Danielle Lazarin’s debut story collection Back Talk (Penguin Books, 2018) features women grappling with what they—often deliberately—leave unsaid and displays the intricacies of the desires and rages that live inside those silences. Hailed as “beautifully crafted” by the New York Times, Back Talk is a story collection that lingers long after a first read, not only for its beautiful prose and unforgettable characters but for its quiet, powerful tensions. Here, Lazarin discusses her title story, ... [READ MORE]
NOTEBOOK
Bourbon and Milk: Response Training
I sit at my desk at home in my New Jersey suburb, writing poems about gun violence, and I hear police sirens. My first thought is that there is a shooter at my daughters’ high school three blocks away. Since the Newtown massacre, police presence, sirens, and lockdowns are a feature of my daughters’ lives. Kids accept this new reality. My girls tell me that they are used to being told to “shelter in place”—which means there is no active danger—and they often can decode when a “lockdown drill” ... [READ MORE]
The 2019 Insider Prize, Fiction Honoree: “Mother’s Son” by F.R. Martinez, Selected by Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates has a long history with prisons—she’s sprinkled them throughout her stories, tweeted about their poor conditions, and edited a collection of stories by incarcerated men and women. At least one of her novels is banned in some facilities. So she was the perfect judge for American Short Fiction’s 2019 Insider Prize, our contest for incarcerated writers. In the fiction category, she selected “Mother’s Son” by F.R. Martinez, calling it “intense, lyrical, nostalgic — a kind of prose ... [READ MORE]
The 2019 Insider Prize, Memoir Honoree: “Bucknaked Gurney Unit” by Kevin Murphy, Selected by Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates has a long history with prisons—she’s sprinkled them throughout her stories, tweeted about their poor conditions, and edited a collection of stories by incarcerated men and women. At least one of her novels is banned in some facilities. So she was the perfect judge for American Short Fiction’s 2019 Insider Prize, our contest for incarcerated writers. In the memoir category, she selected “Bucknaked Gurney Unit,” by Kevin Murphy, writing that his “memoir of humiliation and the ... [READ MORE]
Killers
the water is deeper than it looks; and we’re not the worst swimmers, but it’s dark; we tend not to swim at night; no, we tend not to swim at night with guys; we all knew of the girl who drowned; she sank like a stone, they said; she was showing off that night, they said; the guys all said; tonight, it’s guys we meet at the boathouse; they’re here for the end of summer; they’re beautiful in a polished way; but we’re beautiful in that polished way; we look out across the water; we whisper ... [READ MORE]
What Doesn’t Kill You: An Interview with Sabrina Orah Mark
Poet Sabrina Orah Mark is the author of Wild Milk, a collection of surreal short stories that marks her debut in fiction. Wild Milk has been called a "necessary book for our perilous age" by Kirkus and a collection of "tales to wake you up at last" by author Edward Carey. Though short, these stories are deep as the ocean blue. You can drown or swim in them (and enjoy yourself either way). I recently spoke with Orah Mark, who opened up about where some of her wilder ideas come from, how she ... [READ MORE]