Short Story September #15: "It Was Romance" by Miranda July

This is how we are different from other animals, she said.

A woman attends a intensive workshop on putting romance into your life. She is alone as are all of the other woman in attendance. She listens to the instructor and goes through the exercises paying close attention, trying to find a way to more romance.

During a break she shares a brief, unexpected moment of intimacy with another woman, Teresa whom she'd been partnered with during the morning's breath-mirroring exeercise. A backrub given in silence and without invitation. The women begin to cry uncontrollably.

The instructor tells them that "the area in front of our faces is our most intimate zone. This is why humans are the only romantic animal.....You don't have to make the whole world romantic, or even the whole bedroom. Just the small space in front of your face. A very manageable territory, even the working women will agree." Good advice or just a lot of stuff and nonsense? Imagine the people who attend workshops to add more romance to their lives and you can begin to see why they might end up crying on each other's shoulders during the break.

I am just past one-third of the way through the stories in No On Belongs Here More Than You. They are each focused on a single idea like a poem and honest like a confessional or a story told towards the end of the evening after the red wine is all finished. They come with my highest recommendation.

Check Ms. July's website here.

Join the Challenge and win a prize.
If you'd like to join me for Short Story September and win a prize follow these simple steps:
Read a short story.
Write a brief review of it. (Or a long one if you like.)
Post it on your blog or leave it as a comment here. (You can leave a review of any story, you do not have to review the story you are commenting on. Please let me know if it's okay for me to post your review on this blog. If you post the review on your blog please leave a link as a comment.)

You can enter as many times as you like.
Read one story a day, read one story a week, read one story in September.

Prizes: Every reviewed story counts as one entry. The prizes are copies of:

Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison
Tennessee Williams: Collected Stories
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories by Carson McCullers
The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader
Paul's Case ond Other Stories by Willa Cather
Thirteen Stories by Eudoria Welty

You might even win more than one book. Dakota will be randomly selecting the winner on October 1.