are three types of narration (also called point of view) — first person, second person, and third person (which can be a distant person or omniscient). We’ll definitely get into the details of this as we read our stories.

4. Structure: how is the story structured? If you were to look at it like a house, how is it built? What is holding it up?

We’ll get more in-depth with our questions as we read the stories (or, rather, I will, as I read them, and maybe some of you will read some of the stories with me).

What Do You Want From This?

Tell me in the comments what you want from this adventure. I’m thinking a weekly comment thread where I’ll show up and we can all chat about the stories. Maybe even some interviews with short story writers. Idk! The possibilities are truly endless. Mid-month, I’ll be doing a poll to choose the last story of the month.

Also, how many of you are writers, aspiring writers, or just reading and following along for fun?

Let me know in the comments!

And please, please don’t forget to become a paying subscriber if you aren’t already. There’s a discount right now! It really helps to keep things chugging along. And share this newsletter! Forward it to friends and family! Get the word out! It’s gonna be a wild ride.

See you tomorrow!

Excitedly,

Stacy