“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.
“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.
