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Publishing exquisite fiction since 1991.

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THINGS AMERICAN

Things American: On Quitting the (not so) Great American Novel

by Barbara Bourland | June 5, 2018

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...] about Things American: On Quitting the (not so) Great American Novel

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, THINGS AMERICAN Tagged With: Anxiety, Barbara Bourland, Clinton, Fake Like Me, fear, Fiction, great American novel, I'll Eat When I'm Dead, Novels, on quitting, Politics, social media, Trump, writing

Things American: In the Air, Election Night 2016

by Virginia Reeves | November 22, 2016

Things American: In the Air, Election Night 2016

My ears won’t pop, and the bites on my right arm itch, my arm and neck—red flares I can’t ascribe to any particular predator, just marks of Texas. I get a second tiny bottle of whiskey. My taller-than-me daughter sleeps against my shoulder, too old these days, too grown up. We are over the Rockies, Denver to Helena, a tiny plane half full. I get the second whiskey because the flight attendant asks if I want another before she closes out her till. No flight attendant has ever asked me this. I … [Read more...] about Things American: In the Air, Election Night 2016

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, THINGS AMERICAN Tagged With: 2016 election, Austin, daughters, fear, flying, Helena, jobs, Love, Montana, mothers, moving, sadness, Spanish, Texas, whiskey

Things American: Thoughts on Last Night

by ASF Editors | November 9, 2016

Things American: Thoughts on Last Night

It felt sad and strange today to be sitting at the helm of a magazine called American Short Fiction. That first word on our masthead, our understanding of what that word means, pulled and pinched and pummeled as it has been over the last few months by our leaders and our pundits and by the new president-elect most of all, took a violent final beating last night, and it was hard, this morning, not to hear a bitter, bruised irony in its syllables. “We’re taking our country back,” cheered an eager … [Read more...] about Things American: Thoughts on Last Night

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, THINGS AMERICAN

Things American: Treatment vs. Healing

by Jenna Kahn | August 11, 2016

Things American: Treatment vs. Healing

1. The nurse woke me at four-thirty in the morning to take my blood. Someone else had taken it less than six hours before, in the emergency room, but pointing that out seemed disrespectful because he was a nurse with years of schooling behind him, and I was just another suicidal senior in high school. After he left with five vials of my blood, and I was sufficiently drowsy, I rested fitfully until it was time for the morning devotional at six. Wrapped in a beltless robe and wearing … [Read more...] about Things American: Treatment vs. Healing

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, NOTEBOOK FEATURE, THINGS AMERICAN Tagged With: Amy Bloom, Anxiety, Bipolar disorder, David Foster Wallace, depression, Esmé Weijun Wang, healing, hospital, Kevin Barry, lithium, Marya Hornbacher, medication, synthroid, therapy, treatment

Hunter S. Thompson & Oscar Acosta in the Desert:
A 45-Year Retrospective

by Timothy Denevi | May 9, 2016

Hunter S. Thompson & Oscar Acosta in the Desert: <br> A 45-Year Retrospective

1. _ On the morning of Friday, March 19th, 1971, Hunter S. Thompson, already the bestselling author of one book and long overdue on his contract for another, accepted what appeared to be a fairly innocuous journalistic assignment: write five hundred words of copy for Sports Illustrated to go along with a photo essay on the Mint 400 motorcycle race, which was scheduled to take place that coming weekend in Las Vegas 1. It was a cushy offer, to say the least: Thompson would get paid three … [Read more...] about Hunter S. Thompson & Oscar Acosta in the Desert:
A 45-Year Retrospective

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, NOTEBOOK FEATURE, THINGS AMERICAN Tagged With: American Dream, Drugs, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Gonzo, Hunter S. Thompson, Las Vegas, Oscar Acosta, Raoul Duke, Rolling Stone, Ruben Salazar, Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, The Gonzo Tapes, Things American, Timothy Denevi

Things American: At the Mountains of Loneliness

by Alexander Lumans | February 17, 2016

Things American: At the Mountains of Loneliness

I went to the Arctic Circle because of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. I went there to work on a novel, too, but I wouldn’t be writing a novel—wouldn’t even still be a writer—without Lovecraft. While in the Arctic, I thought about Cthulhu. I carried a protective charm a friend had stitched for me in case I encountered any Old Ones. I stared into the fissures of three-hundred-foot-tall glaciers and expected to see a tentacle lash out before slithering back into the dark, icy recesses. And every so … [Read more...] about Things American: At the Mountains of Loneliness

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, NOTEBOOK FEATURE, THINGS AMERICAN Tagged With: 2016 Presidential Election, Adele, Alessia Cara, Alexander Lumans, Alzheimer's, apocalypse, Arctic Dreams, artists, At the Mountains of Madness, Barry Lopez, Cthulhu, Elder Things, glaciers, H.P. Lovecraft, Justin Bieber, Loneliness, Mad Max: Fury Road, Michel Houellebecq, Necronomicon, polar bears, reindeer, ruins, Russia, Ships, Shoggoths, smartphones, supernatural horror, Svalbard, the Arctic, The Dunwich Horror, The Martian, The Revenant, twenty one pilots, Wild, wilderness

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Issue 81

Guest-edited by Fernando A. Flores, featuring new stories by Yvette DeChavez, Julián Delgado Lopera, Carribean Fragoza, Alejandro Heredia, Carmen Maria Machado, Ruben Reyes Jr., and Gerardo Sámano Córdova.

You can preview the issue here.

NEWS

Read the winners of the 2024 Insider Prize

Read the winners of the 2024 Insider Prize

By ASF Editors

“Memories are a nuisance,” Peter wrote to one of our writers after reading his short story, “but nonetheless they seem to make us who we are, as this story confirms.” This year’s submissions told many stories burdened with memory, but just as many stared bravely into the face of hope, satirized the state of politics, speculated on the future of the world, or else built entirely new worlds to inhabit. In short, the stories written on the inside reflected the stories we wrote this year on the outside. Stories of human toil and dreams and everything in between.
 

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