“But there is a catch, a move du Maurier makes that transforms the story from a claustrophobic exploration of gender confinement and powerlessness to something stranger and more sinister”: In this Stories We Love essay, Michael Shou-Yung Shum takes on Daphne du Maurier’s “Blue Lenses.”
“Like the multitudinous star fields that encompass the known universe, Heathcock’s universe is made not only of dark material, but light”: Shann Ray on the human form under pressure in Alan Heathcock’s “The Staying Freight.”
“She captures so beautifully the isolation that many feel in an increasingly cloistered Midwest, the desperation we all experience in our teeter-totter of needs and wants”: Mike Ferro appreciates Laura Hulthen Thomas’s “Sole Suspect” in this Stories We Love essay.
“Driscoll was a poet before turning to fiction. Poetic language is dreamlike, and therefore suited to close narration. And Driscoll’s elegant language anchors the reader in the haunting dream.”
“This is the last gift of King’s story—her decision to allow happiness to have the last word, to make the ephemeral feeling permanent, if only in fiction”: Lillian Li on Lily King’s One Story story.
Join us for our tenth-annual celebration of the short story, as we dedicate the month of May to short fiction.
Every time I read this story I get a thrill, the sensation of having to hold on tight for a wild, plummeting ride, a dizzying shift in perspective, a cascade of questions that I can’t answer.
A highlight of 2018 AWP Conference panels and events featuring our recent contributors.
From the Archives: “Work can be your life, but your life can (and I’d argue, should be) bigger than your work”: Danielle Lazarin on writing, motherhood, and how the things in our lives that we give ourselves permission to experience that aren’t writing might in the end offer us new perspectives on both writing and our selves.
Once a year we ask our readers for their support. We hope you’ll consider a donation to help us continue promoting the work of emerging writers, championing small presses, and fostering a dialogue about the craft of fiction and the writing life.
From the Archives: In honor of Kazuo Ishiguro’s recent Nobel Prize, we revisit the author’s visit to the Hopwood Room in 2015.
Stories We Love: “White Angel,” by Michael Cunningham
Stories We Love: Donald Barthelme’s “The School,” In Which is Revealed the Meaning of Life
Stories We Love: "A Small, Good Thing" by Raymond Carver
Stories We Love: "The Fall River Axe Murders," by Angela Carter
Stories We Love: "Incarnations of Burned Children"
