American Short Fiction

Seamlessly transitioning between the absurd and the tenderhearted, balancing acerbic humor with sharp emotional depth, Afterparties offers an expansive portrait of the lives of Cambodian Americans. As the children of refugees carve out radical new paths for themselves in California, they shoulder the inherited weight of the Khmer Rouge genocide and grapple with the complexities of race, sexuality, friendship, and family.

About STRUGGLE She has always seen me for who I am… Not what I was trying to be. And it frightens me that despite the things I’ve gone through, she still seems to be waiting on me. My struggles caused me to run from her, but her love stayed solid. Even when I turned my back on her and left her holding to fend for herself, she never gave up on me. Most women would never want the challenge of being with a man who’s decided to do the total opposite of what the world feels is right. But she’s convinced… Her God told her that I was her husband and she doesn’t care what I’ve done, ...

Young, impressionable Aubrey is fascinated by the enigmatic Lord Ruthven, and accompanies him on a tour to Europe. But Aubrey develops a growing distaste for Lord Ruthven’s sinister and grotesque conduct - especially as it concerns human blood. This novella, penned during that tempestuous night in Switzerland amongst such notables as Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley, served as the great inspiration for Bram Stoker to create Dracula.

I never thought I'd be the kind of guy to obsess over a woman, but then I saw her behind the candy shop counter. Her bright blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and bubbly personality make everyone around her smile. I know she’s out of my league, but I can't help myself. So, I start watching her every move. I guess you could say I’m stalking her. But I can’t help it because Emily is my obsession, and somehow I’ve got to make her mine.

"Her immediate concern was money." So begins the first story in Manuel Muñoz's dazzling new collection. In it, Delfina has moved from Texas to California's Central Valley with her husband and small son, and her isolation and desperation force her to take a risk that ends in profound betrayal.

In the collection's title story, a pack of girls raised by wolves are painstakingly reeducated by nuns. In "Haunting Olivia", two young boys make midnight trips to a boat graveyard in search of their dead sister, who set sail in the exoskeleton of a giant crab. In "Sleepaway Camp for Disordered Dreamers", a boy whose dreams foretell implacable tragedies is sent to a summer camp for troubled sleepers (Cabin 1, Narcoleptics; Cabin 2, Sleep Apneics; Cabin 3, Somnambulists . . . ).

In a daring and fierce debut work of fiction - the likes of which comes along once in a generation - Virginia’s landscapes, emblems, and Thomas Jefferson’s historic plantation set the stage for a cast of unforgettable characters fighting for their right to exist in America. Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging.

N. K. Jemisin is one of the most powerful and acclaimed speculative fiction authors of our time. In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, Jemisin equally challenges and delights listeners with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption.

A short read (very short - 21 pages) set in January 1921 in New York City. Join Sadie Brown, investigative reporter, and Roger Siebert, photographer, on their picture-perfect honeymoon. At least it started out as perfect. But, when a large steamer trunk mysteriously appears in their honeymoon suite, it's the beginning of a cozy mystery. The strange trunk and its even stranger owner draw the newlyweds into a scheme involving stolen goods, a ransom note, and blackmail.

The stories in This Is How You Lose Her, by turns hilarious and devastating, raucous and tender, lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weaknesses of our all-too-human hearts. They capture the heat of new passion, the recklessness with which we betray what we most treasure, and the torture we go through - "the begging, the crawling over glass, the crying" - to try to mend what we've broken beyond repair. They recall the echoes that intimacy leaves behind, even where we thought we did not care.

He’s everything I prayed for, but Brody’s too good to be true. Majesty Millions-Jones I came back to Logansport Rivers, to rebuild my Nana’s house and my life. Running with bands, singing in clubs, and bad relationships has finally taken a toll on me. All I want is a good country living, filled with memories and what my grandmother loved; Jesus, singing, cows, and corn. Yet, I’m getting more than I bargained for… Brody Lane. Brody Lane She’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And I remember the summer I vowed to make her mine. She was fifteen; I was nineteen, and ...

Ivy desires to be loved unconditionally. Asher does not. Maybe they can come to a compromise to make a relationship work—or perhaps not. When Ivy and Asher meet by chance at the airport, they never realized what was in store for their future. Ivy's career path led her to New York because of her job. She's happy because she gets to hang out with her friends Madison, Noelle, and Shelby, but on the other hand, Ivy is sad to leave Georgia, a place consistent in her life and the only place she has ever known. A change is good right? The move could be perfect. It could be the beginning of ...

Marvelous creations, including a short story set in the world of The Matrix and others set in the worlds of gothic fiction and children's fiction, can be found in this extraordinary collection, which showcases Gaiman's storytelling brilliance as well as his entertaining (and dark) sense of humor.

From the universally acclaimed author of Breath, Eyes, Memory and Krik? Krak!, a brilliant, deeply moving work of fiction that explores the world of a "dew breaker", a torturer, a man whose brutal crimes in the country of his birth lie hidden beneath his new American reality.

"I would love to go down on your wife." I am convinced. My husband, is nuts. How else could you explain him fixing his lips to encourage me to have sex with a woman, who is also a stranger... ON OUR ANNIVERSARY? What kind of woman does he think I am? I’ve never been interested in being with a woman and I never will be… I don't care how much he begs me. I don't care how much SHE begs me... Still, there's something about this breathtakingly gorgeous, mysterious woman that is intriguing. As much as I want to tell her to go to hell and reject her... As much as I want to deny my husband his ...

Hot Water Music is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, published in 1983. The collection deals largely with: drinking, women, gambling, and writing. It is an important collection that establishes Bukowski's minimalist style and his thematic oeuvre.

African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of enslaved people narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives.

Queen Torah- had delivered only stillborn princes to her husband. She decides that she will choose a lady for her husband to have sons with. Their children will be legitimized by the council. Only after any children she gives him. Her plan does not go as she thought it to. Leaving animosity and hostility in it’s wake. King Jerrold- wants no parts of his wife’s plan. He has never had an affair and would not start now. But, he loves his wife and seeks to make her happy. So he goes along with it. Finding that he is beginning to have a care for the lady chosen by his wife, he is left to ...

Havana, 1939: It’s opening night at the famed Tropicana nightclub. Cuban American college student Natalie Trainer, on vacation from Miami, is watching from the sidelines—as usual. Then comes an invitation to dance from a handsome stranger named Antonio. Normally cautious and reserved, Natalie somehow finds herself saying yes. A tiny thrill of rebellion, of taking a chance, and Natalie’s in heaven. Will her first step into this unfamiliar realm set a new course for her life, or only tonight?

Rebecca- is wealthy and lives between two worlds. The one that she has been raised in and the one that draws her. Her link to that world is her best friend Lateef. She is in a relationship that has been chosen for her by her family. She wants to be the good girl and make her family proud, but will she be able to satisfy them and still be herself. Cruise- is the last hope for his family's failing business. He wants to be his own man, but he also doesn't want to see all his family worked for lost. He is torn between the woman and life he wants and the one that will save his family name. ...