“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.
“His fiction is baffling and fresh enough to revert even experienced readers back into novices”: Eric McDowell on metafiction and writing lessons in César Aira’s “The All That Ploughs through the Nothing.” Aira’s latest in translation, The Little Buddhist Monk & The Proof, comes out today from New Directions.
“The author gives us just what she promised: more than meets the eye”: Mari Carlson on Becky Hagenston’s “Scavengers.”
“Our participation in the story is much more than simply a reader or an observer”: Keith Lesmeister on Michael Cunningham’s “White Angel.”
From the Archives: “Grace Paley shows us one way in which the heretofore old-fashioned, third-person omniscient perspective might be one of contemporary fiction writers’ greatest tools to elicit empathy for characters.”
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"
