• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

American Short Fiction

Publishing exquisite fiction since 1991.

  • FICTION
    • CURRENT ISSUE
    • BACK ISSUES
    • OTHER FICTION
  • EVENTS
    • THE STARS AT NIGHT
    • STORY SESSIONS
    • MORE EVENTS
  • MFA for All
  • STORE
  • SUBMIT
    • REGULAR SUBMISSIONS
    • THE HALIFAX RANCH PRIZE
    • AMERICAN SHORT(ER) FICTION PRIZE
    • THE INSIDER PRIZE
  • DONATE
  • ABOUT
  • SUBSCRIBE

Venita Blackburn

Scars

Venita Blackburn
Scars

The pitcher just struck out Esperanza Duarte. Right then redemption was up to me. I have the biggest legs of all the Lady Mantises. Daddy used to always say people here like it when you can do something special but not too special. Our town isn’t really small. We don’t have rolling hay fields or anything like that. It’s not big either, though. Teenagers like me and T don’t have much going on; of course there is more to do than go shopping and get pregnant. There’s softball. I tried to give … [Read more...] about Scars

Primary Sidebar

CURRENT ISSUE

American Short Fiction Issue 82

Featuring

New stories by Lydi Conklin, Annie Liontas, Kyle McCarthy, Carrie R. Moore, KJ Nakazawa-Kern, and Colleen Rosenfeld.

MFA for All Spring 2026: New classes from Jonathan Lethem and Katie Kitamura. Register now!

×