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American Short Fiction

Publishing exquisite fiction since 1991.

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Short Stories

Register Now: 2021 Short Story Summer Camp

by ASF Editors | April 15, 2021

Register Now: 2021 Short Story Summer Camp

Join us this summer for a first-ever, limited-entry manuscript consultation and virtual craft series from the editors of American Short Fiction. Each registrant will receive detailed feedback on their submitted story and attend a series of three live virtual seminars focused on honing and refining their work with an editor's eye. Regular registration ($425) will close on June 15th. Note: Applications will be accepted on a first come, first served basis. This is not a juried application … [Read more...] about Register Now: 2021 Short Story Summer Camp

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK Tagged With: 2021, Adam Soto, Adeena Reitberger, advice, ASF Summer Camp, classes, Fiction, lectures, Nate Brown, publishing, Short Stories, story summer camp, Summer, Summer 2021

Ember

by Pascha Sotolongo | December 20, 2020

Ember

American Short Fiction · Ember by Pascha Sotolongo Chuchi marvels at the sparks brightening this darkest night, and I guess they are kind of pretty. You look up, let your eyes water against the cold, and can’t tell the embers from the stars. We don’t have a tree this year, so maybe smoldering flakes of the Brownsburg Public Library are as close to Christmas lights as we’re gonna get. Chuchi tilts his head all the way back, mouth open, and the orangey glow illuminates his features. Little swirls … [Read more...] about Ember

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK Tagged With: dystopia, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Online Fiction, short fiction, Short Stories, Web Exclusive

The North

by Babak Lakghomi | October 2, 2020

The North

My uncle was driving us north, where the enemy planes hadn’t yet attacked. He took turns drinking from a bottle with the man sitting up front. My parents and I were squeezed in the back. My mother closed her eyes and held me close. My father kept biting his lips. “Drink up,” my uncle said, passing the bottle to my father. My father returned the bottle untouched. Everybody else we knew had already left the city. My uncle was the only person still in town with a car. I didn’t know why we … [Read more...] about The North

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, WEB EXCLUSIVES Tagged With: Fiction, Flash Fiction, Online Fiction, short fiction, Short Stories, Web Exclusive

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

Karst

by Ben Jackson | July 15, 2020

Karst

He wakes in the landscape of his childhood, the karst. The house is surrounded by stone that dissolves in water, limestone that becomes fissured and hazardous because of its own weakness. The clints are the parts left standing. Grykes are the absences between. It is in the grykes you find life: hart’s tongue fern, butterfly orchid, primrose. Sheltering in the sinkholes. This is a place of constant change. Changing stone. Changing light. As a child, he would go out at morning and all around … [Read more...] about Karst

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, WEB EXCLUSIVES Tagged With: Family, Fiction, Flash Fiction, ireland, mothers, Online Fiction, short fiction, Short Stories, stone, water, Web Exclusive

Appointment

by Olivia Parkes | March 31, 2020

Appointment

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, unwinding my scarf and piling my layers on an empty swivel chair beside the stylist’s station. The crumpled clothes looked shabby in the gleaming, mirrored room, like something you’d find under a bridge. I was wearing pretty much everything I owned. This little jaunt was the first time I’d left the house in weeks, and let me tell you, you could die out there. A band of polar winds high up in the atmosphere held the city hostage, locked in a bitter freeze. I exhaled … [Read more...] about Appointment

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, WEB EXCLUSIVES Tagged With: Fiction, Flash Fiction, Online Fiction, short fiction, Short Stories, Web Exclusive, Web Exclusives

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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.
 

Sign up now for Send Us to Perfect Places with Kristen Arnett! Classes are $150 and registration closes May 4, 2025.

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✨ The Stars at Night 2025: Celebrating Joy Williams, Emily Hunt Kivel, Carrie R. Moore, and Leila Green Little. Get your tickets today!✨

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