Best Debut Short Stories 2022

Best Debut Short Stories 2022
Author:
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2022-09-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1646221648

The essential annual guide to the newest voices in short fiction, selected this year by Deesha Philyaw, Emily Nemens, and Sabrina Orah Mark This anthology celebrates the most recent winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes twelve writers who have made outstanding fiction debuts in literary magazines. This year’s selections were made by Sabrina Orah Mark, Emily Nemens, and Deesha Philyaw. The stories in Best Debut Short Stories 2022 explore the dangers and possibilities of protest in Multan, Pakistan, in 1978; in the well-to-do neighborhoods of Melbourne, Australia, at the end of the millennium; and in the outskirts of Ramallah, Palestine, in the present day. They describe toxic homes and precarious lives and refuge sought in unlikely places: a bowling alley, a work affair, a noisy club, a neoclassical sanatorium, a school-turned-hostel near a flooded brownfield. They feature a pork bun made with a perfect spiral of dough, a bucket of eggs swarmed by crows, a drink made of chilled chicken blood and rose water, and a pale pink worm with five hearts who lives at the edge of the universe. Each story is accompanied by a letter from the editor who first published it, providing insight about what's new and exciting in fiction today and recognizing the vital work of literary journals in nurturing new voices in literature.

Best Debut Short Stories 2022

Best Debut Short Stories 2022
Author:
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2022-09-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 164622163X

The essential annual guide to the newest voices in short fiction, selected this year by Deesha Philyaw, Emily Nemens, and Sabrina Orah Mark This anthology celebrates the most recent winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes twelve writers who have made outstanding fiction debuts in literary magazines. This year’s selections were made by Sabrina Orah Mark, Emily Nemens, and Deesha Philyaw. The stories in Best Debut Short Stories 2022 explore the dangers and possibilities of protest in Multan, Pakistan, in 1978; in the well-to-do neighborhoods of Melbourne, Australia, at the end of the millennium; and in the outskirts of Ramallah, Palestine, in the present day. They describe toxic homes and precarious lives and refuge sought in unlikely places: a bowling alley, a work affair, a noisy club, a neoclassical sanatorium, a school-turned-hostel near a flooded brownfield. They feature a pork bun made with a perfect spiral of dough, a bucket of eggs swarmed by crows, a drink made of chilled chicken blood and rose water, and a pale pink worm with five hearts who lives at the edge of the universe. Each story is accompanied by a letter from the editor who first published it, providing insight about what's new and exciting in fiction today and recognizing the vital work of literary journals in nurturing new voices in literature.

Best Debut Short Stories 2021

Best Debut Short Stories 2021
Author:
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2021-08-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 164622079X

The annual—and essential—collection of the newest voices in short fiction, selected this year by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, and Beth Piatote. Who are the most promising short story writers working today? Where do we look to discover the future stars of literary fiction? This book will offer a dozen answers to these questions. The stories collected here represent the most recent winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes twelve writers who have made outstanding debuts in literary magazines in the previous year. They are chosen by a panel of distinguished judges, themselves innovators of the short story form: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, and Beth Piatote. Each piece comes with an introduction by its original editors, whose commentaries provide valuable insight into what magazines are looking for in their submissions, and showcase the vital work they do to nurture literature's newest voices.

PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018

PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018
Author: Yuka Igarashi
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2018-08-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1936787938

THE ESSENTIAL YEARLY GUIDE TO THE NEWEST VOICES IN SHORT FICTION "A book of gems, each one carrying its own particular clarity and cut, that teaches students of writing how limitless the short story form can be." —Marie–Helene Bertino, author of 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018 celebrates twelve outstanding stories by today’s most promising new fiction writers and the literary magazines that discovered them. The characters within these pages include a college dropout dressed up as Hercules at Disney World; a college graduate playing a prostitute in a ghost town in Montana; a father from Trinidad leading a double life on a temporary visa; and a housewife in Taipei perfectly performing her familial and marital duties while harboring secret desires. This year’s selections were made by three award–winning writers, themselves innovators of the short story form: Jodi Angel, Lesley Nneka Arimah, and Alexandra Kleeman. Each work is accompanied by commentary from the editors who first published it, explaining what made the piece stand out from the submissions pile, and why they were moved to share it with readers.

Best Debut Short Stories 2020

Best Debut Short Stories 2020
Author: Yuka Igarashi
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2020-08-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1646220234

The essential annual guide to the newest voices in short fiction, selected this year by Tracy O’Neill, Nafissa Thompson–Spires, and Deb Olin Unferth Who are the most promising short story writers working today? Where do we look to discover the future stars of literary fiction? This book will offer a dozen compelling answers to these questions. The stories collected here represent the most recent winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes twelve writers who have made outstanding debuts in literary magazines in the previous year. They are chosen by a panel of distinguished judges, themselves innovators of the short story form: Tracy O’Neill, Nafissa Thompson–Spires, and Deb Olin Unferth. Each piece comes with an introduction by its original editors, whose commentaries provide valuable insight into what magazines are looking for in their submissions, and showcase the vital work they do to nurture literature’s newest voices.

Best Debut Short Stories 2023

Best Debut Short Stories 2023
Author: Sarah Lyn Rogers
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2023-09-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1646222016

The essential annual guide to the newest voices in literature Selected by Venita Blackburn, Richard Chiem, and Dantiel W. Moniz Best Debut Short Stories is an annual celebration of the most promising short story writers today. Selected by a panel of distinguished judges, these twelve stories are the 2023 winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes each writer’s outstanding debut in a literary magazine. The stories in this anthology encompass fraught family gatherings, death, inheritance, reproduction and birth, translation, secrets, and betrayals. They show us what we would rather not face: a grandmother’s repeated resurrection, the loss of a child, a family’s excuses for a predator. They direct our attention away from fluorescence and to the natural world: iguanas climbing into beds, a reflection in an orange, sweat like rain drops, gossamer petals, a child named Ant. They question how well we can ever know other people: partners reconsidering each other on the brink of divorce, an imaginary roommate. They remind us that some questions have no perfect answer: Why pretend not to understand someone in need? What can anyone do with anxieties over becoming a parent? This year’s stories were selected by judges Venita Blackburn, Richard Chiem, and Dantiel W. Moniz, innovators of the short story form. Each story is accompanied by an introduction from the journal editor who first published it, providing insight about what’s exciting in fiction right now, and recognizing the vital work literary magazines do in nurturing new voices.

COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2022

COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2022
Author: Mark Wish
Publisher: Coolest Stories Press
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2022-01-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1737573911

America's most talented storytellers share their most courageous, compelling, unputdownable work in a collection made for story lovers. Praised early on by Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk author Ben Fountain and The Weight of Blood author Laura McHugh, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES is a new annual short story anthology whose guiding philosophy is that a collection of interesting "full meal" short stories could, as one @JustCoolStories Twitter follower put it, "make America cool again." Toward this end, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2022 features a previously unpublished story by the multi-major-book-award-winning author of Blacktop Wasteland S. A. Cosby; the timeless, previously unpublished short story that led Tina Brown to sign Frances Park's When My Sister Was Cleopatra Moon; and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lee Martin's heartfelt rendering of married life that apparently was too startling for the editors of several university-affiliated literary magazines. And since interesting storytelling―rather than a list of publishing credits―matters most to story-hungry readers, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2022 also includes a page-turner about dating in Hollywood written by MFA student Megan Ritchie; Brooklyn native D.Z. Stone's very first published fiction, a hilarious love story that celebrates the power of women; a heartbreaking account of adult siblinghood authored by David Ebenbach―among others in this treasure trove of unputdownable, sharply written, sometimes comic, sometimes frightening, always suspenseful stories loaded with twists and turns. "Coolest American Stories 2022 is a helluva lot of fun. These stories bump and brim with rambunctious energy and show that the American short story is alive and well. Many thanks to Mark Wish and Elizabeth Coffey for this breath―or let's call it a gale―of fresh literary air." --Ben Fountain, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk "Extraordinarily rich storytelling from fresh, vibrant voices―Coolest American Stories promises to be an annual force." --Laura McHugh, internationally bestselling author of The Weight of Blood and What’s Done in Darkness "Love short stories? This collection is for you. Not yet sure how to feel about short stories? This collection is definitely for you. Whoever you are, wherever you are: read these stories!" --Lori Ostlund, Flannery O’Connor Award winner and author of After the Parade and The Bigness of the World

The Best Short Stories 2022

The Best Short Stories 2022
Author: Valeria Luiselli
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2022-09-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593467558

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The prestigious annual story anthology includes prize-winning stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Lorrie Moore, Olga Tokarczuk, Joseph O'Neill, and Samanta Schweblin. "Widely regarded as the nation's most prestigious awards for short fiction." —The Atlantic Monthly Continuing a century-long tradition of cutting-edge literary excellence, this year's edition contains twenty prizewinning stories chosen from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year. Guest editor Valeria Luiselli has brought her own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and emerging voices and including stories in translation from Bengali, Greek, Hebrew, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, and Spanish. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Luiselli, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction. AN ANCHOR BOOKS ORIGINAL. THE WINNING STORIES: “Screen Time,” by Alejandro Zambra, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell “The Wolves of Circassia,” by Daniel Mason “Mercedes’s Special Talent,” by Tere Dávila, translated from the Spanish by Rebecca Hanssens-Reed “Rainbows,” by Joseph O’Neill “A Way with Bea,” by Shanteka Sigers “Seams,” by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft “The Little Widow from the Capital,” by Yohanca Delgado “Lemonade,” by Eshkol Nevo, translated from the Hebrew by Sondra Silverston “Breastmilk,” by ‘Pemi Aguda “The Old Man of Kusumpur,” by Amar Mitra, translated from the Bengali by Anish Gupta “Where They Always Meet,” by Christos Ikonomou, translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich “Fish Stories,” by Janika Oza “Horse Soup,” by Vladimir Sorokin, translated from the Russian by Max Lawton “Clean Teen,” by Francisco González “Dengue Boy,” by Michel Nieva, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer “Zikora,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie “Apples,” by Gunnhild Øyehaug, translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson “Warp and Weft,” by David Ryan “Face Time,” by Lorrie Moore “An Unlucky Man,” by Samanta Schweblin, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell

Disasters in the First World

Disasters in the First World
Author: Olivia Clare
Publisher: Grove Press
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802189571

“Olivia Clare is pure literary dynamite . . . [She] writes with Carveresque clarity and bite and an elegance all her own. A bravura debut.” —Janet Fitch, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of White Oleander Olivia Clare’s delightfully strange and tender debut collection traces the impact of larger-than-life forces on everyday people. From siblings whose relationship is as fragile as glass, to a woman grappling with both an emotional and physical drought, to a superstitious spouse fearful of misfortune, Disasters in the First World explores the real and the imagined, environmental and man-made calamities, and the human need to comprehend the unknown. “These insightful stories . . . flout convention and work in mysterious ways. Two in particular—‘Pétur’ and ‘The Visigoths’—will probably be anthologized and taught and cherished for years to come. They’re so well crafted . . . [they] flicker with moments of rare insight and nuance . . . makes me want to pick up whatever Clare publishes next.” —Andrew Ervin, The New York Times Book Review “Lyrical and elegiac . . . Clare’s writing sparkles with unexpected word choice . . . Her stories unfold in wonderfully astonishing turns . . . Tender yet occasionally biting, Disasters in the First World ekes narrative poetry out of tragedy . . . Clare writes compassionately and unflinchingly about mental suffering.” —Shelf Awareness “Olivia Clare’s debut collection will surprise you with its poetic weirdness, its dark confidence. The ‘disasters’ in these stories are tragically indefinite, fissures in the lives of the characters, whom Clare brings to life with humor, wisdom, and brutal honesty.” —Vu Tran, author of Dragonfish

The Best Possible Experience

The Best Possible Experience
Author: Nishanth Injam
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2024-07-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593470230

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR • An emotionally rich collection of short stories, painting a fascinating portrait of contemporary India and its diaspora and a yearning rendering of the people and places we call home, from a major new literary talent. “A full-hearted, brilliant debut of necessary beauty.” —Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars and New York Times bestseller Friday Black "Injam's stories made me want to cast all else aside and return home.” —Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning Vivid, vibrant, and unwaveringly affecting, The Best Possible Experience brings us intimate, impeccably realized accounts of individuals living in one of the most populous countries in the world and in its American diaspora—all haunted, in every sense of the word, by a loss of home. Classically elegant in prose and consistently modern in outlook, Nishanth Injam’s stories ques­tion what it means to have a home and to return home, and show, above all, that home is not a place so much as it is people who are ready to accept you as you are. We see a young man trapped on a bus on the way to visit his parents as his fellow pas­sengers vanish into the restroom. A family, newly in America, determined to host a perfect luncheon for their son’s white classmate—with no idea what to serve him. A woman who returns to a small vil­lage in India every summer to visit the grandfather who raised her, a man who lives with the ghosts of his son and his wife. And a man preparing for his green card interview with the American woman he has paid to marry him. A sui generis talent, Injam first started writing after coming to the United States from India in his twenties. The Best Possible Experience, his profoundly personal debut collection, delivers a universal in­quiry into the idea of belonging and preserves in writing the home he left behind, before it was lost