A Free-to-Read Short Story Club
The spooky season is upon us again! This month we’re going to discuss a couple of twists on two of our favorite monsters.
“A Kiss with Teeth,” by Max Gladstone (2014)
“Trading Hearts at the Half Kaffe Café,” by Charles De Lint (2001)
Totals 14775 words, 29 pages
You can listen to “A Kiss with Teeth” on the LeVar Burton Reads podcast!
For those of you not on Twitter, here are some of the bonus stories we’ve been enjoying so far!
July:
“Little Free Library,” by Naomi Kritzer
August:
This month we get two stories of women recounting their interactions with fairies (sort of):
“Pip and the Fairies,” by Theodora Goss (2005)
“The Faery Handbag,” by Kelly Link (2004)
Totals 11038 words, 20 pages
Before Disney reinvented the mermaid, women from the sea were just as dangerous to us as we are to them. Here are some throwbacks to the more classical view on seamaidens.
“The Touch Pool,” by Lisa Nan Joo (2020)
“Ourselves We Find in the Sea,” by Molly Hall (2017)
Totals 14433 words, 31 printed pages
You can listen to Anaea Lay read “The Touch Pool!”
So which do you prefer? Ariel, or Ondine?
Explore the great, bizarre outdoors with July’s stories:
“Fishfly Season,” by Halli Villegas (2014)
“The Third Bear,” by Jeff VanderMeer (2007)
Totals 10608 words, 19 pages
For June we’ll be reading stories on perspective:
“Six Months, Three Days,” by Charlie Jane Anders (2011)
“Blur,” by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)
Totals 12027 words, 21 pages
Both our stories this month are written by Kurt Vonnegut on the the subject of aging – or rather stopping the process entirely:
“2 B R 0 2 B,” by Kurt Vonnegut (1962)
“The Big Trip Up Yonder,” by Kurt Vonnegut (1953)
Totals 6146 words, 14 pages
Leave your thoughts below!
National library week is coming up later this month, so in the meantime we’ll be reading two stories of strange happenings in the library.
“The Story of St. Vespaluus,” by Saki (1911)
“Exchange,” by Ray Bradbury (1996)
Totals 6382 words, 12 printed pages
We will not be meeting in person in April, but please feel free to tell us what you think of the stories by leaving a comment below!
It’s Bluebeard month!
In honor of Black History Month, we’ll be reading stories by contemporary African-American writers.
When I was trying to decide between “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” and “Requiem for a Glass Heart,” based on the length of the stories in print. Unfortunately, I forgot to remove one of the stories before printing out several copies, so this month we have three stories that still come in under the 30 page mark:
“Window View,” by Rickey Rivers, Jr. (2019)
“Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” by ZZ Packer (2000)
“Requiem for a Glass Heart,” by Roxane Gay (2009)
Totals 8256 words, approximately 22 pages
Meetup will be Thursday, February 6th, from 6:30-7:30pm at the Osage Beach Library.
For our break between two traditionally stressful holidays, we’ll de-stress with a couple of stories about murderous spouses. These are the same stories from last December, but our numbers have swelled enough it seemed like the perfect time to reuse them.
“Lamb to the Slaughter,” by Roald Dahl (1953)
“Back for Christmas,”* by John Collier (1939)
Totals 5461 words, approximately 12 pages
Meetup will be Thursday, December 5th, from 6:30-7:30pm at the Osage Beach Library.
*If you’re having trouble reading Archive.org’s scanned book, you can find the story’s text here.
No Time to Read a Book Club 
