This month, our online fiction came from Keith Lesmeister, whose tight fist of a story "Imaginary Enemies" clocks in at a trim 965 words. That's less than half of the 2,000 word maximum we here at ASF have imposed on our web fiction. That cap exists, in part, because we know that great stories come in all sizes and that the web—for all of its faults and all of its cat videos—is a particularly good venue for short work. Still, it'd be a mistake to think that any story, regardless of length, pops ... [READ MORE]
NOTEBOOK
Spreading the Literary Love
A while back, Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist, was on KUT, our local NPR station, talking about how important it is to be engaged and active in your community of artists--whatever your creative pursuits. One quote of his that stuck with me was this: "You have to be a fan to have fans." I liked the sentiment, although it did remind me of Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl and this snippet of dialogue: "I'm just really active in the fandom." / "What the fuck is 'the fandom?'" Anyway, I asked ... [READ MORE]
The Magic of Helen Oyeyemi’s Mirrors
Toward the beginning of Helen Oyeyemi’s fourth and latest novel, Boy, Snow, Bird, narrator Boy Novak Whitman offers us a dictionary-style definition of the word “mirror.” mirror: [mirə] noun 1. A surface capable of reflecting sufficient diffuser light to form an image of an object placed in front of it. 2. Such a reflecting surface set in a frame. In a household setting this surface adopts an inscrutable personality (possibly impish and/or amoral), presenting convincing and yet ... [READ MORE]
Things American: Nic Pizzolatto’s Women Before True Detective
In honor of all of the breathless praise accompanying the release of HBO’s new crime noir series True Detective, The Atlantic is urging readers to revisit two short stories by Nicolas Pizzolatto, the show’s creator. The stories appeared in the magazine ten years ago, when Pizzolatto was an MFA student at the University of Arkansas, and they explore themes that would later mark the HBO series. Chief among those is gender and the relationship between men and women. Pizzolatto is a radically ... [READ MORE]
Online Fiction Interview: April Wilder
The stories in April Wilder's debut collection, This is Not an Accident, inhabit, in her words, "the territory of the American absurd," and each first page is like the edge of a cliff. A story might begin, say, in a defensive driving class or in a kitchen with the grandchildren, and then it careens off, suspending the reader in that place where falling feels like flying. Take "Creative Writer Instructor Evaluation Form," which we were so lucky to publish as this month's Web Exclusive; the way it ... [READ MORE]
Bourbon and Milk: Dead Kitties and Shallow Graves
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 at giuseppe@americanshortfiction.org. One of our two cats died recently—Mr. Melo. He was the older of the pair, and the first pet my wife and I ever adopted. We spent his entire last day in vet offices before finally ... [READ MORE]