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American Short Fiction

Publishing exquisite fiction since 1991.

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Timothy Denevi

Hunter S. Thompson & Oscar Acosta in the Desert:
A 45-Year Retrospective

by Timothy Denevi | May 9, 2016

Hunter S. Thompson & Oscar Acosta in the Desert: <br> A 45-Year Retrospective

1. _ On the morning of Friday, March 19th, 1971, Hunter S. Thompson, already the bestselling author of one book and long overdue on his contract for another, accepted what appeared to be a fairly innocuous journalistic assignment: write five hundred words of copy for Sports Illustrated to go along with a photo essay on the Mint 400 motorcycle race, which was scheduled to take place that coming weekend in Las Vegas 1. It was a cushy offer, to say the least: Thompson would get paid three … [Read more...] about Hunter S. Thompson & Oscar Acosta in the Desert:
A 45-Year Retrospective

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, NOTEBOOK FEATURE, THINGS AMERICAN Tagged With: American Dream, Drugs, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Gonzo, Hunter S. Thompson, Las Vegas, Oscar Acosta, Raoul Duke, Rolling Stone, Ruben Salazar, Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, The Gonzo Tapes, Things American, Timothy Denevi

Things American: Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson and the Hell’s Angels at La Honda: August 7th, 1965

by Timothy Denevi | August 7, 2015

Things American: Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson and the Hell’s Angels at La Honda: August 7th, 1965

Fifty years ago today, Ken Kesey, not yet thirty and already the author of two acclaimed novels, invited the members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang to a party at his home in the coastal mountains south of San Francisco. When the Angels arrived it was just past 3 p.m. A blue summer afternoon: Kesey and his Merry Pranksters—the friends who’d accompanied him, the year before, on the cross-country bus trip that would later become the subject Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test—watched … [Read more...] about Things American: Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson and the Hell’s Angels at La Honda: August 7th, 1965

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, NOTEBOOK FEATURE, THINGS AMERICAN, Uncategorized Tagged With: Acid, Allen Ginsburg, Counterculture, Drugs, Hell's Angels, Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, La Honda, LSD, Marijuana, Rape, Timothy Denevi, Tom Wolfe

Things American: Writers Remember James Salter

by Nate Brown | July 22, 2015

Things American: Writers Remember James Salter

American novelist, story writer, and screenwriter James Salter died on June 19th, leaving behind a body of work that presents a vision of a century in dramatic motion. He was a writer of the quotidian and a craftsman of the first water whose interest in sensory experiences is most evident in his arresting narrative passages. Food, drink, sex, the seemingly impossible beauty of things touched, witnessed, and heard—these are rendered in precise and yet often surprising terms in Salter's work. In … [Read more...] about Things American: Writers Remember James Salter

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK, THINGS AMERICAN Tagged With: Alan Cheuse, Alexander Maksik, Andrew Malan Milward, Brad Watson, Cara Blue Adams, David James Poissant, Edward Hirsch, Geoff Becker, George Pelecanos, James Salter, Jamie Quatro, Jennifer Haigh, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Lauren Groff, Lisa Page, Lydia Conklin, Matt Bell, Maud Casey, Michael Kimball, Nate Brown, Rob Roensch, Samar Farah Fitzgerald, Stuart Nadler, Timothy Denevi, Valerie Trueblood

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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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