American Short Fiction

Publishing exquisite fiction since 1991.

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ISSUE 66

Jamel Brinkley, “Wolf and Rhonda” “The reunion happened in the party room of the Tavern on Bruckner. Balloons floated to the low ceiling above the heads of St. Paul's Class of 1991. The elderly priest sat in a corner, nodding helplessly at his lap. Old rap songs from twenty years ago, when they were in high school, played from the wall-mounted speakers. The frosted white cake would have stripes of pineapple filling between its layers. It was always this way at their reunions. Maritza Lopez … [Read more...] about ISSUE 66

ISSUE 67

Mark Mayer, “The Clown” “Cruelty and pain were easy quantities, but murder used to express something in him. Take the kings of Greece and Persia who entertained guests with hollow bronze bulls that seemed to bay when wheeled over a fire, when in fact it was condemned queens screaming from inside. It was cruel, it was painful—but it was so kingly too. The court clapping and marveling, pretending they didn’t know, while the king spat seeds from his grapes. The Aztecs murdered like Aztecs, the … [Read more...] about ISSUE 67

ISSUE 68

Rebecca Makkai, “Webster’s Last Stand” “Aubrey tried looking up edible cacti online, only to discover that ‘edible’ had been added to the list of restricted search terms, God only knew why. The computer still let her type the word, but then that blasted red-screen error message popped up, the eagle in one corner, the flag in the other, Bigly’s motto stretched across the bottom, and she read the message aloud to Scott, as if he hadn’t seen it before: An excess of false information exists … [Read more...] about ISSUE 68

ISSUE 69

Karl Taro Greenfeld, “Tragic Flaw” “She had decided, early in tenth grade, that she would not be found wanting academically, and so goodbye DKNY slacks and Calvin Klein tops, Stella McCartney blouses and Balenciaga shoes, and from that point on, it was sweats and flip-flops, her body perpetually banished beneath layers of soft cotton, her outfits interchangeable, her style indistinguishable from any of six dozen other girls all striving in Pacific Point High School AP classes and desperately … [Read more...] about ISSUE 69

ISSUE 70

Annesha Mitha, “No One Wants to Be Here Forever” “When Mrithika first came home, she expected, selfishly, that she would be taken care of. She didn’t account for the tumors found on the ultrasound screen, curled up with the dog’s wet organs. She didn’t understand how much care a small body like the dog’s could absorb. But now, the dog is fed pills stashed in Vienna sausages three times a day. She’s held until she falls asleep, and her messes are cleaned up with bleach that warps the … [Read more...] about ISSUE 70