Huge congrats to the authors whose ASF stories were recognized as notables, or distinguished reads, in the most recent Best American Short Stories and Best American Non Required Reading anthologies: Laura van den Berg, Robert Boswell, Maggie Shipstead, Roxane Gay, and James DeWille. … [Read more...] about Notably
Spray Painted Drums
Writer Amelia Gray participated in a collaboration with the Portland-based band Loch Lomond, in which a different author wrote a piece of fiction to accompany each track of the band's latest release, White Dresses. The stories will be collected in an illustrated book that will be a companion to the album. Here is the song she was assigned, followed by her contribution: I hope you catch me I'm a ticker tape parade You did it kid you beat fun Look up now you have won, won, won Now we've … [Read more...] about Spray Painted Drums
Online Fiction: Interview with Amelia Gray
This month's online fiction features a story by Amelia Gray, written to accompany a track on White Dresses, the latest album from Portland indy favorites, Loch Lomond. (Head on over to the story to hear the excellent song in question!) Packed into a tight 500 words, "Spray Painted Drums" thrums with all the hope, fervor, chaos, humor, invention, possibility, and lightly carried ferocity of an urban parade. We asked the author about what it was like writing to the beat of your own … [Read more...] about Online Fiction: Interview with Amelia Gray
I Read Dead People: Eudora Welty and Failure, “First Love”
“Whatever happened, it happened in extraordinary times, in a season of dreams, and in Natchez it was the bitterest winter of them all.” The opening of “First Love” is the best prose Eudora Welty ever wrote. In its welcome sweep, we perceive the “red percussion” of Indian fires in the distance, the mute wheel of gulls, travelers picking through the “glassy tunnels of the Trace” in the “strange drugged fall of snow,” and the “somnambulist” river lifting from its bed in subconscious craving for … [Read more...] about I Read Dead People: Eudora Welty and Failure, “First Love”
Things American: From Post-Black to Postmortem–The Tragic Death of Trayvon Martin
Trayvon Martin’s death and George Zimmerman’s acquittal are further proof that Obama’s two-term presidency and the spike in interracial marriage have not magically transformed America into some post-racial Shangri-la free of the demons of prejudice and discrimination. The country is post-black, as cultural critic Touré demonstrates in his book Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? Blacks, he explains, are post-black in that they are “like Obama: rooted in but not restricted by Blackness.” Rejecting … [Read more...] about Things American: From Post-Black to Postmortem–The Tragic Death of Trayvon Martin
I Read Dead People: Abraham Cahan, “The Imported Bridegroom”
This column introduces a new online series we are featuring here at American Short Fiction. ASF celebrates contemporary voices in fiction—in our print issues, a story by a preeminent writer might sit next to a story that represents its author’s very first publication—but all of our authors would quickly name past favorites who have influenced them, would agree that they follow behind a splendid parade of writers whose stories established one of the great American literary forms. This occasional … [Read more...] about I Read Dead People: Abraham Cahan, “The Imported Bridegroom”