#the decameron project

[tinynavajoreads]

Currently Reading: Stories from Quarantine by The New York Times Magazine, previously published as The Decameron Project

Trying to get my brain to focus on a book and a series of short stories seemed to be the best bet. And the stories have been interesting and a little haunting so far.

Once done, I'll let you know which of the stories I enjoyed!

[mielicy]

why am i abt to cry rn,,,,,

like dont look at me like that :(

[atalanta-asthevictor]

Ughghfhdjsj i need to keep reading the decameron and finish it before i get back to school but the MISOGYNY in this thing???? Fucking unbearable

[eucanthos]

Botticelli  (Florence, 1445 - 1510) 

Nastagio degli Onesti (1st episode detail: Nastagio meets the ghosts of woman and knight in Ravenna's pine forest), ca. 1483. Tempera on panel 83 x 138 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid

Nastagio degli Onesti is the protagonist in one of the one hundred short stories contained in Boccaccio's Decameron. The 8th story of the 5th day, tells of the unrequited love of the nobleman Nastagio for a girl who will eventually be induced to accept Nastagio's affection by the appearance of a rejected lover and her beloved.

Nastagio failing to forget the girl, attempted suicide several times. Then, following the advice of friends and relatives, goes away to Ravenna.

Walking in a pine forest in early May, Nastagio sees a girl running naked in tears, hunted by a Knight and his two dogs. Nastagio tries to defend her, but the knight presents himself as Guido of Anastagi and tells of how he once loved the unresponsive woman before committing suicide. When the girl died without any regrets for the misery she had inflicted on her admirer, she was sentenced to being hunted and killed every Friday for as many years as the months of her rejection lasted [projected from Hell]

Nastagio understands the events to be of divine will and decides to prepare a lavish banquet in the same place, the following Friday. At the end of the dinner the horrifying scene is repeated with the same harrowing and pitiful consequences. With this he gets the desired effect: after the hunter once again explains the reasons for the girl's fate to all of those present at the dinner, the girl loved by Nastagio realizes she had stepped on the love felt by Nastagio and, for fear of suffering the same fate of the victim before her, she immediately agrees to marry Nastagio in Sunday.

Botticelli made a series of four episodes of the story, thought to have been commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1483 as a gift to Giannozzo Pucci at his marriage to Lucrezia Bini of that year.

BOTTICELLI (allegorical paintings and beginning of religious pathos, from 1483 to 1488). Post on The Artistic Adventure of Mankind blog (Historiographies on Art)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nastagio_degli_Onesti

https://arsartisticadventureofmankind.wordpress.com/tag/botticellis-venus-and-mars/

[justforbooks]

The Canterbury Tales tells the story of a group of 30 pilgrims who meet at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, and travel together to visit the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury cathedral. The tavern host, who accompanies them, suggests that they amuse one another along the way by telling stories.

During his life, Geoffrey Chaucer (born c.1340) was courtier, diplomat, revenue collector, administrator, negotiator, overseer of building projects, landowner and knight of the shire. He was servant, retainer, husband, friend and father, but is now mainly known as a poet and 'the father of English literature', a postion to which he was raised by other writers in the generation after his death.

It was Boccaccio's Decameron which inspired Chaucer, in the 1390s, to begin work on The Canterbury Tales, which was still unfinished at his death in October 1400. It tells the story of a group of 30 pilgrims who meet at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames opposite the city of London, and travel together to visit the then famous shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury cathedral.

The tavern host, who accompanies them, suggests that they amuse one another along the way by telling stories, with the best storyteller awarded a meal in the tavern (paid for by all the others) on their return. The stories told by the pilgrims range from bawdy comedies through saints' lives and moral tracts to courtly romances, always delivered with a generous helping of Chaucer's own sly wit and ironic humour.

Although basing his characters on the stereotypes of 'estates satire', Chaucer succeeds in his aim of producing an overview of his times and their culture, for posterity, in the manner of Italian, proto-Renaissance, writers.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[inclusivefuture]

Meet Reese Hogan, author of "Naked Eye Double: Music, Mayhem, and So Much More"

Reese Hogan (he/him) is a transmasc science fiction author with four published novels. His short fiction is in The Decameron Project, A Coup of Owls, and on the Tales to Terrify podcast, as well as in two anthologies. In addition to writing, Reese sings in the local gay men’s chorus. He lives with his two children in New Mexico. You can find him on his website, reesehogan.com or on Instagram at @reesechogan.

What inspired "Naked Eye Double"?

I am passionate about music, and love reading in-depth dives into new artists and albums. When I heard about Inclusive Future Magazine, I knew I had to write a piece centering a new and fresh band on the scene in that world, in a way that would convey the power music and art has on both creators and their audiences.

Pre-order our zine on Kickstarter to read Reese's article, a profile on one of 2068's top progpunk bands, Naked Eye Double. It's worth the hype 😉

[thelaithlyworm]

Return of the Return of the Repod Wrangle

A missing scene from Star Trek La Sirena. We know that Cris Rios and Agnes Jurati had a one night stand, and were hella awkward after. How exactly did that go…? Also of note as the fic that got me saddled with a bit of cursed worldbuilding. (If you know, you know.)

A very sweet and gentle talk between Data and Tasha about the great beings they saw in the very first episode, and about existing in a society, and about being kind…

Imma going to call this one cursed not because it’s a bad fic – it’s lovely! an angel and a demon bonding through text messages and spying – but because Past!Me decided to polish it in a very SFX-heavy way, and Present!Me doesn’t like being one-upped by the old fogies of three years ago. In any case, here ‘tis, large as life and a bit more mellow. Bing!

There are a couple of minor characters in the very fucked up, very good novel The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun who perform gender in very particular ways. Or maybe it’s not gender maybe they’d always be like that, or safer, or kinder. It’s a story about doom, maybe. Not love, of course. Did you hear anyone say it was about love?

I wrote this set of stories during my country’s first Lockdown, when I badly needed a distraction, as part of an on-line game based on The Decameron. Ten days, each day has a theme and all the players make up a story on it.

Mine often raided existing myths and fairytales, in the grand tradition of The Decameron and other older story collections, though “The Fool Who Met Death” was completely original. I am unreasonably delighted with my version of “Stone Soup”. (‘Who wouldn’t give up just one bunch of carrots for the Tuscany variant…?’)

And it was, it brought back a lot of feelings, revisiting these.

Anyway, enjoy! enjoy! (if you choose to enjoy, and if you don’t that’s just fine. Hope you have a beautiful day.)

[vampiriquejuliette]

꧁•⊹٭𝟶𝟻.𝟶𝟺.𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟺٭⊹•꧂

+Today I started the collection of Boccaccio's short stories from the Decameron which I really enjoyed. I highly recommend it if you like funny stories with mischievous characters. It's also interesting to learn Italian culture (he was one of the greatest authors of the 1300s and his influence was necessary for our language).

+ I did my daily tarot reading for me and my boyfriend (I'm trying to get into the habit to connect with my craft). I really need to buy some books...

+ I took a long ass nap...I was eepy, my honour.

+ I started my Duolingo japanese lessons, I think the nouns are easy to memorize but the idiograms are soo hard...

+ I played Project Sekai and found Miku's card ''Intro to the street music'' after 12 pulls I'm so happy!!! I really wanted her when I saw her I'm so so lucky!!

[joebuccino]

An Overview of Different Forms of Fiction

There are several different types of projects fiction writers can engage in. Works of fiction vary in length and structure. These aspects of a piece of fiction differ from the project’s genre, such as mystery or science fiction.

Flash fiction is the shortest form of fiction for writers. In fact, there are countless examples of single-sentence flash fiction stories, including the six-word short story, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” The piece is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, though there is little in the way of confirmation on this point. Unlike other forms of fiction, there is no hard word count for flash pieces. That said, most flash pieces come in well under the lower limit for short stories, which is 1,500 words. Fittingly, flash pieces are alternatively referred to as microfiction or microstories.

While each writer is free to impart their unique spin on flash fiction, there are a few commonalities found among flash pieces. Despite the brevity, flash pieces typically tell a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end. While this structure can manifest in many different ways, it is an important distinguishing factor between flash fiction and similar creative writing, such as prose poetry.

Despite the name, short stories can be as long as 30,000 words, though it is more common to encounter stories on the lower end of the spectrum, closer to 1,500 words. Short stories were once a major form of entertainment in the United States. In 1929, the Saturday Evening Post began paying F. Scott Fitzgerald $4,000 per short story. Adjusted for inflation, this equates to $55,000. With just two short stories per year, Fitzgerald could earn more than America’s average household income in 2023.

A few of the most well-known, frequently anthologized short stories include “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, a master of the form.

Novellas fall in between short stories and novels at 30,000 to 50,000 words. The word novella derives from the Italian word, meaning “short story related to true facts.” Boccaccio’s The Decameron is a short story collection, with many taking the form of the novella. There is considerable overlap between long short stories, novellas, and short novels. The Great Gatsby, one of the most enduring novels in the English language, is just 47,094 words, which falls short of most working definitions of the novel.

The state of the novella is further confused by the novelette, which is typically shorter than a novella but longer than a short story. There are additional differences beyond length. Novelettes generally have a lighter tone compared to novels and focus more on character development and world building than short stories.

Novels are the largest fiction projects writers can take on. They are longer than novellas and can exceed 300,000 words, which translates to more than 1,000 manuscript pages. A more standard range for mainstream novels is between 80,000 and 100,000 words. The Japanese story The Tale of Genji is sometimes credited as the first novel, but the modern novel is more frequently connected to Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes, published in 1605.

Influential English language novels range from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Examples of popular genre novels, meanwhile, include The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, part of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series.

[trinuviel]

The world is a scary place right now, but science fiction and fantasy authors and fans are fighting back with the power of stories. Over on Patreon, award-winning author (and Tor.com contributor) Jo Walton, poet and author Maya Chhabra, and librarian, singer, and SF/F fan Lauren Schiller recently launched the Decameron Project, which aims to provide readers with a new donation-supported short story or novel excerpt every day as long as the world is under threat by the coronavirus.

The project is inspired by its namesake, The Decameron, a 14th-century masterwork by the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio written while Europe was deep in the throes of the Black Death.

The Decameron is a collection of 100 tales ostensibly told by a group of young men and women hiding out from Death in a deserted villa outside Florence in the 1350s, passing time while waiting for the plague to subside by sharing stories, which vary widely in tone, subject matter, and scope (confession time: I have not read it, but the Wikipedia page makes it sound fascinating.)

Today, as humanity faces another plague—albeit one that is, thus far, less existentially terrifying—the authors behind the Decameron project are creating new stories in the same spirit: confronting a plague year in that most human of ways, by using suffering and uncertainty as fuel to fire art, and hope.

In an email to Tor.com, Walton said she and the other authors have already collected some 25 stories and plan to continue to post a new one every day “while the plague lasts.” According to a list posted yesterday, participating authors will include Daniel Abraham, William Alexander, Mike Allen, Leah Bobet, Maya Chhabra, Pamela Dean, Max Gladstone, Heather Rose Jones, Rosemary Kirstein, Naomi Kritzer, Rebecca Kuang, Ellen Kushner, Marissa Lingen, Usman Malik, Ada Palmer, Laurie Penny, Shiv Ramdas, Alter Reiss, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Effie Seiberg, Robert Silverberg, Caroline Stevermer, Sonya Taaffe, and perhaps more…

The stories are freely available to all readers, with the Patreon contributions acting as an optional donation to support the authors and the project for the duration. The first three—by Walton, Leah Bobet, and Rosemary Kirstein—are available now.

Plenty of wonderful writers.

[a-reading-journal]

This collection was generally really good, there were a few clunkers, but lots of stories by authors I already love, and more from authors that I will definitely be checking out soon. Personal favourites include the opening story by Victor LaValle, Impatient Griselda by Margaret Atwood, Keepsakes by Andrew O’Hagan, a story set in Portland, OR by Karen Russell, and a striking piece by called Prudent Girls by Rivers Solomon.

[asterdeer]

watched coldcrashpicture’s 2020 dumpster fire movie list and that got me thinking about ........ idk, things, as usual, but also for some reason creative projects/creativity (not sure why, it wasn’t about being a creator) and i think one reason why i hit such a wall/hit the bottom of the empty well is because i usually have one guiding feeling behind projects, they have always been pretty personal and had a sort of “I’m [bad adjective] but with work I can develop into [opposite good adjective]” aspirational element, and lately I’ve had so many feelings all at once and have been doubting/disavowing every good or at least neutral quality i thought i could be, it’s been impossible to get rooted in a project. i don’t know Me so i don’t know the Story

which is why in lieu of getting therapy or doing work on myself because that sounds even worse, im starting my “screw you chaucer and boccaccio i can finish a 100-story collection in a frame story and i won’t even hate women in it” project

[tolkiendecameron]

Chapters: 1/22 Fandom: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Elrond Peredhel Characters: Elrond Peredhel, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar Additional Tags: other characters have cameos - Freeform, and there are characters who are not present and yet loom large, Second Age, Lindon (Tolkien), Himring, Tol Himling, Trauma, Early Second Age Elrond is not in a healthy headspace, honestly Celebrimbor’s headspace isn’t looking that great either, Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Dreams, Nightmares, the sea, Hurt/Comfort, disturbing imagery, Tolkien Decameron Project, Holding Hands, Developing Relationship, Slow Burn Summary:

Early in the Second Age, Elrond is a loremaster-in-training (self-taught, but not any less well-taught for that, thank you) in Gil-galad’s court. He does not speak of his past, and does not take to inquiries with good grace. But when he receives an assignment that will take him to one of the few remnants of the drowned lands of his childhood, he finds that his past is not so easily ignored as all that. Gil-galad’s choice of traveling companion for him does not help matters. At all.

[ncfan-1]

Early in the Second Age, Elrond is a loremaster-in-training (self-taught, but not any less well-taught for that, thank you) in Gil-galad’s court. He does not speak of his past, and does not take to inquiries with good grace. But when he receives an assignment that will take him to one of the few remnants of the drowned lands of his childhood, he finds that his past is not so easily ignored as all that. Gil-galad’s choice of traveling companion for him does not help matters. At all. 

And here is Chapter One of Saudade, my contribution to the Tolkien Decameron Project!