Editorial Outtakes is a series in which we publish excerpts from recent books that you won’t find anywhere else because, prior publication, these sections were cut. This installment of Editorial Outtakes features author Shawn Wen, whose A Twenty Minute Silence Followed by Applause is a kaleidoscopic, book-length essay examining the life and art of Marcel Marceau. Published this week by Sarabande Books, the book is by turns a journalistic endeavor, an imaginative inroad into the artist's world, … [Read more...] about Editorial Outtakes: Shawn Wen
Novelist of the Appetites: An Interview with Ashley Warlick
Ashley Warlick spent ten years on her latest novel, The Arrangement, a fictional retelling of the life and loves of famed food writer MFK Fisher. With lush, clean prose and pitch-perfect dialogue, Warlick lays bare the many appetites of a woman and writer ahead of her time. The novel spans the early years of Fisher’s career, a period marked by profound hunger as well as conflicting desires—for food, for recognition, for her husband Al and, later, for Al’s best friend, Tim. The book came out in … [Read more...] about Novelist of the Appetites: An Interview with Ashley Warlick
Editorial Outtakes: Mike Scalise
Editorial Outtakes is a series in which we publish excerpts from recent books that you won’t find anywhere else because, prior the publication, these sections were cut. This installment of Editorial Outtakes features writer Mike Scalise, author of The Brand New Catastrophe, reflecting on some of the particularities of revealing character details in nonfiction. Given that we all grow up (and, presumably, learn a lot about ourselves and the world around us), how does a writer of memoir go about … [Read more...] about Editorial Outtakes: Mike Scalise
ASF Contributors Johnston & Henderson Longlisted for the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Fiction Award
On the heels of a wonderful AWP conference in Washington, DC, we returned home only to find that recent ASF contributors Bret Anthony Johnston (ASF 63, Fall 2016) and Smith Henderson (ASF 62, Summer 2016) have been included on the longlist for the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Fiction Award. Johnston's story, "Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows About Horses" appeared as the issue opener in our special 25th Birthday edition. Henderson's "The Trouble" was the final story in our most recent summer issue. … [Read more...] about ASF Contributors Johnston & Henderson Longlisted for the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Fiction Award
The Key Bearer’s Parents
https://soundcloud.com/americanshortfiction/sian-griffiths-the-key-bearers-parents We were good parents. We know people assume otherwise when they see our wide ties and honking red noses, but we were. We took that job seriously. We told our son that he could be anything he wanted to be, just like you’re supposed to. Yes, we could see his embarrassment when we showed up for Career Day, how he threw the basketball into the field as our tiny car pulled in so that his friends would look away. And … [Read more...] about The Key Bearer’s Parents
Things American: In the Air, Election Night 2016
My ears won’t pop, and the bites on my right arm itch, my arm and neck—red flares I can’t ascribe to any particular predator, just marks of Texas. I get a second tiny bottle of whiskey. My taller-than-me daughter sleeps against my shoulder, too old these days, too grown up. We are over the Rockies, Denver to Helena, a tiny plane half full. I get the second whiskey because the flight attendant asks if I want another before she closes out her till. No flight attendant has ever asked me this. I … [Read more...] about Things American: In the Air, Election Night 2016