In monthly sessions of Short Story Reading Club, we will read and discuss short stories by contemporary writers published in literary magazines available in the American Center in Moscow’s free eBook Library.

During these interactive and engaging online sessions, we will have public readings, animated discussions, and do creative writing exercises together to enrich our English, broaden our outlook, and have some literary fun. For each session (before the session) you will be required to read a specific short story from a digital issue of a literary magazine, which you will be able to borrow and read for free from American Center in Moscow’s eBook Library. Borrowing books and magazines from the library requires creating a free library account; to register for one, go to this page.

Led by Denis Aksenov, long-running host of reading and drama workshops at the American Center in Moscow; founder of Funky Chekhov’s Society; current student at the University of Massachusetts, history & art history majors.

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REQUIRED READING FOR SEPTEMBER 15, 2022:

1) Roy Spivey by Miranda July from the August 29 issue of The New Yorker , an archival issue, bringing together pieces from past issues of the magazine on the theme of celebrity.You can borrow this digital issue from the American Center’s free eBook Library here. If you don’t have a free library account, you get one here.

2) Edith Piaf’s bad choices by A. J. Liebling from the Talk of the Town section of the same August 29 issue of The New Yorker. You can borrow this digital issue from the American Center’s free eBook Library here. If you don’t have a free library account, you get one here.

Please make sure you read the stories before the session on September 15, 2022.

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Miranda July is a filmmaker, artist, and writer. Her most recent book is The First Bad Man, a novel. July’s collection of stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and has been published in twenty-three countries. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s, and The New Yorker; It Chooses You was her first book of non-fiction. She wrote, directed and starred in The Future and Me and You and Everyone We Know — winner of the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance, and re-released by The Criterion Collection in 2020.

Roy Spivey is a short story by Miranda July, which originally appeared in The New Yorker in in their June 11 & 18, 2007 issue, was published in 2008 in The Book of Other People edited by Zadie Smith, and reprinted by The New Yorker in their August 29, 2022 issue. It is about a woman who finds herself seated next to a famous Hollywood movie star (whom she cryptically calls Roy Spivey, an anagram of his name) on a plane and how this chance encounter has carried her through the dark moments of her life.

This is how the story Roy Spivey starts:

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ALL AMERICAN CENTER IN MOSCOW EVENTS ARE FREE OF CHARGE / ВСЕ МЕРОПРИЯТИЯ АМЕРИКАНСКОГО ЦЕНТРА В МОСКВЕ БЕСПЛАТНЫ

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This session is hosted on Zoom, so if you are interested in joining, please create a Zoom account beforehand. When registering below, please submit your valid email address to receive a link to the Zoom meeting 30 minutes before the session begins.

To join other AMC Online programs, please check the American Center’s TimePad calendar.