Fifty years ago today, Ken Kesey, not yet thirty and already the author of two acclaimed novels, invited the members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang to a party at his home in the coastal mountains south of San Francisco. When the Angels arrived it was just past 3 p.m. A blue summer afternoon: Kesey and his Merry Pranksters—the friends who’d accompanied him, the year before, on the cross-country bus trip that would later become the subject Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test—watched … [Read more...] about Things American: Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson and the Hell’s Angels at La Honda: August 7th, 1965
NOTEBOOK FEATURE
Now closed: the American Short Fiction Contest
The deadline to submit to our American Short Fiction Contest was JULY 1. The contest is now closed—our thanks to all who submitted! We look forward to announcing the winners, chosen by judge Elizabeth McCracken, soon. We are excited to announce that the ASF Short Story Contest opened for submissions on March 15. This year we are honored to have the fabulous author (and latest winner of the Story Prize) Elizabeth McCracken as our guest judge. General Guidelines - Submit your entry … [Read more...] about Now closed: the American Short Fiction Contest
Bourbon and Milk: Wonder and Worry
Bourbon and Milk is an ongoing series that dives into the perplexing spaces parenting sometimes pushes us, and explores the unexpected ways writers may grow in them. If you’re interested in joining the conversation or contributing a Bourbon and Milk post, query Giuseppe Taurino at giuseppe@americanshortfiction.org. I have a photograph of my son Simon—then four years old—holding up my collection of stories on the day it arrived in the mail. He’s so proud, his smile so huge that his eyes are … [Read more...] about Bourbon and Milk: Wonder and Worry
Online Fiction Interview: Jake Wolff
This month's online fiction interview is with Jake Wolff, author of "When a Woman Thinks That her House Is on Fire." In this lyrical tale of one family's double-loss, we learn that Nasya and Ned have lost one son and we watch as they lose their house to a fire. More than a story of loss, though, the piece looks at the things that tragedy leaves in its wake. There is the memory of Henry. There's Nasya's subsequent dedication to serving the members of her synagogue. There's Nasya and Ned's … [Read more...] about Online Fiction Interview: Jake Wolff
Review: Elizabeth McCracken’s Thunderstruck and Other Stories
If, as George Saunders would have it, fiction is more interesting when death is in the room, then Thunderstruck and Other Stories, which won The Story Prize last week, is positively teeming with interest. Still, the various deaths and disappearances running through the nine meticulously crafted stories in Elizabeth McCracken’s moving and deeply cathartic collection could easily overwhelm if not for the charismatic force of her prose and darkly comic bedside manner. Where a lesser writer might … [Read more...] about Review: Elizabeth McCracken’s Thunderstruck and Other Stories
Online Fiction Interview: Courtney Sender
In Courtney Sender's "The Solidarity of Fat Girls," three sisters raise their younger brother following abandonment by their mother. The story traces their little family's trajectory only in the broadest sense, noting the major events of their lives, including the illness and death of one sister as well as the engagement of the younger brother to a fat girl who "doesn't assume that people's brothers should love her." A spare yet lyrical mediation on loss and loyalty, the story seemed a fitting … [Read more...] about Online Fiction Interview: Courtney Sender