Write Out Loud, San Diego Public Library, La Jolla Historical Society and San Diego Writers, Ink Present the San Diego Decameron Project

Four partner organizations, Write Out Loud, San Diego Public Library, La Jolla Historical Society and San Diego Writers, Ink present the San Diego Decameron Project.

Members of our San Diego community were invited to submit previously-unpublished fiction or nonfiction narratives of 1,000 words or less based loosely around the theme of the current pandemic. Twenty-five judges read all submissions and chose the best 100.

Winners of the San Diego Decameron Project will have their stories posted on one of the above partner websites beginning February 16th, 2021 at 7:00PM. The top 10 most compelling stories will be read by Write Out Loud actors and presented in a Virtual Presentation on February 26th along with a panel discussion with the top authors. https://writeoutloud.ticketspice.com/san-diego-decameron-project-celebration

The San Diego Decameron Project is inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, written shortly after the Black Death hit Florence, Italy in 1348. In the book, ten young Florentines, seven women and three men, retreat into quarantine for two weeks in a hillside villa and pass the time by telling stories, one each per day, except for one day a week for chores and one for religious observance, resulting in 100 stories.

During the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020, new Decameron projects have emerged. Most notably, the New York Times Magazine tapped 29 authors to write works of new fiction to "help us unpack and understand this moment." All the stories submitted to the San Diego Decameron Project, including those that did not make it into the top 100, will be archived in the digital collections of both the San Diego Public Library and the La Jolla Historical Society for posterity, thus becoming a permanent part of the collective memory of this period of San Diego history.

For a list of authors included in the San Diego Decameron Project Anthology please visit: https://writeoutloudeducation.weebly.com/decameron-project.html.

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