American Fiction Short Stories

A grieving mother calls out to her faraway son. A student forgoes the lurid appeal of dating apps in exchange for a painter’s love. The anonymous voices of queer native men converge amid violent eroticism. A man just out of prison balances the uneasy weight of family and freedom, while a professor returns home to conduct research only to be haunted by a dark specter. The stories and voices in Billy-Ray Belcourt’s debut story collection are buoyed by philosophical undergirding, poetic demand, and the complex relationship between aesthetics and ethics.

A livewire debut from Dantiel W. Moniz, one of the most exciting discoveries in today's literary landscape, Milk Blood Heat depicts the sultry lives of Floridians in intergenerational tales that contemplate human connection, race, womanhood, inheritance, and the elemental darkness in us all. Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning.

To see her is to want her. To touch her is to crave her. To love her is to give her everything you are. Jasmine has always been the strong one, the person everyone else depends on. She never thought to take care of herself first. But now it's time for her to give over control to someone else. For just one night, she needs to be taken care of in all the ways she deserves and she's going to love every moment. Ian knew this was his opportunity and there was no stopping him. He'd given Jasmine time to understand just how good they would be together, but she’s resisted their attraction. If he ...

In the title story of Walk Between the Raindrops, a woman sits down next to a man at a bar and claims she has ESP. In “Thirteen Days,” passengers on a cruise line are quarantined, to horrifying and hilarious effect. And “Hyena” begins simply: “That was the day the hyena came for him, and never mind that there were no hyenas in the South of France, and especially not in Pont-Saint-Esprit—it was there and it came for him.”

In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals, set among young creatives in the American Midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness.

The heralded Queen of Hip-Hop Lit presents an addictive collection of celebrated urban authors with their fingers on the pulse of the streets. Street lit’s finest female voices—Keisha Starr, Tysha, LaKesa Cox, and Monique S. Hall—deliver searing stories about women who make hard sacrifices to stay on top of their hustle and seize the power, money, and fame they can’t live without.

📖 The Unsent Letter A magical realism novella about an unsent letter, a city that breathes memory, and a man who discovers that some words only find their way when released to the wind. A solitary afternoon. A letter written decades ago. And a moonlit bay where words begin to fly. Carlos keeps a letter he never dared to send. A letter written to Alma, the woman who marked his youth. Years later, an unexpected conversation and the breeze of Valparaíso push him to do the unthinkable: release it to the wind. 🌬️ But unsent letters don't always get lost. Sometimes they wait. And when ...

An approaching alien armada towards Earth typically does not bode well for the inhabitants of the planet. This one is no different. Depending on your perspective.

A stunning new talent in literary fiction, Nafissa Thompson-Spires grapples with black identity and the contemporary middle class in these compelling, boundary-pushing vignettes. Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of new, utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous while others are devastatingly poignant. Thompson-Spires fearlessly shines a light on the simmering tensions and precariousness of black citizenship.

A long-married couple is forced to confront their friend's painful past when a church revival comes to a nearby town ... A woman in an arranged marriage struggles to connect with the son she hid from her husband for years ... A well-meaning sister unwittingly reunites an abuser with his victims. Through an indelible array of lives, Yoon Choi explores where first and second generations either clash or find common ground,

Previously published as Deadly Secrets: Hidden Guilt by Madalena Melchior. SECRET GUILT London, 1905. Under the pretext of retrieving some books he has left behind at Number 221B, Sherlock Holmes temporarily trades his small farm upon the Downs, five miles from Eastbourne, and his beehives, for Baker Street. Before he has time to unpack his Gladstone, however, there's already a client at the door asking for his help with a case. So much for retirement...

Profoundly moving and powerful, the stories in this collection dig deeply into the question of belonging. A young woman is torn between overwhelming love for her mother and the need to break free from her damaging influence during a desperate and disastrous attempt to rescue her brother from foster care. A man, his wife, and his mistress each confront the borders separating love and hate, obligation and longing, on the eve of a flight to San Juan. A college student grapples with the space between chivalry and machismo in a tense encounter involving a nun.

When Desa Rae Jenkins ended her tumultuous relationship with Roc, it seemed like the appropriate thing to do; but now she's second-guessing her decision. Roc moved away to Kansas City, leaving street life back in St. Louis up to the brothas who can handle it. He continues to live his life on the edge, though, and when he returns to St. Louis, Desa Rae shows up at his doorstep to reconcile. Roc is reluctant to go there with the one woman who ripped his heart from his chest.

As a 41-year-old man confronts his own mortality in this collection's title story, he recalls his Spokane Indian father's chilling death from alcoholism and diabetes. Another tale features an eccentric salesman pursuing a married woman from airport to airport. And then there's the film editor who sees nothing wrong with altering footage to fit preconceived views - until he becomes the target of media distortion.

In the title story of Souvankham Thammavongsa's debut collection, a young girl brings a book home from school and asks her father to help her pronounce a tricky word, a simple exchange with unforgettable consequences. Thammavongsa is a master at homing in on moments like this—moments of exposure, dislocation, and messy feeling that push us right up against the limits of language.

Tia, Ton'ya, and Tammi are not only making moves in the game, but they're doing it in the bedroom too - and anywhere they need to get what they want. Tia is quick with her razor-sharp mouth, and she carries an equally sharp razor to slice a throat if need be. Ton'ya is loyal to a fault but will fight back if threatened. Tammi is the brains of the operation. They have collected more bodies than a Manhattan hooker working the lower East Side. What happens when the heart gets in the way of making money?

Living in the same neighborhood sometimes brings people together. Even when there was a time that you thought you had absolutely nothing in common with someone. Damiko was home, fresh off doing a 12-year stretch in the penitentiary. Things had changed drastically. Everybody from the old days were gone. The hood was now run by a bunch of faces that he did not recognize. He did run into two recognizable faces from the days of old though. Mack and Armani. They were not actually friends back in the day, but being the last of a dying breed bought the three together. The three were feeling the ...

In this heart-warming short story, meet wife and mother Eugeena Patterson. Eugeena has always been the glue keeping her fragmented family together. When her teenage daughter is rushed to the hospital, Eugeena’s usual attempts to maintain peace in her family reach a breaking point. Will her troubled teenage daughter rip the family apart?

Temptation can make even the strongest man bend to his knees and forsake everyone else for just one taste. When you combine brown sugar and honey with bourbon whiskey, you get something sweet, sticky, and unforgettable. You experience a flavor that will burst on your tongue and make you fall in love with the taste. She was forbidden. Untouchable. But that didn’t stop Parker's desire for her. He tried to fight the attraction, but something about Kandace kept pulling him closer. Until one day, he knew he could no longer walk away. Parker and Kandace are two people on a collision course. No ...

A celebration of beloved American author Wendell Berry, the five stories in Fidelity return listeners to Berry's fictional town of Port William, Kentucky, and the familiar characters who form a tight-knit community within.