“And yet, it works. Not only does it work, it’s essential to the story. The form is the story.” Kent Kosack takes a look at Bernard Malamud’s puzzling POV-shifter, “My Son the Murderer.”
“By imaginatively playing with a visual work of art, the writer can expand its meaning—not in terms of enlarging the original work, but in terms of offering more possibilities.” Donna Baier Stein explores the limits and liberties of perception in this essay on writing fiction from images.
“[My favorite] stories, by the way, were submitted to over 100 literary journals before they found homes. I really loved them, which I guess is why I kept plugging away at the revisions until they were accepted”: Julie Zuckerman talks with Jolene McIlwain about persistence, family lore, and the thrill of publishing her first collection of linked stories.
“Each story presents the embodiment of a different performer, and each presents a concept you could spin into a metaphor for something about contemporary American life.” Shawn Andrew Mitchell reviews Mark Meyer’s debut story collection, Aerialists, out now from Bloomsbury.
“I wanted to explore how the uniquely female experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding might impact women who otherwise often try to resist traditional gender roles”: Polly Rosenwaike talks with Danielle LaVaque-Manty about her debut collection, Look How Happy I’m Making You.
Join us for our eleventh-annual celebration of the short story, as we dedicate the month of May to short fiction.
“The collection takes on more and more weight as subsequent stories shift into different gears”: Ayşe Papatya Bucak reviews Lauren Groff’s new collection, Florida, out June 5 from Riverhead.
“And a bobcat may somehow be involved. How can we not read on?”: Christina Ward-Niven takes a close look at the control of tension in Rebecca Lee’s “Bobcat.”
“I love this story because it’s haunting, and hauntingly well-wrought”: Ellen Prentiss Campbell celebrates Josephine Jacobsen and her story “The Edge of the Sea.”
“Chu’s greatest accomplishment through his stories of clean, well-lighted spaces is his gift for telegraphing a message of understanding, of giving the benefit of the doubt, and above all, of respecting those around us”: Michael A. Ferro reviews Vincent Chu’s debut collection, Like a Champion, out now from 7.13 Books.
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"
