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American Short Fiction

Publishing exquisite fiction since 1991.

reading

The House in the Woods: An Interview with Jane Delury

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In her lush debut, The Balcony, author Jane Delury offers readers wide-angle and macrocosmic glimpses of life in and around a French manor house over the course of more than a century. A novel-in-stories, The Balcony examines the changing fortunes of families who've come and gone over the manor's history, looking both at the occupants of the main house as well as those who've lived in the cottage on the grounds of the estate. Both the fictional village of Benneville and the surrounding woods … [Read more...] about The House in the Woods: An Interview with Jane Delury

Dinosaurs, the Alphabet, and Ten Things to Consider Prior to Submitting a Story for Publication

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I. To Begin, a Note about Pleasure A few years ago, the late James Salter was honored at the annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Festival with a prize in Fitzgerald’s name. During his keynote address at the award ceremony, Salter said something that was stupefying in its simplicity: reading, he said, was among the very greatest pleasures in his life. Perhaps that’s not a surprising sentiment for a writer so notably interested in pleasure, especially the pleasures of food, drink, travel, language, and … [Read more...] about Dinosaurs, the Alphabet, and Ten Things to Consider Prior to Submitting a Story for Publication

The Art of Staring: An Interview with Jamel Brinkley

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In his much-anticipated debut collection A Lucky Man, Jamel Brinkley lays bare the full and complex interiority of black men and boys kicking against all manner of inexorable truths, while living an inch from ruin in Brooklyn and the Bronx. With stunning clarity and generosity of detail, each of the nine stories leaves its own lasting impression, while the book as a whole coalesces into a devastating tapestry of confused masculinity, familial responsibility, and the intractable power of … [Read more...] about The Art of Staring: An Interview with Jamel Brinkley

What We’re Reading

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At the close of each month, we ask members of our ASF staff to share books that have recently graduated from their to-be-read piles, along with a GIF that relates to their experience of the book, in whatever way.           This morning, we learned the sad news that Seamus Heaney had passed away. So we took North off our shelves and stepped into the embrace of his words. … [Read more...] about What We’re Reading