https://soundcloud.com/americanshortfiction/child-of-god-by-genevieve-abravanel I was drunk. I mean, not usually. Not on a weekday. But that night, Bill had been out with Petra and then he’d texted me. He wanted to hook up. He and Petra weren’t married, not for another month, but she was my friend and she didn’t know and if I told her about Bill, I’d have to say I was the other woman. And I wasn’t. Not usually. I turned off my phone and went drinking, down at Darby’s where they know me. I ... [READ MORE]
NOTEBOOK
I’ll Give You a Reason
I met Maria back in the fifth grade. She was this skinny girl whose mom would always pack her salami sandwiches for lunch. When I think of Maria today, I think of those slices of salami stuffed inside a hardened Kaiser roll. No lettuce, tomatoes, or cheese. Just belch-inducing salami. This was back when Mom would slap my stomach to remind me to suck it in. Back when she was buying me outfits two sizes too small and pinching the fat rolls spilling over my tight jeans. That year I was hungry ... [READ MORE]
Announcing the 2021 Winners of The Insider Prize, Selected by Mitchell S. Jackson
A few weeks ago, we typed the name “Eva Shelton” into the website of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, looking for an address so that we could send her some exciting news: she’d won The Insider Prize for fiction. Sponsored by American Short Fiction and now in its fourth year, the prize highlights work by incarcerated writers in Texas, whether they live in state or federal prisons, local jails, or immigration detention centers. This time around the guest judge was Mitchell S. Jackson—who ... [READ MORE]
Cazones, 2016
My dying father and his friend, the former mayor, told me that if it was stories of the massacre I wanted, then there was this farmer living in a seaside village we should track down. So, we lowered ourselves into the mayor’s old green Volkswagen Beetle—my wheezing father in the passenger’s seat and myself in back—and made for La Costa Esmeralda. From what I gathered on the road, this farmer we were after, he’d been a riot policeman at La Noche de Tlatelolco, the massacre during the 1968 ... [READ MORE]
To Deaden the Nerve
https://soundcloud.com/americanshortfiction/to-deaden-the-nerve-by-christopher-notarnicola Marines sit on the ground with their feet in their hands, their bare knees against the wet morning grass to stretch their groins, to loosen their limbs, to gather themselves near the flight line behind company headquarters. They await the arrival of their instructor, the start of their next round of martial arts training. They wait to advance, to add to their takedowns and submissions, to harden their ... [READ MORE]
Even on Good Nights
1. On my morning walk along the service road, I see through the chain-linked fence a man on his knees. He’s smashing his fist, the flesh of which is a bloody mush, into the pebbly shoulder of the highway. The sound of it is like the slapping of a paper bag full of wet sticks into concrete. He’s not an old man, but not young either. There’s a bouquet of flowers on the ground beside him. He’s weeping and cursing. I call through the fence, “Hey man, please don’t do that. Please . . .” He stops, ... [READ MORE]