*** Thank you to everyone who entered this year's short fiction contest, judged by Victor LaValle. *** — The America Short Fiction Contest is now closed for submissions. This year we are honored to have Victor LaValle as our guest judge. Please stay tuned for this year's winners. General Guidelines - Submit your entry online between March 30, 2016 – June 1, 2016 June 15, 2016. - The first-place winner will receive a $1,000 prize and publication in our spring issue. One … [Read more...] about ASF Short Fiction Contest Now Closed
NOTEBOOK FEATURE
Editorial Outtakes: M. Thomas Gammarino
Editorial Outtakes is a feature in which we publish excerpts from novels and story collections that you won’t find in the finished books because, prior to publication, these sections were cut. This installment of Editorial Outtakes features a deleted scene from King of the Worlds, the new novel by M. Thomas Gammarino, which tells the story of Dylan Greenyears, a has-been Hollywood heartthrob whose best days are seemingly behind him. After losing the lead in Titanic, Greenyears has left with his … [Read more...] about Editorial Outtakes: M. Thomas Gammarino
To Be in Love in Brooklyn: An interview with Emma Straub
Emma Straub’s latest novel, Modern Lovers, came out on Tuesday—just in time to top your summer reading lists. The book follows a group of college friends and ex-bandmates as they struggle to come to terms with their middle aged, adult lives in Brooklyn, navigating the difficulties of marriage, parenting, and illegal kombucha production. This book has everything we have come to expect from Straub: a richly imagined story of complex human relationships, layered with her characteristic wit, charm, … [Read more...] about To Be in Love in Brooklyn: An interview with Emma Straub
Hunter S. Thompson & Oscar Acosta in the Desert:
A 45-Year Retrospective
1. _
On the morning of Friday, March 19th, 1971, Hunter S. Thompson, already the bestselling author of one book and long overdue on his contract for another, accepted what appeared to be a fairly innocuous journalistic assignment: write five hundred words of copy for Sports Illustrated to go along with a photo essay on the Mint 400 motorcycle race, which was scheduled to take place that coming weekend in Las Vegas 1.
It was a cushy offer, to say the least: Thompson would get paid three … [Read more...] about Hunter S. Thompson & Oscar Acosta in the Desert:
A 45-Year Retrospective
Web Exclusive Interview: Jensen Beach
David Foster Wallace said that fiction is “one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved.” In our March Web Exclusive story, “To God Belongs What He Has Taken,” Jensen Beach deftly places us in the mind of a Stockholm woman caught up in a fantasy about a stranger. It is a subtle and detailed snapshot of a form of loneliness so universal that, in its confrontation, we find some relief. We talked with Jensen about how that’s done by writing other people, other … [Read more...] about Web Exclusive Interview: Jensen Beach
Things American: At the Mountains of Loneliness
I went to the Arctic Circle because of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. I went there to work on a novel, too, but I wouldn’t be writing a novel—wouldn’t even still be a writer—without Lovecraft. While in the Arctic, I thought about Cthulhu. I carried a protective charm a friend had stitched for me in case I encountered any Old Ones. I stared into the fissures of three-hundred-foot-tall glaciers and expected to see a tentacle lash out before slithering back into the dark, icy recesses. And every so … [Read more...] about Things American: At the Mountains of Loneliness