ASF is recognizing Black History Month by sharing, for the first time online, four stories from our Winter 2020 issue, which showcased emerging Black writers selected by guest editor and PEN American Robert W. Bingham Prize winner Danielle Evans. Here is author Denne Michele Norris, reflecting on the experience of writing this story: I wrote "Audition" in a four week fury of inspiration during my first year living in New York City. It was a chaotic time, as first years in New York often ... [READ MORE]
NOTEBOOK
On Balconies
Everybody loved Berlin except for me and Emory. From my rented bed I could hear the others laughing in the streets. I’d pass the empty bottles on the curbs, lined up like tiny cities for the homeless to collect. Where New York had rooftops; Berlin had balconies, and everywhere I went I was sad and dumb and twenty-two—an age that pretends to matter when it doesn’t. — Emory and I didn’t like each other, but we didn’t have anyone else. We moved to Berlin on the same day in September, and a mutual ... [READ MORE]
ASF’s Favorite Reads of 2021
Love them or hate them, year-end wrap-ups and best-of lists can help us make sense of our moment in history, and what moment in history has demanded that we search for clarity, meaning, and comfort like 2021? So, instead of offering a list of ASF staffers' favorite books published this year, we asked our editors about the books they read this year that sustained, inspired, moved, or changed them, regardless of when the book was published. What follows, then, is a hodgepodge of literary gems, ... [READ MORE]
What the Tide Returns
She counts the children as they come through the door—one, two, and three—to reassure herself that they are hers. She can’t say just how happy she is to see them; she’s missed them all summer long. She hardly recognizes them; they’re browner than ever before, and somehow warmer to the touch. She hugs them and her hands come away coated with fine grains of sand. Both boys come back taller and sporting fresh haircuts. The girl is fuller around the hips and her hair is braided in a different ... [READ MORE]
Balikbayan
Two of my uncles hoisted the balikbayan box out of the truck bed. I heard the package hit the ground even though I was ten meters away, sitting on the porch, where I always sat. My seven younger cousins played with marbles in the shade, but when my uncles waved them over, they raced across the driveway to swarm the gift like moths around a fire. My aunts and uncles tore the tape away and removed a dozen toys, each wrapped in colorful cardboard and pristine plastic, jammed between hand-me-down ... [READ MORE]
The 2021 Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize Winners
We are delighted to announce that our brilliant judge, R.O. Kwon, has selected the winners of this year's The Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize. We consider it our privilege to have spent time with so many terrific submissions—thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your work! Winner: Caroline Schmidt for “Particular Luck” Of Schmidt's story, Kwon writes, "I was especially moved by the physicality of grief in “Particular Luck,” its knowledge of how we are tied, in joy as in sorrow, to ... [READ MORE]