Got a favorite short story? Tell me!
The writing group is very quiet and I’m curious as to what DUers in GD read. Some of you know that at 66 and retired I’m in an MFA program in creative writing. I’ve been a writer for thirty years but finally after retiring went for the degree.
My thesis is a short story collection and a novella, both of which are really wonderful forms and have reminded me how much I loved them when I was younger and didn’t think that being a poet and novelist was the sin qua non of literature.
So those who love short fiction, what do you love? I’ll throw in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Harrison Bergeron, A Good Man is Hard to Find, and a whole lot of others.
What do you love in the genre, and why? (I’m weary of politics; can you tell?)
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By Stephen King: "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption." It's a novella and SUPERB. The movie came from it almost without editing (not true, since even a novella is too long for a movie) but the bones of the story are immediately apparent from the novella.
Arthur C. Clarke: "A Walk in the Dark." The scariest short story in science fiction that I have ever read.
I'm sure there are others, but these two top my list, and how!
I try not to read scary stories these days. They scare me too much! 
My edition is most likely out of print: Copyright 1956!
I'm pretty sure you'll find the story somewhere. It's worth looking for!
Short stories: "Dog Star", "The Star", "The Sentinel" (forerunner to "@001: A Space Odyssey"
, "The Light Of Darkness", "The Wind From The Sun"
Novels: "The City And The Stars" (my all-time favorite sci-fi work), "Childhood's End" (second fave), "Rendevous With Rama".
Enjoyed many others of his, but these are the tops.
The Ransom of Red Chief and The Gift of the Maji.
Also Edgar Allen Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum and
The Cask of Amontillado when I'm in one of my "moods".
let alone a story. But I love to read those who can.
I've got a granddaughter we refer to as Red Chief.
Many more, but these illustrate what I like about the form.
They are ambiguous. They do not answer your questions so you have to do it yourself. If I read through 400 pages and got no resolution, it would totally piss me off. But when it happens in a short story, I can appreciate the brain space it opens up when it makes me mull over what it all means.
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas has stayed with me for years. The whole world is in those few pages.
(PS: I changed my name, y'all! )
...it's a great story, yes, but I think I'll wait for the Apocalypse before reading it aloud...
Dick Gregory: Tall, dark and handsome. You ever heard a black person call a black person tall, dark and handsome. They talkin about folks who they know is us. Clark Gable, tall, dark and handsome.
David D: Was Clark Gable? Well you got people listening who might not know they were black folks.
Paul Mooney: A bunch of em was black.
Gregory: You never hear people say, oh Milton, he was tall, dark and handsome. We don't use that term for us. That's a code.
Mooney: There's a lot of Code. Remember that, what was her name, the one with the big breasts, Mae West. They said she was a prostitute before she was an actress. Because she started late, and you could tell she was black in manner. I don't care what they say. I loved her because, the funniest thing I ever saw. She loved black folks. The funniest thing I ever saw her movie, because she would write improv in her movies. Because she asked the black maid, remember the black maid. The big fat black maid. She said "what kind of men do you like?" The black maid said "tall, dark and handsome". And Mae West said, well you should go to Africa, there's a lot of them there. Which was funny.
at 1915
I aspire to do that someday! Yes, Flannery O'Connor is a bit of a mixed bag but when she was brilliant, she was. Eudora Welty too. Being from the South I know those people. Faulkner knocks me down sometimes.
I like Baxter. I aspire to read his new novel, The Sun Collective, when I have time to read things other than my MFA reading list. I think I've read 57 books this past year and a half. 
on edit: Oops, I didn't notice that you cited Harrison Bergeron in the OP.
