Short Fiction Book Club: Season 5 Announcement & Recruitment
###Short Fiction Book Club (SFBC) is gearing back up for Season 5!
With Hugo Season winding down at the end of August, we're entering the best time of the year - autumn (for the northern hemisphere folks) and SFBC season (for everyone!). Your favorite short fiction group will be ramping back up with a new season of hidden gems, backlist bangers, and seamless thematic transitions between discussion sessions. It's always a good time to Read More Short Fiction!
On Wednesday, September 2nd, join us in welcoming the new season for our Flash! Ah-ahhhh! session. We'll be discussing the following stories:
Sacrifice Homecoming by Manuela Amiouny (Small Wonders, 303 words)
> It is not a kindness, warns the beast, and lets you go
Before She Knew About Magic by Joshua Geller Schwartz (Otherside, 700 words)
> This was before she knew about magic. Before she was pissed off because her mother told her she couldn’t attend Jenny Mulvey’s sixteenth birthday party. (To be fair, she’d come home stinking of vodka the last time.) It was before she snuck out of the back door of the basement and crept across the quiet, suburban lawn without saying goodbye to her mother. (She would always regret not saying goodbye to her mother.) Before she took the shortcut through the woods, the one she’d taken a thousand times, the one her mother always warned her against taking.
Caring for a Picky Eater During the Apocalypse by Richie Narvaez (Orion's Belt, 934 words)
> 1. Know Your Picky Eater’s Food Favorites and Keep Them in Mind When Planning Meals.
> On your first date, only eight months ago, Sara told you she spent a summer as a vegetarian, by which she meant she would eat dessert three times a day. Twinkies, she’d said, were her number one go-to fave, dinner for most of that July.
> So when you present her with the last box of Twinkies you had to elbow someone for at the rapidly emptying supermarket, try not to be upset when your picky eater says, “No, thank you. They changed the flavor. They’re too dry and too sweet now.”
Silence, in the Doorway, with the Gun by Nadia Radovich (Flash Fiction Online, 972 words)
> The titular character of the thirteenth-century Le Roman de Silence is born female, at a time when women cannot inherit. To avoid disinheriting his child, Silence’s father raises him as a son. Personified Nature and Nurture quarrel over what gender Silence should be.
###What is SFBC?
Short Fiction Book Club (SFBC) is a discussion group for people who love speculative short fiction. We host one or two threads per month from fall through spring, each covering a few pieces of short fiction organized around a theme, whether that be as narrow as Baseball! Speculative Fiction Edition or as broad as that one time the awards were wrong.
We also host a general discussion thread on the last Wednesday of each month, where there is no preselected discussion slate and readers are encouraged to drop by and share whatever they’ve been enjoying lately.
You can also find all our previous sessions and all the stories we've covered in the past 4 seasons here
###How can I participate?
Show up to a discussion thread and start posting! Anyone is welcome, whether you want to dip in for the occasional story or read along and participate for the whole season.
###Can I suggest stories or future session topics?
Absolutely! We love to collect more story recommendations. If you have an idea for a session you’d like to host, from something as broad as “stories about fire” to a spotlight on a lesser-known venue, comment below and we’ll pull you into our planning.
If you don’t want to host but do have a suggestion that you would like someone else to explore, leave that here as well! We’re happy to add it to the list of ideas and see if anyone is drawn to flesh it out and host it.
###I’m the author of a story you’re discussing. Can I join that thread?
First: hi, it’s cool that you noticed us! We ask that you wait about 8-12 hours to give commenters a chance to get their initial impressions out, and maybe have a friend screen the comments for you first. We try to pick stories that at least one group member loves, but that doesn’t mean the thread will necessarily be a wall of compliments (except that time Isabel J. Kim showed up). We talk about both what works for us in each story and what doesn’t. Knowing that, if you want to jump in and answer questions or reply to comments, go for it!
We hope to see you in 2 weeks on Wednesday the 2nd of September to discuss these fun stories!