It’s the Most Wonderful Day of the Year – Announcing the 8th Annual “Deal Me In!” Short Story Reading Challenge!

December 21, 2017 at 9:00 am (Uncategorized)

“My short stories are like soft shadows I’ve set out in the world, faint footprints I’ve left behind.” – Haruki Murakami

It’s a little known fact that, in ancient Britain, there once lived a race of great storytellers. They were, in fact, specialists in the form of short stories, generally told around a blazing campfire during their long hunting excursions. So great did their passion for the short story grow that they began to hold sacred the shortest day of the year and considered it a great feast day when all would gather and share their stories. Each “clan” of this race (there were about 52 known clans, broadly formed into 4 tribes of 13 clans each) would have a master storyteller, and at the great festivals beautiful painted stones would be drawn from a ceremonial bag to determine the order in which each clan’s grand storyteller would present his family’s best effort.

Now, at this time at the mere Eve of Civilization, “Science” in its modern form was unknown and, in its form of that time,  was inexact and varied from tribe to tribe, leading to tribes calculating different days for the shortest day of the year, but, eventually, the tribes realized a standardized date for their feast would be a good thing so, on the great Plain of Salisbury, they created a great and wondrous stone calendar. The position of the rising and setting sun at certain times, when viewed from the center of this stone calendar would mark the shortest day of the year.**

Later, in the 21^st Century, it was thoughts of this vanished civilization that led me to create the Deal Me In! short story reading challenge, which in 2018 will celebrate its 8^th year, with thousands of stories having been read – and sometimes blogged about – by bloggers all over the world.

**Okay, I may have fabricated parts of this story, but there IS a great stone calendar in England that tells great time to this day!

Will YOU become part of this great tradition in 2018?  The rules of the challenge are not difficult:

Deal Me In logo above designed by Mannomoi at https://dilettanteartiste.wordpress.com/ follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/callmemanno

What is the goal of the challenge?

To read 52 short stories in 2018 (that’s only one per week – versions with a lesser story requirement are noted below)

What is the purpose?

To have FUN and to be exposed to new authors and stories and maybe get in the habit of reading a short story a week. Isn’t that enough?

What do I need?

1) Access to at least fifty-two short stories (don’t own any short story collections or anthologies? See links to online resources below)
2) A deck of cards
3) An average of perhaps as little as just thirty minutes of reading time each week

Where do I post* about my stories?

(*You don’t have to post about every single story, of course, – or even ANY story – but if you have something to say about the story you read any given week, your fellow participants would love to hear it.)

1) On your own blog or website if you have one (I will link to your post at the bottom of my weekly post. I currently plan to do my weekly post on Sundays)

2) if you don’t have a blog or website you may comment on any of my Deal Me In posts, sharing thoughts on your own story – or start one at WordPress or Blogspot – it’s easy and free to create a basic blog.

How do I pick which stories to read?

(The 52 stories themselves are totally up to you.) Before you get start reading, come up with a roster of fifty-two stories (you can use any source) and assign each one to a playing card in a standard deck of cards. It can be fun to use different suits for different types of stories, but that is optional. I’ve often included one wild card for each suit too, so I can maybe read a story I’ve heard about during the year, or read another by an author I’ve discovered through this challenge. Each “week,” (if you’re like me, you may occasionally fall a story or two behind – that’s okay) you draw a card at random from your deck and that is the story you will read. There are links to many participants lists in last year’s sign up post at https://bibliophilica.wordpress.com/2016/12/21/its-the-most-wonderful-day-of-the-year-announcing-the-7th-annual-deal-me-in-short-story-reading-challenge/ if you want to see some examples. I’ve already posted my own 2018 roster.

What if I don’t have time to read a story every single week?

You don’t have to read your stories on a regular schedule (I almost always fall behind at least once during the year) and can catch up once a month if your prefer – OR try one of the challenge variations noted below, the Fortnight (or “payday” if you prefer) version is one story every two weeks or the “Full Moon Fever” version with just thirteen stories read or selected on seeing each full moon…

How do I sign up?

Leave a comment below with your URL, and I will link you on my home page, where I’ll eventually have a section in my sidebar for “2018 Deal Me In Participants.” This year, I hope to go back to a weekly wrap-up post, linking to other Deal Me In participants’ posts I’ve seen recently.  Late sign-ups (we always get a few) are allowed and encouraged too. If you can, I’d love you to add where in the world you’re blogging from and where or how you heard about the Deal Me In! challenge.

 

Some short story resources:

Links:
Classic Horror Stories:
AmericanLiterature.com short story of the day
EastoftheWeb’s short story of the day:
The Library of America’s short story of the week archive:

Free online novels.com has a wide selection; or check here for a few more. Heck just google “free short stories on line” and you’ll have enough to last a lifetime of Deal Me In Challenges!  Check out The New Yorker too. Last I checked you could access a limited number of their published stories per month. If your local library is like mine, they’ll likely have a good collection of annual O’Henry Prize-winning volumes, or the yearly Best American Short Stories anthologies.
Looking for some really short stories? Try here

Deal Me In Variations:

The Deal Me In “Fortnight Version” – just use two suits from your deck and assign a story to each card, drawing a card every two weeks. If you get paid bi-weekly, you can use that as a reminder to draw a new card (I guess this makes the fortnight variation a.k.a. The “payday version.”

The Deal Me In “Euchre Deck Version”If you work for “one of those companies” where you only get paid twice a month on the 15th and 30th, e.g., use a euchre deck!  Note: I’ve experimented with an accelerated euchre deck version for a couple readathons, especially the 24 in 48 readathon, where, instead of trying to read 24 hours out of 48, I try to read 24 short stories in 48 hours. Also pretty challenging.

The Deal Me In “Full Moon Fever Version” – this would be the baby steps way to ease into the Deal Me In routine, basically reading just one story a month (who doesn’t have time for that?). Just use one suit or face cards only and you’re set. Seeing the full moon in the sky can also serve as a reminder – “hey, I need to read my next short story!” Not every calendar year has 13 full moons, but we are lucky in that 2018 IS one of the years it does – lunar calendar below for reference.

You can try the using the new moons, as well, or BOTH new and full moons. In the past, we’ve had a couple Deal Me In’ers have a full moon add-on in addition to their 52 stories.

Other participants in the past have added their own wrinkles: Reading a story a week for only half the year, reading two at a time and trying to find a “connection” between them, reading essays, plays, poems, or famous speeches… Feel free to twist, spindle or mutilate this challenge any way you see fit to suit your own plans – the only element that should probably remain is the use of playing cards to determine your reading order.

So, how about it?  Are you UP for a challenge? If so, Deal Me In 8.0 might just be for you!  Shall we “Deal YOU in?”