Editorial Outtakes is a series in which we publish excerpts from recent books that you won’t find anywhere else because, prior the publication, these sections were cut. This installment of Editorial Outtakes features a deleted scene from fiction writer Dave Housley's new novel, This Darkness Got to Give. In the vein of character-driven contemporary horrors like Grace Krilanovich's The Orange Eats Creeps and A Questionable Shape by Bennet Sims, Housley engages with and subverts what readers may ... [READ MORE]
NOTEBOOK
Things American: On Quitting the (not so) Great American Novel
I want to tell you, because maybe it’s four in the morning and you’re googling “how to know when to give up on a novel.” How you are supposed to know? I’ve wondered this many times myself over twenty-three months, through a hundred and fifty thousand words, dozens of chapters, three false starts, and too many conversations to count. Then—in a moment—I came to the answer and I gave up on the book. I’ve written three books that came easily. The novel I walked away from was not one of those. The ... [READ MORE]
The Origins of “The Window” & Short Story Writing Prompts
As readers and writers we frequently wonder how individual stories begin, and is not often that we are provided an answer. In the spring issue of American Short Fiction, we published a strange, hilarious, and heartbreaking story by Jennifer Tseng called "The Window." In the story, the narrator—a young lesbian who works as an editor for a travel agency—watches through the window across from her office desk. The figure of a distant woman captivates her and begins to embody her desires for romantic ... [READ MORE]
Web Exclusive Interview: Kate Reed Petty
In February's Web Exclusive flash fiction, "Fish Jokes," a woman is challenged with articulating exactly what her former boss did to her that was inappropriate. In order to convey Annie's struggle to recollect what happened, name it, and support her own reaction to it, author Kate Reed Petty created an ingenious modern trope that everyone can understand: the hunt for an elusive email buried in an endless inbox. Erin McReynolds: There is a genius to the many levels of want in "Fish Jokes": ... [READ MORE]
Editorial Outtakes: The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist
Editorial Outtakes is a series in which we publish excerpts from recent books that you won’t find anywhere else because, prior publication, these sections were cut. This installment of Editorial Outtakes features two outtakes from The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist, a novel by journalist and fiction writer Michael Downs. An account of the life and times of Hartford's Horace Wells, the dentist who discovered that nitrous oxide had the power to alleviate pain during ... [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]