Short Fiction Reading Group

A different short story each month. Read at home and join us for a discussion on each third Thursday of the month. All are welcome.

Are you looking for a book club but don't have the time for a whole book? Join us for our short fiction reading group. Each month we'll read a different short story at home and discuss it in the library.

The texts cover a variety of topics, genres and authors. We'll discuss what we liked, what we didn't like and what the stories made us think about.

Call 9355 4200 to register your interest.

Print copies of stories are available at Fawkner Library.

Stories which can be read online are also linked below.

Stories for 2026

15 January · The Gargoyle · Zana Fraillon & Ross Morgan

19 February · Ashes · Cate Kennedy

19 March · The Last Incantation · Clark Ashton Smith

16 April · The Green Door · A. A. Milne

21 May · Black Cobras · Banu Mushtaq

18 June · I Am A Willow Tree · Can Xue

16 July · A Rose For Emily · William Faulkner

20 August · Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova · Haruki Murakami

17 September · The Tuesday Night Club · Agatha Christie

15 October · The Star · Arthur C. Clarke

19 November · A Thing At Work · George Saunders

17 December · The Garden of Time · J. G. Ballard

Previous Stories 2025

16 January · The Head · Bora Chung

20 February · Bicycle Thieves · Tony Birch

20 March · The Yellow Wallpaper · Charlotte Perkins Gilman

17 April · Siren · Margaret Atwood

15 May · Country of the Blind · H.G. Wells

19 June · The Happy Prince · Oscar Wilde

17 July · An Intangible Clue · Anna Katharine Green

21 August · Flight · Doris Lessing

18 September · The Lazy River · Zadie Smith

16 October · The Mask · Robert W. Chambers

20 November · The Most Dangerous Game · Richard Connell

18 December · Gift of the Magi · O. Henry

Previous stories 2024

18 January · City Of Spectres · Bandi

15 February · The Disappearing · Joyce Carol Oates

21 March · The Man Who Walked Through Walls · Marcel Aymé

18 April · Nine Days · Laura Jean McKay

16 May · The Paper Menagerie · Ken Liu

20 June · The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World · Gabriel Garcia Marquez

18 July · Simulacrum · Else Fitzgerald

15 August · Are These Actual Miles? · Raymond Carver

19 September · Daughters Of The Moon · Italo Calvino

17 October · The Fall of the House of Usher · Edgar Allan Poe

21 November · Exhalation · Ted Chiang

19 December · To Build A Fire · Jack London

Previous stories 2023

20 April · The Library of Babel · Jorge Luis Borges

18 May · The Lottery · Shirley Jackson

15 June · Good Country People · Flannery O'Connor

20 July · I Am a Cat/Chapter 1 · Natsume Soseki

17 August · Araby · James Joyce

21 September · Youth · Isaac Asimov

19 October · Kashtanka · Anton Chekov

16 November · The Garden Party · Katherine Mansfield

21 December · The Speckled Band · Arthur Conan Doyle