Decameron Redux

Week Eight (Tuesday, 3/9/2021 – Monday, 3/15/2021)

This is our final week of storytelling and your last chance to win treasure. Four randomly selected submissions will receive a $25 gift card from The Seminary Co-op, Bookshop.org, Build Coffee, or Plein Air Café (your choice).

The final day of the Decameron is dedicated to stories of generosity. Prompted by a reminder of their own mortality and an admonition to be careful what stories one leaves behind, Boccaccio’s ten narrators tell impressive tales of merciful kings and kind-hearted nobles. A sinister note, however, underlies these stories of supposed “munificence,” culminating in the tale of Gualtieri, Marquis of Saluzzo, whose great deed is ending the psychosexual torture he has visited upon his innocent wife for a decade. Boccaccio’s ten narrators prepare to re-enter their plague-ridden Florence not so much with newfound wisdom or clarity but rather with a kind of shared catharsis.

This final week of Decameron Redux, consider the moments during our present pandemic that have left you feeling uncomfortable, conflicted, or in need of a long and weird conversation. Tell us the story you need to write to understand, the story that seems to come from outside yourself, the story you don’t fully believe. Tell us the story of how life in lockdown has thrown your former life into sharp relief or the story that used to mean something before we entered this new era but doesn’t make sense anymore.

Remember: this site is dedicated to storytelling, but you needn’t limit yourself to the traditional prose narrative. We welcome photo series, videos, music and other audio work, visual stories, poetry, and anything else in standard shareable formats. The target length for a narrative submission is 200-1000 words. For other formats, consider what it means to present a bite-sized portion of your art, something that takes only a few minutes of your audience’s precious time. Head over to the Submit page when you’re ready to upload your contribution.