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Publishing exquisite fiction since 1991.

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Alexander Lumans

ASF’s Favorite Reads of 2021

by ASF Editors | December 30, 2021

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...] about ASF’s Favorite Reads of 2021

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK Tagged With: 2021, 2022, Alexander Lumans, Amanda Faraone, Anna Kavan, Anne Carson, Anne Helen Peterson, ASF Staff, Brandon Taylor, Claire Vaye Watkins, Dantiel Moniz, Emily Chammah, Fowzia Karimi, Hala Alyan, Jen Brown, Kazuo Ishiguro, Louise Erdrich, Maggie Nelson, Maurice Chammah, Melissa Broder, Michelle Raji, Nate Brown, Patricia Ruiz-Rivera, Peter Kispert, Rachel Yoder, Rebecca Markovits, Sanjena Sathian, Shirley Hazzard, Shirley Jackson, Sol X. Wooten, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Stephanie Frazee, Susan Quesal, Thao Votang, Thomas Savage, Uriel Perez, Willie Fitzgerald, Year-end list

Every Possible Landform, Weather Condition, and Natural Disaster: An Interview with Matthew Baker

by Alexander Lumans | August 20, 2020

Every Possible Landform, Weather Condition, and Natural Disaster: An Interview with Matthew Baker

Matthew Baker's second collection of short stories, Why Visit America (out now from Henry Holt), takes ambitious aim at this country's societal and political systems. Each story arrives through some manner of warped lens—a lens in which America, at first, appears very unfamiliar. New technologies, new borders, new pandemics. But the deeper into these stories you read, the more you recognize similar dangers at play in our own United States. The stories quickly cohere into a comprehensive map of … [Read more...] about Every Possible Landform, Weather Condition, and Natural Disaster: An Interview with Matthew Baker

Filed Under: NEWS Tagged With: Alexander Lumans, experimentation, fantasy, Fiction, matthew baker, new books, Short Stories, short story collections, speculative fiction, united states, weirdness

ASF Celebrates Black Writers

by ASF Editors | February 25, 2020

ASF Celebrates Black Writers

As Black History Month 2020 nears an end, we asked members of our staff compile a list of their favorite short fiction by Black writers. For this list, our scope was broad. After all, while Black History Month has its roots in American history, it's not an exclusively American endeavor. Canada celebrates along with us during February, but in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands, Black History Month is aligned with the start of the school year in October. So, rather than give our … [Read more...] about ASF Celebrates Black Writers

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK Tagged With: Aaron Teel, Adam Soto, Adeena Reitberger, Alexander Lumans, Amanda Farone, Anabel Graff, Ashley Whitaker, Black History Month, Bryan Washington, Charles W. Chestnutt, Chester Himes, Danielle Evans, Edward P. Jones, Giuseppe Taurino, Helen Oyeyemi, Jamaica Kincaid, Jamel Brinkley, James Alan McPherson, James Baldwin, John Edgar Wideman, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Marta Evans, Maurice Chammah, Melinda Moustakis, Michelle Raji, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Nate Brown, Patricia Ruiz-Rivera, Percival Everett, Peter Kispert, Philip Baker, Rebecca Markovits, Reginald McKnight, short fiction, Siân Griffiths, Stacey Swann, Stephanie Macias Gibson, Tia Clark, Toni Morrison, Uriel Perez, Venita Blackburn, Victor LaValle, Zadie Smith, ZZ Packer

14 Writers You Love & Their Favorite Short Stories

by ASF Editors | May 1, 2018

14 Writers You Love & Their Favorite Short Stories

Spring is here, and so are the promises of the season: the famous flowers are in bloom, the strawberries are ripe for picking, the earth's axis has started to tilt toward the sun, and—with its lackadaisical charm and balmy swagger—spring fever has set its sight on all of us. Oh, did we mention the kittens? But perhaps the best thing about the season is the arrival of May—Short Story Month—which is, as you might expect, American Short Fiction's favorite month of all. To celebrate we invited … [Read more...] about 14 Writers You Love & Their Favorite Short Stories

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, NOTEBOOK FEATURE, Uncategorized Tagged With: Akil Kumarasamy, Alexander Lumans, Amber Sparks, Andrew Malan Milward, Benjamin Markovits, Caitlin Horrocks, Don Lee, Jennifer duBois, Laura van den Berg, Lauren Groff, Manuel Gonzales, Mary Helen Specht, May, Melinda Moustakis, Nina McConigley, Short Stories, short story month

Pride Is Every Month: A Short Reading List from Our Editors

by ASF Editors | June 30, 2016

Pride Is Every Month: A Short Reading List from Our Editors

In 2016, there's something almost anachronistic about creating a list of your favorite LGBTQ books. What kinds of books might qualify for such a list? Must the author identify as gay, bi, lesbian, trans, asexual, or agender to be included? In putting together such a list, don't you run the risk of unintentionally ghettoizing "LGBTQ books" and further marginalizing authors? These are questions our editors and staff asked ourselves as we set out to celebrate Pride Month by building a list of book … [Read more...] about Pride Is Every Month: A Short Reading List from Our Editors

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK Tagged With: Adeena Reitberger, Agender, Alexander Lumans, Alison Bechdel, Alysia Abbot, Anna North, Bisexual, Carson McCullers, Chinelo Okparanta, Colm Tóibín, E.M. Forster, Erin McReynolds, Gay, Hanya Yanagihara, Jill McDonough, Justin Torres, Lesbian, LGBTQ, Maggie Nelson, Maurice Chammah, Nate Brown, Ocean Vuong, Pride, Rebecca Markovits, Rose Tremain, Sexuality, Stacey Swann, Transgender

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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