Bret Anthony Johnston has the distinction of being among the few writers occupying that slim but coveted slice of the Venn diagram: creative writing directors (Johnston is at the helm at Harvard) who have toured the country on a professional skateboarding team. Find a great discussion on this over at McSweeney’s. His latest work, Remember Me Like This, is a quiet and rich novel centered around a teenage boy named Justin who is returned to his family four years after his kidnapping. The story ... [READ MORE]
NOTEBOOK
Online Fiction Interview: Erica Plouffe Lazure
Catherine, the devoted band mother in Erica Plouffe Lazure's "Marchers," is a wonderful example of just how affecting strong, straightforward, reliable narration can be. With an admitted pride in her son's accomplishments and an implied annoyance at the petty goings-on of her small-town life in rural North Carolina, Catherine's direct and clear narration makes the stranger elements of the story—Shriners in fezzes and miniature cars, young women bearing the agriculturally themed, honorific ... [READ MORE]
Inside the Issue: An Excerpt from “Zone of Mutuality,” by Karl Taro Greenfeld
In "Zone of Mutuality," the final story in Issue 57 of American Short Fiction, Karl Taro Greenfeld introduces us to Dwayne, a young man settling uneasily in to a perennial professional disappointment that threatens to swamp the rest of his life as well. As we wrote in our introductory note to the issue, Dwayne, "a 'personal banker' in a small bank branch whose title and cheap suit belie the essential sordidness of the job, moves through the indignities that make up his working day with a ... [READ MORE]
Bourbon and Milk: “Are You the Mother?”
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. “Mama,” my three-year-old son says a hundred times a day, right before he asks for something—a hug, a glass of milk, a kiss, a Netflix show, a toy that I ... [READ MORE]
An Interview with Marie-Helene Bertino
I first met Marie-Helene Bertino last summer, when she was my workshop instructor at the One Story Workshop for Writers. In person, she is meticulous, charming, and bright. And her writing is the same. Her short story, “Carry Me Home, Sisters of Saint Joseph,” was first published in Issue 47 of American Short Fiction. Her second book, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas, will be published this August by Crown. Set in Philadelphia, the novel takes place over the course of a single day—Christmas Eve ... [READ MORE]
Online Fiction Interview: Kathleen Founds
In recent months, we've had the very great pleasure of publishing lots of terrific stuff online—and we've covered a lot of ground, topically. From an epistolary piece that used the format of a student evaluation form as its scaffolding to a naturalistic piece about a recently returned veteran and his do-gooder brother-in-law, we've aimed to mix it up in this space. We've taken that to a new extreme this month, as we published "The Wormhole" by Kathleen Founds. It's an epistolary story that ... [READ MORE]