Rosemary Kirstein

Popping in to remind you that the New Decameron is still going on, giving you a work of fiction or poetry every single day — and today’s offering is by my pal, and fellow member of the Fabulous Genrettes writer’s group, Laurie J Marks.

Laurie is the author of the famous Elemental Logics Series, which recently came to a conclusion.  For the Decameron Project, she’s giving us a peek at her current work-in-progress, The Cunning Men.

Remember: you can read the Project Decameron selections on Patreon for free; but you’re also perfectly free, if you so desire, to make a contribution.  Your choice.  The money is split between the authors and a charity called  Cittadini del Mondo, which runs a library and clinic for refugees in Rome.  All good causes!

In unrelated news:  Did my taxes.  Even though we’ve been gifted with extra time.  I just like to get it off my mind.

I just read Max Gladstone’s short story, “Stop Motion,” on the Decameron Project’s Patreon page.  What a neat, eerie little tale!

The only other thing I’ve read of his is This is How You Lose the Time War, written in collaboration with Amal el-Mohtar — which of course, I loved (as I’ve mentioned previously). And I see that a couple of his ebooks are on sale for 2.99, so I’m grabbing one of those.

I’m a little behind in my New Decameron reading; Heather Rose Jones‘ contribution, “All is Silence”  is already up; and at some point today the next tale will pop up– By Robert Silverberg!  And it’s one I’ve never read before: “The Trouble With Sempoanga.”

Honestly, aren’t you tired of looking at Netflix?  Read something!

(Contribute if you choose to; but if not, it’s free to read.)

If some of you are hesitant about checking out the diverting stories and exerpts avalable on the Decameron Project’s Patreon site… here’s a thing you should know…

You can read them for free.

Yes, FREE, I said.

Even though it’s set up as subscriber-based, the stories are actually being made available to all.

Because, hey: we need it! Hanging around at home, responsibly social-distancing — we all deserve a reward for that, right?

If you don’t have the bucks, you’re not excluded. (If you do, please consider contributing.)

So, what you do:

Go to the Decameron Project.

Scroll on down to the bottom of the page.

Read each entry. Ta-da!

You need to start at the bottom, because entries are posted blog-style, with the newest at the top.

Jo Walton is writing the frame story, which introduces each tale; followed by her own tale, the first up. (It’s one that I heard her read live, and it had me misty-eyed…) That went up yesterday.

Today’s entry is Leah Bobet’s “One Hundred Tasks for Bones.” ( Which I’ll be reading as soon as I finish this blog post, and um, do some chores. Yeah, that’ll be my reward.)

My entry is being posted tomorrow.  It’s the beginning of Volume 6, The City in the Crags.

If you do decide to become a patron of the project (that being what Patreon is all about, really), here’s something else: you can limit your contribution. We encourage you subscribe per-entry, but if that’s too much, you can set a cap on what you pay and you still can access all the stories.

So, there you go.

Here’s the link again: The Decameron Project.

You’ve heard of The Decameron, right? Giovanni Boccacio’s Decameron?

You know, the classic.

Wherein a group of friends have basically self-quarantined, and decide to pass the time by telling each other stories?  That Decameron?

Yeah, okay.  I didn’t read it, either.  But hey, I’m erudite!  I’ve read about it.  And I also read part of it.  And it’s still sitting in my Kindle library, waiting for me to come back to it…

But here’s the thing:  Maya Chhabra (poet, author, reviewer) decided that we need something like that now.  Stories!  Diversions!  as we hunker down and wait for things to settle.  So she connected with Jo Walton (author)  and Lauren Schiller (librarian, singer, famed in SF/F circles)…

And thus: The Decameron Project.

It’s being run on Patreon. Sign up, and you get a story or novel excerpt every day.  For how long?  As long as the stories last, is what I’ve been told.

And… Yep, one of those excerpts will be from me.

And who else?

Well, Jo Walton… and Daniel Abraham (aka 1/2 of James S.A. Corey), Mike Allen, Leah Bobet, Pamela Dean, Max Gladstone, Naomi Kritzer, Marissa Lingen, Usman Malik, Ada Palmer, Laurie Penny, Ellen Kushner, and…

Well, that’s all I know about so far.  More on the way, or so I’ve heard.

Surely, surely you need diversion these days, don’t you?

Take a look; check it out.

Income from the project goes to the authors AND to Cittadini del Mondo, a charity that runs a library and clinic for refugees in Rome.