During COVID, I joined a book club at the library. We met in the evening once a month on Zoom instead of the library. It was the first and only book club I’ve ever belonged to, and it was perfect for the times. Because lockdowns meant I couldn’t work, I had extra time on my hands. I tried to write, but I was too anxious to produce much of anything. But I could read, so I looked forward to each Zoom gathering and the chance to meet with fellow readers who also loved to discuss books. At the end of each discussion, it was nice to “leave the meeting” and not have to get in my car and drive home. Best of all, I felt that reading and discussing books would help me grow as a writer, even if I couldn’t write. Later, I would hear other writers talk about their struggles to write during COVID. But when the lockdowns ended and the book club returned to meeting at the library, I dropped out.

I missed talking about books with fellow readers, but I also wanted something that was more focused, tailored to me as a short story writer. Then, I read an article by an essayist who said she and a couple of her fellow essayists liked to read the same essays written by well-known writers and discuss them. They looked at tense, point of view, structure, pacing, use of literary devices, and anything else they wanted to discuss. I attended writing webinars where instructors used mentor texts to model whatever writing technique they were teaching. I came up with an idea: Why not a short story club? One that would focus on the writer’s use of all the literary techniques in a writer’s toolbox.

So, I talked to a friend of mine who used to teach AP English. Because I knew he loved to discuss literature and because he was a busy guy, I figured he’d love the idea of a short story club. He did.

We take turns choosing a short story and meet up every five to six weeks at a local coffeehouse. We discuss anything and everything about the writer’s techniques. I learn a lot and my hope is that I will become a better short story writer. (Maybe I should call this my Coffeehouse MFA.) I know that much of what we discuss will end up in my writer’s toolbox, perhaps to be incorporated in some manner in one of my future stories. My friend hopes to write when he retires, so he is adding to his toolbox too.

If you want to form your own short story club, here are some ideas to get you started:

• Take turns picking the short story. Be adventurous. Cover different time periods and genres and cultures. If someone ends up not liking a story, at least it’s not a whole book.
• Read the story at least twice. I read a story a few weeks before we meet up, then again a day or two before our meeting.
• Make a paper copy of the story so you can annotate, highlight, and underline. (My colored erasable ink pens get a workout!)
• Meet up at a local coffeehouse, so no one has to worry about hosting (or cleaning his or her house or baking the treats).
• Make time to visit before and after you discuss the short story. It’s fun to catch up with friends.
• Depending on the size of your group, allow an hour to an hour and a half.
• My short story club consists of two people, but you can go bigger.

Short stories we’ve read so far:

“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, “Virgin Violeta” by Katherine Anne Porter, “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off” by Raymond Carver, “The Wilderness” by Ray Bradbury, “Tomorrow in Shanghai” by May-Lee Chai, “A Trifle from Life” by Anton Chekhov, and “Warpath” by Jeffrey Masuda.

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My two favorite books from my book club days:

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson. Shortened synopsis from Amazon: As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody’s coming of age ceremony in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone. . . . But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress [now worn by Melody] was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody’s mother, for her own ceremony — a celebration that ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody’s family – reaching back to the Tulsa race massacre in 1921 — to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they’ve paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history.

For an informative podcast (and to wonder, Why isn’t this taught in school?) listen to Blindspot’s Tulsa Burning. Listen to the podcast first. If you understand the horror of what happened in Tulsa, you will have a greater appreciation for Woodson’s powerful novel.

It Takes One to Know One by Isla Dewar. My reading of this book was a happy, very happy accident. The book I was supposed to read was It Takes One to Know One by Susan Isaacs, which is a crime thriller. I didn’t make note of the author’s name, so when I ordered the book, I bought the wrong one — a wonderful mistake.

I loved Dewar’s take on the title. Her book is downright funny, even though the humor sometimes comes from a place of sadness and longing. The book is not a crime novel, but there are some small mysteries that need unraveling. Dewar is a Scottish novelist, and authors from the British Isles do the type of humor I like so well. Perhaps living on small islands in very changeable weather, and being surrounded by eerie and unearthly beautiful landscapes, and being subjected to numerous invasions and attempted invasions since the Roman Empire, makes one cultivate a sly, irreverent sense of humor in order to appear unflappable.

My son, who rarely reads fiction, read this book and laughed out loud. My daughter-in-law also loved it.