<![CDATA[SAM – Senior Active Men’s Group of Illinois - Short Story Group]]>Tue, 11 Feb 2025 09:21:48 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[February 18 - Sonny’s Blues]]>Mon, 10 Feb 2025 19:08:42 GMThttp://samgroupil.org/short-story-group/february-18-sonnys-bluesNext Meeting Date: Tuesday, February 18
Time: 1:30 - 2:30
Where: Beth Emet

​In the last meeting……the group discussed the story “If God Existed, He’d Be a Solid Midfielder” by Aleksandar Hemon, a story set in Chicago. Led by Bill Steel, the conversation was engrossing and touched on themes of immigration, identity and belonging, religion and meaningfulness, aging, and play.

The next meeting…
…is Tuesday February 18.

 The next story…
…is “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin.  The discussion will be led by Tom Arthur who recently has been focusing on Baldwin’s work. (Baldwin was born in 1924; the literary world has been celebrating the 100-year anniversary of his birth.)

 For right now…
…here’s a short short story (sometimes called “flash fiction”) that recent political events call to mind. It’s a 1½- page story by the Italian author Italo Calvino that was published in Granta, December 1, 1993 titled “The Black Sheep.”

Please RSVP.

Phil
sonnys_blues_by_james_baldwin_word.pdf
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the_black_sheep_by_italo_calvino_pdf.pdf
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]]><![CDATA[January 21 - Cordoba]]>Sat, 11 Jan 2025 22:36:36 GMThttp://samgroupil.org/short-story-group/january-21-cordobaNext Meeting Date: Tuesday, January 21
Time: 1:30 - 2:30
Where: Beth Emet

In our last meeting…
…we discussed the story “The Rocking Horse Winner” by the English author D. H. Lawrence. 

Our next meeting…
…will be Tuesday, January 21, at Beth Emet at 1:30 as usual.
 
Our next story…
…is “Cordoba” by Stuart Dybek. The discussion will be led by Ed Dziedzic who found the story for us.  The story is attached, below.

Some author bio. Stuart Dybek is…
…an American writer of short stories and poetry. Born in 1942 (he's about the age of many of us) to Polish American immigrant parents, Dybek grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s in the Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods of Chicago. After graduating from St. Rita of Cascia High School in 1959, he earned an MA in literature from Loyola University, and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He taught for more than 30 years at Western Michigan University, and now is Distinguished Writer in Residence at Northwestern University where he teaches in the School of Professional Studies.

Dybek is the author of four collections of short stories.  Three of Dybek’s stories have been selected for inclusion in the Best American Short Stories annual editions:

“Pet Milk” in 1985 (see the link below to a beautifully filmed version of this story);
“Hot Ice” in 1989;
“Chopin in Winter” in 1990.

Dybek’s writing is known for its attention to detail, vivid imagery, and poetic language; and its themes of identity, the Polish American immigrant experience, and Chicago urban life.
In 2007 Dybek was a recipient of a MacArthur (“Genius”) Grant.

Here are videos of two interviews of Dybek, old, but still interesting:

https://www.chipublib.org/interview-with-stuart-dybek/
 
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-shift-shift&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-shift&hspart=shift&p=interview+of+stuart+dybek&type=0_2000_100_1000_100_241008#id=5&vid=be6f9f385818c7cfef5d36d875bced45&action=view

Highly recommended…
And here is a link that takes you to a short film beautifully produced to visualize one of Dybek’s award winning stories, “Pet Milk.” The narration is by Kate Walbert who recorded the story for The New Yorker Fiction Podcast. The printed story was published in The New Yorker in the August 4, 1984 issue and the podcast was published on August 1, 2018. The story is partly set in Evanston.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-shift-shift&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-shift&hspart=shift&p=%22Pet+Milk%22+by+stuart+Dybek&type=0_2000_100_1000_100_241008#id=2&vid=e7411e4056aa213dea7603d3fbeb7284&action=view


Please RSVP.
Phil
cordoba_by_stuart_dybek.pdf
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]]><![CDATA[January 7 - The Rocking Horse Winner]]>Thu, 12 Dec 2024 03:53:30 GMThttp://samgroupil.org/short-story-group/january-7-the-rocking-horse-winnerNext Meeting Date: Tuesday, January 7
Time: 1:30 - 2:30
Where: Beth Emet

In the last meeting, we had a great discussion...
...about Nathan Englander's short story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank," and also about religious identity and trust. Thanks to Marc Rosenberg for assisting with the  discussion. 
​
Our group won't be meeting in two weeks..
...as we normally do, because of the holidays. Our next meeting will be in the new year, January 7.

The next story...
...is a classic in the short story genre, "The Rocking Horse Winner" by D. H. Lawrence. The story is an old one, first published in Harper's Bazaar, July 1926; and yet the story is timeless.

A bit of author bio--D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence was born in England in 1885 and died early, in 1930 at the age of 45. His writings were varied in type and included short stories, novels, plays, essays, literary criticisms, poems, and even travelogues. He's best remembered for his novels Sons and Lovers (1913), Women in Love (1920), and Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), all of which encountered censorship for their radical portrayals of romance and sexuality, and for sexually explicit language.

Themes in his writings include modernity and social alienation.


"The Rocking Horse Winner" has been selected frequently over the decades for inclusion in anthologies of great short stories.

See you on January 7.

Please RSVP.

Phil
the_rocking_horse_winner_by_d._h._lawrence.pdf
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