In March, we're going to talk about Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark. A book about a person writing a book!

Have you ever tried creative writing? It's a lot harder to write a short story than a long one. What is the shortest story? Legend has it that the famous (and potentially very sad) shortest story was a six-word story by Ernest Hemingway: "Baby shoes: For sale, never worn." but researchers have proved that Hemingway didn’t, in fact, write this. These micro-stories rely on implying a larger context, allowing the reader to fill in the backstory.

For an excellent example of really good short story writing, you can read Isaac Asimov’s The Last Question here .

Or listen to the author himself read the story here .

Our challenge to you is to write a micro story (the shortest story possible) and bring it to reading group next time! No stories over 50 words will be accepted! (Actually, if you don't want to do this, you don't have to. But if you want to, it would be fun to share our ideas - without judgement of course!)

Anyway, one reviewer of Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark said that it is "a marvel. Intricately constructed, utterly unique, this novel set on the coast of Maine is filled with insights about writing, about the perils and freedoms of aging, about the great mysteries, as well as the pleasures, of life." We hope you enjoy it!

Alice Elliott Dark is the author of the novels Fellowship Point and Think of England, and two collections of short stories, In The Gloaming and Naked to the Waist. Her work has appeared in, among others, The New Yorker, Harper's, DoubleTake, Ploughshares, A Public Space, Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O.Henry Awards, and has been translated into many languages. She is a recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Presently she directs the MFA program and serves as a Professor at Rutgers-Newark in the English department and the MFA program.

Info and booking: 0471 99740, infobiblio@comune.bolzano.it