Event Short Short Garden Site Open Event vol.1 Location Pole Pole Za (Higashi Nakano) Date 2017.09.22 Time 19:00 - 22:15 Guests Hata Sawako (秦佐和子) Tamaru Masatomo (writer) Cost 4800 yen

• event report version 0.2 by Hitoshi Doi, 2017.09.22
• event report version 0.7 by Hitoshi Doi, 2017.12.22

This was an event by writer Tamaru Masatomo, who specializes in writing "short shorts" (very short stories). Hata Sawako was the guest.

This event was split up into two sessions.

I arrived at 1840. The people had already gone inside, but the seats were reserved by ticket number. I was ticket number 24 and my seat number was 21 (3rd row on the right side). Each row had 7 or 8 seats, and there were around 50 seats total. But at 19:00 there were only 30 people or so.

On each seat was a clipboard and some worksheets for the short short lecture.

The stage was around 30cm high. There were two tables on the stage.

The first session began at 19:00. They said food and drinks ok.

Tamaru Masatomo came into the room, and gave a self introduction. He introduced what a "short short" was, and said that the site "Short Short Garden" opened today.

Masatomo's definition of a "short short" was a short and strange story with less than 400 characters.

Masatomo led everyone through the worksheet to create a short short. He gave instructions on how to post your own story to the short-short.garden site. Then he gave everyone until 20:15 to write and post their stories.

At the end, Masatomo read some of the stories.

The first session ended at 20:30, and there was a 15 minute break.

The second session began at 20:50.

Tamaru Masatomo came onto the stage. He called for Sawako. Sawako had braided hair. She was wearing a white one piece with chocolate and strawberries design. There was white collar. Sawako was wearing light brown shoes.

Masatomo logged into Sawako's account on short-short.garden, and showed a story that Sawako had written. It was called "Neon Ketchup", and Sawako read it.

Then they talked about Sawako's writing.

Then Sawako thought up various words and phrases. They expanded the words to create strange phrases, and talked about them. There was a lot of very interseting talk, going off in various tangents. They talked for a while and Masatomo tried to summarize it into a short story.

At around 21:45, Sawako walked around the audience looking at people's ideas. Then Masatomo and Sawako talked and built up another story.

At around 22:15, Masatomo talked a little about his book, and the event ended at 22:20.

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