As we continue our year-end giving campaign, we want to take this opportunity to look back with gratitude for all that our readers, authors, staff, and supporters have helped American Short Fiction accomplish. So far this year, we've published 21 writers in our gorgeously designed literary journals and online exclusives, paying our writers competitive rates for their work and promoting them at events in Austin and around the country. We've published dozens of author interviews, reviews, and ... [READ MORE]
NEWS
2018 The Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize Winners
We are delighted to announce that our wonderful judge ZZ Packer has selected the winners of the inaugural Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize. We received many terrific submissions—thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your work! Winner: Alejandro Puyana for “The Hands of Dirty Children” Of Puyana's story, Packer writes, "Full of energy, beauty, pathos and an unswerving eye for vivid detail, "The Hands of Dirty Children" is a touching and gut-wrenching glimpse of Venezuela through the ... [READ MORE]
The 2018 American Short(er) Fiction Prize Winners
We are thrilled to announce the winners for this year's American Short(er) Fiction Prize, judged by Amber Sparks. Thank you to everyone who submitted. The winning stories will be published in the magazine’s fall issue. _____ First-Place Prize: "The Old Woman at the Edge of the Cliff" by Ariel Berry. Judge Amber Sparks writes, "This incredible, careful story read like an excavated fairy tale—brand new to us, but also somehow old as humans, and strange and sad as the wilder parts of the ... [READ MORE]
Best of the Net 2017!
We are thrilled to announce that two ASF stories—"Endangered" by Allegra Hyde and "A Bruise the Size and Shape of a Door Handle" by Daisy Johnson—have won Best of the Net 2017. Congratulations to all the winners! Allegra Hyde's "Endangered" 'The artists were kept in cages. This was for their own good. The world had gotten really ugly, really fast, and the artists, generally, did not have the skills to survive." (Read the entire story here.) Daisy Johnson's "A Bruise the Size and Shape of a ... [READ MORE]
Announcing the Winners of the Insider Prize
Submissions to The Insider Prize—a writing contest for incarcerated writers in Texas, which we held for the first time this year—came to us in envelopes of many sizes. Most had been previously opened, with a red TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS stamp on the inside of the lip of the envelope that had been taped shut after an inspection. Some were composed on a typewriter. Others were handwritten. Like many literary journals, American Short Fiction accepts only electronic submissions. And while ... [READ MORE]
2017 American Short Fiction Prize Winners
We are delighted to announce that Lauren Groff has selected the winners of the 2017 American Short Fiction Prize. The first-place prize goes to Michaela Hansen for her story "The Devil in the Barn." Michaela Hansen is a Northwest native who likes to call Tacoma, Washington home, even though she doesn't always live there. She's a recent graduate of the Texas State University MFA program and her work has been published in McNeese Review, and is forthcoming from Fourth Genre. When she's not ... [READ MORE]