American Short Fiction

This collection is a short-story lover's dream. Included are 17 classic works, representing the finest American writers in the genre. Included are "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville, "The One Million Pound Bank Note" by Mark Twain, "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe, and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving.

The stories in Five-Carat Soul - none of them ever published before - spring from the place where identity, humanity, and history converge. They’re funny and poignant, insightful and unpredictable, imaginative and authentic - all told with McBride’s unrivaled storytelling skill and meticulous eye for character and detail. McBride explores the ways we learn from the world and the people around us. An antiques dealer discovers that a legendary toy commissioned by Civil War General Robert E. Lee now sits in the home of a black minister in Queens.

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. ...

"Dizzy & Gillespie" unfolds as an emotionally rich mystery, intertwining the lives of a devoted daughter and her aging mother. Within their once-grand, now-fading New York City apartment, they face the relentless challenges of poverty, the encroaching tides of gentrification, and the relentless passage of time. Their bond, tested by life's struggles and their community's transformation, finds a glimmer of hope with the arrival of two rescue kittens, Dizzy and Gillespie. However, the actions of a new neighbor soon set off a chain of events that will alter their lives forever. This story ...

A vibrant debut story collection—poignant, unflinching, and immersive—masterfully moving between sharp wit and profound tenderness, Guatemalan Rhapsody offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of an ever-changing country, the people who claim it as home, and those who no longer do. Ranging from a custodian at an underfunded college to a medicine man living in a temple dedicated to San Simon, the patron saint of alcohol and cigarettes, the characters in these stories find themselves at defining moments in their lives, where sacrifices may be required of them, by them, or for them.

The small town of Keatchie, Louisiana is growing and the town's folks are falling in love and learning to live by faith. In each of these books, you'll meet members of the Faltime Baptist Church and get a peek into their lives. About: INTENSE She’s been sidelined. And she’s wanting love just as much as me. I feel her… The pain of her past, The fear of letting another person in, And as much as I should be stuck, especially after what I witnessed, I find myself wondering about her story. I understand… The woman I wanted to love is too broken to let anyone in. She was bruised and bent ...

This year’s selection of science fiction and fantasy stories, chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and bestselling author of the Divergent series Veronica Roth, showcases a crop of authors that are willing to experiment and tantalize readers with new takes on classic themes and by exchanging the ordinary for the avant-garde. Folktales and lore come alive, the dead rise, the depths of space are traversed, and magic threads itself through singular moments of love and loss, illuminating the circulatory nature of life, death, the in-between, and the hereafter.

Since last Halloween, Kindle and Ebony have experienced the unexpected. Now, more than ever, both women need the men they only get to share their worlds with once a year. One evening, three beautiful, eerie young ladies appear at Kindle's door. They offer a solution to her and Ebony’s problems. Skeptically, Kindle finds it strange the three are already in the loop about what's going on with her and Ebony. As time spent with the love of their lives dwindles, Kindle and Ebony have a hard decision to make. Because this Halloween, neither can fathom another year to recur before seeing LP and ...

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 listeners learn about the early traditions which have led to our present-day celebration of Thanksgiving.

With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story and instantly became both the recognized master of the form and one of our best-loved fiction writers. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.

Like Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, Sidik Fofana’s electrifying collection of eight interconnected stories showcases the strengths, struggles, and hopes of one residential community in a powerful storytelling experience. Each short story follows a tenant in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone’s mind. We root for these characters and more as they weave in and out of each other’s lives, endeavoring to escape from their pasts and blaze new paths forward for themselves and the people they love.

📖 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 ...

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 ...

“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 ...

Velcro & Zippers originally appeared in the literary journal Raven Chronicles. It is also available on Kindle and in print as part of the collection Easy Money & Other Stories. True love is sweet, but it's not always meant to last. "He looked at her beautiful face and breasts, her firm abdomen, all striped by bands of light and shadow, wondering what she was doing with him, why she had stayed as long as she had. He reached across the table and touched her cheek with his fingertips, then leaned forward and kissed her lips. He sat back. She smiled." A short read with a subtle impact.

En Barcelona, una prostituta que va entrando en la vejez entrena a su perro para llorar ante la tumba que ha escogido para sí misma. En Viena, una mujer se vale de su don de ver el futuro para convertirse en la adivina de una familia rica. En Ginebra, el conductor de una ambulancia y su esposa acogen al abandonado y aparentemente moribundo ex presidente de un país caribeño, solo para descubrir que sus ambiciones políticas siguen intactas.

Henry Dumas' fiction is a masterful synthesis of myth and religion, culture and nature, mask and identity. From the Deep South to the simmering streets of Harlem, his characters embark on surreal and mythic quests armed only with wit, words, and wisdom. Championed by Toni Morrison, Walter Mosley, and Quincy Troupe, Dumas' books have long been out of print. All of his short fiction is collected here, for the first time, and includes several previously unpublished stories.

Paul Tremblay has won widespread acclaim for illuminating the dark horrors of the mind in novels and stories that push the boundaries of storytelling itself. The fifteen pieces in this brilliant collection, The Beast You Are, are all monsters of a kind, ready to loudly (and lovingly) smash through your head and into your heart.

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,