Tournament of Books discussion

Welcome to our new (unofficial) ToB Short Story Tournament! We want to provide tournament followers with some literary entertainment while we're waiting for summer camp. We also recognize that these difficult times of isolation and uncertainty leave some readers with more time to engage in group discussions like these, and some readers may be overwhelmed with their work on the front lines or keeping things together at home. Short stories offer some accessibility to those who can't find the time or concentration to get through full-length novels right now. And short stories are great sources of literature that are often overlooked, so let's dig in and show our favorites the appreciation they deserve!

This will have a democratic and crowd-sourced structure, minimizing the background work that goes into official ToB contests. Everyone gets to provide nominations, the 16 contenders in the bracket are chosen by everyone's votes, and the winner of each matchup is also chosen by votes. Everyone's engagement and participation will make this a fun exercise so we hope you'll join us!

Step 1: Nominate your favorite short stories in the spreadsheet in the Nominations folder. We can include some popular/award-winning ones, but this will also be a great opportunity for readers to discover new short stories from lesser-known authors.
Deadline: Nominations close April 17th, so get them in before then!

Step 2: Vote for the stories you want to see in the shortlist. Voting will take place from April 17th to April 21st and that form will be posted in this thread.

Step 3: Sign up to be in the commentary booth! Rather than finding judges, we're doing this all by votes. Add your name to 1-4 spots in the calendar and those two people will discuss the stories in that day's matchup and the voting results each day of the tournament. The exchange will happen over email after the polls close and one person will post the exchange summary in the Commentary folder by 10am Pacific Time (PT). Sign-ups will be open from April 23rd to April 26th. You'll need to read both of the stories in the matchup that you sign up for.

Step 4: Starting April 27th, open the Tournament Voting folder each day of the tournament to vote for which story you want to move forward at the given decision point in the tournament. The polls close at 6pm PT each voting night. Follow the thread in the Results/Commentary folder each day of the tournament where we will all discuss the stories and which one is moving forward. There will be two discussion leaders who will start off (their email exchange summary posted) and lead the conversation that day based on the booth signup sheet, but everyone else is welcome to share their thoughts in the thread after their opening discussion.

Step 5: Celebrate the winner! After 15 (week) days we will have a champion short story on May 15th. We can all spread the word and bring more attention to that reader-selected, winning piece of writing.

We recognize that these are challenging times for those who lost a job/income as well as for bookstores, etc. For each story in the shortlist we'd like to make sure there is a way to read it for free (for those on tight budgets) but also a way to read it that supports the author, a bookstore, or a publication (for those who have the means). In the nomination form you'll need to add these items, along with a one-sentence endorsement for the short story, explaining why we should read/vote for it.

The nominations are open - let the short story games begin!

Finally subscribed to the New Yorker especially for access to (a lot of) these stories!

Amy wrote: "Finally subscribed to the New Yorker especially for access to (a lot of) these stories!"

Nice! I see that it's just $6 for 12 weeks... definitely considering it now.

Lauren wrote: "Amy wrote: "Finally subscribed to the New Yorker especially for access to (a lot of) these stories!"

Nice! I see that it's just $6 for 12 weeks... definitely considering it now."

Yes! That felt like a pretty good deal (includes print & e-zine) and has access to all the archives!

Also, lots of author profiles and book reviews. An all-around excellent resource for readers!

(Reposting from the Nominations folder)

The voting survey is ready! You can start casting your votes from now until April 21st at 5pm PT.

Here's the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HKL26W3

I'll post the results each day or two so you can see which ones are standing out so far, but many of us might still be catching up on reading these. I probably won't be ready to vote until the last day. ;)

*Please select only 10 stories when you vote and please vote just once.*

Voted! Hopefully it went through, seemed a little tricky. I don’t have to sign up for survey monkey, right?

Aaron wrote: "Voted! Hopefully it went through, seemed a little tricky. I don’t have to sign up for survey monkey, right?"

I see five votes already came through so one of them must be yours! As long as you hit "done" at the bottom it would have been recorded. And no, you shouldn't need an account with Survey Monkey.

Thanks for voting!

So far "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" is the only story with all five votes, and the ones with three votes each include, "The Five Forty Eight," "Signs and Symbols," and "Friday Black." I'll post another voting update soon.

Thanks for doing this, Lauren!

Noa wrote: "Thanks for doing this, Lauren!"

Sure - I'm happy about the new wonderful stories I've already discovered through this. :)

With 10 votes in, here are the latest results:

8 votes:
The Bear Came Over the Mountain

6 votes:
Toward Happy Civilization

5 votes:
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

4 votes:
Story of Your Life
Friday Black
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
Signs and Symbols
The Five Forty Eight
The Embassy of Cambodia

3 votes:
Paper Menagerie
A Small, Good Thing
Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience
Fortune Smiles
Heads of the Colored People
Referential
Living Like Weasels
Chicxulub
Bartleby
Good Old Neon

The rest have 0-2 votes. The polls close Tuesday evening, so there's still time to read the ones we haven't gotten to yet. :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

If we end up with a tie that takes us past 16, can we add a play-in round for those last tied ones? for example, there are 19 books on your list right now.

Jason wrote: "If we end up with a tie that takes us past 16, can we add a play-in round for those last tied ones? for example, there are 19 books on your list right now."

Sure, I was just trying to think through that. Would there be a way to make sure it worked through one vote though? For example, if we put these 10 3-vote stories into a play-in round and the votes broke down to where we still had more than three with the lowest points (and we needed 7 of the 10 to move forward), how would that work?

I am hoping that we end up with a good amount of lesser-known stories where the authors are still alive, since it would be fun to reach out to the author of the winner at the end to let them know they won this random readers' contest and we'll all be spreading the word about their great story... haha. I think the classic stories here will add to great discussion as we move through the tournament but I'm rooting for one of these newer ones to take the win. Of course doing everything by votes means that we don't know how things could turn out. Oh well!

I'm open to suggestions on figuring out the play-in through one vote if the final scores on Tuesday don't give us a clear 16 winners.

If there are more than 2 or 3 tied for the 16th slot, I'd be fine if you just chose which ones were in the play-in rather than have a separate vote. Living writers is as good a tiebreaker as any other.

Lauren wrote: I think the classic stories here will add to great discussion as we move through the tournament but I'm rooting for one of these newer ones to take the win. Of course doing everything by votes means that we don't know how things could turn out. Oh well! .."

Lauren I love the choice you made to keep it open in terms of time frame. The nominations were so free-wheeling, and they reflect this group's awareness of new fiction, and of translated fiction too...I've read several on the list now that were new to me/new authors.

You could have set a time frame, but that would have been a different contest. Now I'm curious how some of these old stories will stand up against the new ones. Even Carver who is not exactly 'old' felt like it was from another era to me, reading it now.

Lauren - thanks so much for making this work! So many great stories!

lark wrote: "Lauren wrote: I think the classic stories here will add to great discussion as we move through the tournament but I'm rooting for one of these newer ones to take the win. Of course doing everything..."

Yes, we were actually chatting about this during the last zoom "ToB after hours" event as far as the Super Rooster. 2020 is a pretty different world compared to 2004 so we're interested in how "timeless" some of the novels will end up being from that list as well.

So far I've mostly read the newer stories from our list here, with the oldest one being The Son from 1935. It hasn't received any votes yet, but I enjoyed it and think it could be competitive in a match against a newer story.

*Polls update* With two new votes that just came in we're now also seeing these stories moving up:
Cat Person
The Quiet
Fortune Smiles
A Story of a Murderous Adjunct Professor

Ok, I need to stop refreshing my Survey Monkey account for the rest of the day now, haha.

Oh man, I'm having a hard time deciding! There are so many I haven't read, and I want to read all of them! And of the ones that I HAVE read, I love them and would love to discuss those too... decisions decisions....

Right!? I’ve read about 18 so far and really loved some of these, but I’m going to try to get through the rest before I vote on Tuesday.

Here are today's voting results:

10 votes:
The Bear Came Over the Mountain

7 votes:
Toward Happy Civilization
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
Story of Your Life

6 points:
The Embassy of Cambodia
Paper Menagerie
Friday Black
Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience
The Semplica-Girls Diaries
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

5 points:
Signs and Symbols
Chicxulub

4 points:
Cat Person
The Five Forty Eight
Fortune Smiles
Heads of the Colored People
A Story of a Murderous Adjunct Professor
Bartleby
Good Old Neon

With 23 votes in, these are the current standings. The poll closes tomorrow at 5pm PT. I still have about 16 more stories I'd like to finish before then... :/

12 votes:
The Bear Came Over the Mountain

9 votes:
Toward Happy Civilization
Paper Menagerie

8 votes:
Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience
Story of Your Life
Friday Black
The Husband Stitch
The Quiet

7 votes:
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
The Embassy of Cambodia
Signs and Symbols
Cat Person

6 points:
The Semplica-Girls Diaries
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank
A Story of a Murderous Adjunct Professor
Bartleby
Good Old Neon
Chicxulub
Referential
The Five Forty Eight
A Small, Good Thing

With 28 votes in, these are the current standings. The poll closes tonight at 5pm PT and I'll start putting the bracket together shortly after. I'll post instructions for the commentary booth sign-ups tomorrow. So many great stories here - I'm excited to discuss!

14 votes:
The Bear Came Over the Mountain

10 votes:
The Quiet
Referential
Paper Menagerie

9 votes:
Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience
Story of Your Life
Friday Black
The Husband Stitch
Toward Happy Civilization

8 votes:
The Embassy of Cambodia
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank
A Story of a Murderous Adjunct Professor

7 votes:
Bartleby
Good Old Neon
Chicxulub
Signs and Symbols
The Semplica-Girls Diaries
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
Fortune Smiles
Signs and Symbols
Cat Person

After 32 votes, here's one final update before we have our official "short" shortlist. The last-minute votes could change things, but we'll find out about five hours from now...

14 votes:
The Bear Came Over the Mountain

13 votes:
The Husband Stitch

12 votes:
Referential
Paper Menagerie

11 votes:
Story of Your Life

10 votes:
The Quiet
The Embassy of Cambodia
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank
Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience
Friday Black
Toward Happy Civilization
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden

9 votes:
A Story of a Murderous Adjunct Professor
Signs and Symbols
The Semplica-Girls Diaries

8 votes:
Cat Person
Fortune Smiles
Bartleby

I love the play by play updates Lauren! :)

Bretnie wrote: "I love the play by play updates Lauren! :)"

Oh good! I didn't know if I was overdoing it... It's been fun to see all these votes come in. It looks like we'll have decent participation for this tournament!

Thank you for organizing. I've enjoyed reading some new-to-me stories. This will be fun.

Well that worked out! We have exactly 16 stories that received 9 or more points. Here's our official shortlist:

The Bear Came Over the Mountain
The Husband Stitch
Referential
Paper Menagerie
Story of Your Life
The Quiet
The Embassy of Cambodia
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank
Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience
Friday Black
Toward Happy Civilization
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
A Story of a Murderous Adjunct Professor
Signs and Symbols
The Semplica-Girls Diaries
Cat Person

I'll be working on the bracket tonight and everyone can start signing up for the commentary booth tomorrow morning.

Thanks Lauren! Excited for this!

Commentary Booth Sign-Up Instructions:

Add your name to 1-4 volunteer spots in the "Commentary Booth Sign-Ups" tab in this spreadsheet.

*Please only sign up for days where you can read both stories in that matchup and that you will be available for an email exchange the night before and morning of that date.  

As soon as you sign up, please send an email to lroertel@gmail.com with the dates of your sign-up days in the subject line, like this: Subject: Short Story Tournament, MM/DD, MM/DD

This way I can easily match volunteers by date and get everyone connected to the person they're in the "booth" with.

Volunteer 1 will be the one to reach out to Volunteer 2 to start their conversation. I suggest reaching out as soon as the spots are filled to decide when the email exchange will happen based on the two time zones you're both in. Will your conversation start at 6pm PT (when you'll see the results) on the night before your commentary date, or the morning of?

Ideally you'd have about 3-4 exchanges back and forth with a few questions to end up with a good conversation that discusses the match that day.

Volunteer 1 will edit/summarize the conversation and post it in the "2020 Results and Commentary" folder by 10am PT that day.

After that everyone else can chime in about that matchup, as we do in the ToB commentariat. This commentary discussion between Vivian and Rosecrans is a good example of the structure and content for what the volunteers will post:   https://themorningnews.org/tob/2020/o...

Content of the discussion: 
-Start off with a brief background on how you each found the ToB/this short story contest, how you would describe yourselves, and your favorite things to read.
-Discuss the matchup - which story did you vote for? What did you like/dislike about each one?
-Choose from some of these other questions or come up with your own:
Where there any themes, images, or passages that stood out to you with this story?
How are these stories similar and how are they different?
How difficult was it to choose one winner between these two?
Was there something that confused you in either story that you'd like to hear the other reader's thoughts on?
If there is a significant time gap between these two stories, how did that play out in this matchup?
Do you think today's winning story has a chance to win this tournament?
Is there another matchup you're especially interested in (or signed up for)?
Have you already decided which story you want to win the tournament?

Well, that was not easy! I have the bracket ready, and you can start signing up for the commentary booth spots now (please read all of the instructions above before you sign up though). The seeding was based on the votes and from there I tried to match stories by theme a bit to make for some good discussion. It was very difficult to match so many stories I loved against others that I loved the same amount. I apologize for any heart-breaking matches in here! It was impossible to avoid given that this is a collection of our "favorites of our favorites."

Add your name to 1-4 volunteer spots in the second tab here if you'd like to be "in the booth" for any of these matchups. :)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Thanks for organizing this! Does anyone know if any of these stories have audio versions?

Lauren wrote: "Well that worked out! We have exactly 16 stories that received 9 or more points. Here's our official shortlist:

The Bear Came Over the Mountain
The Husband Stitch
Referential
Paper Menagerie
Stor..."

Janelle, Nabokov's story Signs & Symbols (sometimes called "Symbols and Signs") does, here:

https://tinyurl.com/ydydw6bh

Janelle wrote: "Thanks for organizing this! Does anyone know if any of these stories have audio versions?

Lauren wrote: "Well that worked out! We have exactly 16 stories that received 9 or more points. Here's ou..."

I think the Nabokov has a podcast link on the nominations spreadsheet (read by Mary Gaitskill!).

Janelle wrote: "Thanks for organizing this! Does anyone know if any of these stories have audio versions?

Lauren wrote: "Well that worked out! We have exactly 16 stories that received 9 or more points. Here's ou..."

I listened to "The Husband Stitch" through the collection "Her Body and Other Parties" through Hoopla from my library.

Both "The Paper Menagerie" and "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience" have audio versions on the Levar Burton Reads podcast.

Natalie wrote: "Both "The Paper Menagerie" and "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience" have audio versions on the Levar Burton Reads podcast."

Wow! I had no idea Levar Burton read for adults, too. Thanks Nadine.

lark wrote: "Natalie wrote: "Both "The Paper Menagerie" and "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience" have audio versions on the Levar Burton Reads podcast."

Wow! I had no idea Levar Burton read for adults..."

Lark, it's so wonderful. I highly recommend it. (I love being read to, and I loved Reading Rainbow, so I may be a little biased)

He also read "Toward Happy Civilization"