American Fiction Short Stories

"In a world where loyalty and survival clash, Shaylean finds herself caught between family drama and the enticing lifestyle of Detroit Black and his father, the notorious 'Johnny the Party Maker.' Struggling to escape her sister Sandy's anger and desperate for a fresh start, she gets swept up in a whirlwind of cash, secrets, and unexpected alliances. As she navigates this new path, Bobby, a soldier stationed in Vietnam, holds onto thoughts of her, hoping to return to a life that seems further out of reach. In the backdrop of money, power, and past lives, each character must find their place...

A Spicy BWWM Interracial Romance Jazmine: Of all the things I thought I would be doing at twenty-four, hiring a male escort was not one of them, but it was the only thing I could think of to help me prepare for my big date and little did I know, how life-changing it would be. Daniel: I tried to tell myself that she was just a client but she wasn't. The moment I saw Jazmine, I knew what I was feeling was different. I didn't want to be her practice, I wanted her to be mine. A Spicy & Sweet Interracial Love Story Love Practice is a steamy interracial instalove romance that will make the ...

Kyron Santos, Kaylin's older brother, was used by Tasha Macklin to get back at Trae for his infidelities, a relationship that ultimately ended in pregnancy, murder, broken relationships, and mistrust. No one knew about the court-ordered sessions that Kyron was forced to attend. At least not until Mari, his woman who stuck by him throughout the majority of his prison bid, dropped the recordings off to Trae Macklin, Tasha's husband.

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.

We have gathered between these pages. To bring you stories of love, murder, deception, and redemption. Untethered by a single plot but molded as one in pen. With seeds planted in EyeCU Reading & Chatting's weekly writing challenges, and nurtured with inspiration from its founder Ebony Evans, our creativity blossomed. We present this bouquet!

Nathaniel is a well-intentioned, if naive, British cleric feeling blessed to educate a West African village about the benevolent power of God. But as slavers encroach, Nathaniel’s endeavor is daunted by the realities unfolding on the beautiful homeland of his congregation. It seems the Devil has power too. What follows for Nathaniel is a profound spiritual upheaval as he questions his purpose and even his humanity.

Set in Northern New Mexico, an astonishing, beautifully rendered debut about living in a landscape shaped by love, loss, and violence. With intensity, dark humor, and emotional precision, Kirstin Valdez Quade's unforgettable stories plunge us into the fierce, troubled hearts of characters torn between their desires to escape the past and to plumb its depths.

Shannon Sanders’s sparkling debut brings us into the company of the Collins family and their acquaintances as they meet, bicker, compete, celebrate, worry, keep and reveal secrets, build lives and careers, and endure. Moving from Atlantic City to New York to DC, from the 1960s to the 2000s, from law students to drag performers to violinists to matriarchs, Company tells a multifaceted, multigenerational saga in thirteen stories.

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?

A northern white couple has relocated to the South to operate a vineyard on a North Carolina plantation. There, they pass their idle hours listening to the stories of one Uncle Julius, who has a deep knowledge of the land. These stories, however, are more than mere entertainments. They all have their time and place, and they offer not only a quiet commentary on the events of the day but also a deeper reckoning with the plantation’s disturbing past.

“CHILLING HISTORICAL HORROR” “Wildly imaginative” A delicious mix of history, horror, and love. Three early American gothic tales, including America’s last witch trial in 1730, the birth of the Jersey Devil in 1735, and the true origin of the Headless Horseman in 1776. In 1730 Ben Franklin published a story about a witch trial in Mount Holly, in The Pennsylvania Gazette. But did he tell the complete story, or was it a coverup of more sinister and frightening events? Emmet, an aspiring reporter, takes his first assignment for Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette and travels to New ...

Afice is the last of nine generations of women who have survived enslavement, sickness, and hunger. Alone at age seventeen, she sets out through the Louisiana swamps to follow the trail of her ancestors and hear their songs anew. On this journey, Afice must decide how to honor her ancestors while embracing her own future.

In ancient mythology, the Titan Prometheus was punished by the gods for bringing man the gift of fire - an event that set humankind on its course of knowledge. As punishment, Prometheus was bound to a rock. But in The Gift of Fire, those chains cease to be, and the great champion of man walks from that immortal prison into present-day South Central Los Angeles. Disheveled and lost, he is thrown in jail, where he meets lifelong criminal Nosome Blane....

“Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,” writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. “The most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.” The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises.

Detroit Life After 15 Years: Volume 7 In the gripping seventh installment of the Detroit Life After 15 Years series, tensions reach a fever pitch as old grudges ignite and new alliances form in the unforgiving streets of Detroit. As the city’s underworld continues to evolve, characters grapple with shifting loyalties and the harsh consequences of their actions. From explosive confrontations to heart-wrenching betrayals, this volume dives deep into the complexities of survival in a world where trust is scarce and danger lurks around every corner. Secrets long buried are unearthed, and ...

The Snow family continues to push through their issues, until Pastor Snow takes a special interest in a prostitute named Candy. His wife, Lady Snow is dying of cancer and that doesn't seem to make him cut ties with Candy, although his reputation is on the line. Will the family have another meltdown or will they persevere? A Christian Fiction Novella that offers healing, deliverance, and restoration.

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 ...

From the royal wedding to boring airplane companions, Samuel Beckett to Margaret Thatcher, "senior moments" to life as a waitress, Maeve's Times gives us wonderful insight into a changing Ireland as it celebrates the work of one of our best-loved writers in all its diversity - revealing her characteristic directness, laugh-out-loud humor, and unswerving gaze into the true heart of a matter.

In this eye-opening short story, a tech reporter’s mistake unites two women eight thousand miles apart. One in New Jersey, one in the Philippines. Same name: Sandra Guzman. Same job: content moderators for a mega social media website. What transpires between them is a friendship that changes their perceptions of each other’s privilege and challenges the power of the very industry they work for.

A striking mosaic of prose, poetry, and dramatic dialogue, Jean Toomer’s Cane has come to be considered a masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance. Structured as a series of vignettes ripe with longing, passion, violence, and revenge, the haunting novel gives a powerful voice to the interior lives of African Americans in the rural South and urban North. Championed for its unsparing honesty and psychological insight by such luminaries as Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, and Maya Angelou, Cane shines as a beacon to generations of African-American writers.