Short Story Summer Camp is back!

Registration is open for our annual celebration of short fiction, June 11-July 16.

Start stringing those friendship bracelets. Limber up your archery fingers. Practice for your swimming test. Short Story Summer Camp is back!

In this six-week class we'll read, analyze, discuss, and be inspired by twelve short stories by twelve different authors. That's twelve different approaches to storytelling, twelve different ways of handing point-of-view, characterization, dialogue, characterization, etc. My hope is that this variety of approach and method will give the writers in the class a lot of new tools and inspire a spirit of experimentation. 

You're going to need those storytelling tools. In our weekly exercises, you won't just be sharpening specific skills, but moving toward a completed piece of short fiction by the end of the class.

In the second half of the class you'll be assigned to a working group with which you exchange feedback as your stories take shape (this turned out to be a favorite feature of last year's Short Story Summer Camp). And at the end, we'll have a Zoom Story Time in which writers can read their stories to the group (another favorite activity from last year).

Short Story Summer Camp 2024 starts on Tuesday, June 1 and runs through Tuesday, July 16. Each Tuesday I'll host a 90-minute Zoom lecture-discussion in which we'll examine the principles and techniques of the writers we've read for that week. Then, through weekly writing exercises and mutual feedback and discussion with your colleagues, you will apply those  principles and methods to your own writing. 

The readings for Short Story Summer Camp are an education in themselves. These stories are all available legally online; we will provide you with a PDF “course packet”; you won't need to buy a textbook. Here are the stories):

JUNE 11

• “The Reluctant Dragon” by Kenneth Graham

• “The Deliverers of Their Country” by E. Nesbit 

JUNE 18

• “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros

• “By Any Other Name” by Santha Rama Rau

JUNE 25

• “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” by Leo Tolstoy

• “How It All Happened” by Louisa May Alcott

JULY 2

• “Victory Unintentional” by Isaac Asimov

• “The Child’s Story” by Charles Dickens
   

JULY 9

• “A Burglar’s Christmas” by Willa Cather

• “Getting It Right” by Maeve Binchy
   

JULY 16

• “The Aged Mother” by Matsuo Basho

• “The Man With Two Left Feet” by P.G. Wodehouse

 Dates and Times:
Tuesdays, June 11 - July 16 
1:00-2:30pm Central
(Lecture recordings will be available should you be unable to attend live.)

Cost: $97

This course is included in The Habit Membership. If you are already a member, you don't need to register. Short Story Summer Camp will appear in the Habit Content Library shortly before June 20. (Please note that The Habit Membership is limited to adults, college-age and up.)