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Once Upon a Time : Reading 'Sweethearts' by Richard Ford

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shankar m.
Once Upon a Time : Reading 'Sweethearts' by Richard Ford

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The story of the month: Sweethearts by Richard Ford

Link to the story: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QD3XytZy2Eq-BvNQr3QzxyuFro_L_psB/view?usp=share_link

Link to the Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/tnt-fnkp-uhp

The meeting room will open 5 minutes before the session.

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"A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it."

~ Edgar Allan Poe

Despite unwarranted reports of its demise at various times, the short story has been robust and thriving. The form itself has constantly changed, always reflecting the times it came out of, unlike the novel.

From the great short story writers – Guy de Maupassant, Anton Chekhov, Henry James, O’Henry, and Saki – we moved to the more modern writers who brought a change in the middle of the twentieth century – Flannery O’Connor and Raymond Carver were at the forefront of this.

Once Upon a Time is a session where we try to familiarize ourselves with the world's best short stories. Shankar will read the story aloud in the session. After the reading, we will analyze it together to learn from it.

But if you can, please read the story beforehand.

THE STORY:

Sweethearts by Richard Ford

Link to the story: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QD3XytZy2Eq-BvNQr3QzxyuFro_L_psB/view?usp=share_link

THE AUTHOR:

Richard Ford (born February 16, 1944) is an American novelist and short story writer. Ford's first collection of short stories, Rock Springs, was published in 1987. He received the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for his novel 'Independence Day'.

In Spain, he won the Princess of Asturias Award in 2016 and received the Park Kyong-ni Prize in 2018, an international literary award from South Korea. His novel 'Wildlife' was adapted into a 2018 film of the same name, and in 2023 Ford published 'Be Mine', his fifth work of fiction chronicling the life of Frank Bascombe.

The story, 'Sweethearts', is from Ford’s first collection of short stories, Rock Springs.

THE HOST :

Shankar is an aspiring writer, living in Pune. He has been a lifelong reader and was bitten by the writing bug after reading books by Tobias Wolff and William Trevor. While he loves novels, especially by the Russians, he always has a particular fondness for short stories.

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Pune Writers' Group, India
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Every 1st Saturday of the month until March 1, 2025

Online event
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FREE
12 spots left