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 Maya Perez, reflecting on the experience of writing this story: My initial idea for the story was two people with a shared history having a reunion and realizing that while they don’t know each other at all, they share an overwhelming … [Read more...] about Pioneers
High School
All the Girls We Knew in the Suburbs
It was the night before Christmas, but all that meant to us was that no one else was out and the suburbs were our playgrounds more than ever. We were two Jewish kids from the city and it was not our holy night. No family unwrapping ceremonies awaited us in the morning. Our days of unwrapping, all eight of them, had ended a week earlier, though those days of miracle light were not our holiest. Everyone thought that because they fell so close to Christmas, even if no one ever knew exactly when; … [Read more...] about All the Girls We Knew in the Suburbs