Stories of Pandemic, the Story of a Community: The San Diego Decameron Project

The San Diego Decameron Project, a large-scale community-based storytelling initiative in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, was inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (c. 1353), a collection of short stories written during the Black Death. The project, which produced a print anthology, organized several virtual and in-person events, and inspired a short film, serves as a written testimony of the pandemic experience in San Diego. More importantly, it suggests that narrative texts—spoken, oral, and cinematic—have the potential to bring healing when they are experienced in community. By showcasing the individual strengths and cooperative work of community organizations, affirming the pleasures of coming together in daily life, empowering artists through inclusive practices, and serving as inspiration in the post-pandemic classroom, the San Diego Decameron Project offered its contributors and audiences ways to collectively process the pain of the pandemic. Literary healing in this vision is achieved not simply through readers' interactions with the text, but through community interactions that the text makes possible.