short stories

The Pulitzer winner talks about the two great loves of her life: her children and her writing. 'With young children, the days can be rather mercurial.'

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (lovingly– and mercifully– abbreviated as F&SF wherever possible) is a digest-sized (think Reader’s Digest or Prevention, or the old TV Guide) magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy short stories, book and movie reviews, an occasional related non-fiction article, and cartoons.

A collection of very, very short stories by Rick Walton

The fifth annual Million Writers Award goes to the best online short story. This year's award is again sponsored by the Edit Red Writing Community. The award will be open for nominations from March 1st through March 31st.

To wrap up Short Story Week here at The Millions, we conducted an informal poll of our contributors, asking them to name their favorite English-language short story collections. The results form a kind of subjective bibliography, a personal pantheon of 45 favorite collections.

Author Robert Olen Butler is about to publish a book of short stories imagining the sexual encounters of famous couples. He claims that the book is “not really about the fitting together of the bodies” but is “a rendering of the inner consciences of these people.” I dunno…Santa and a female elf? Says more about the author’s inner conscience if you ask me.

For a year, Jeffrey Eugenides read nothing but love stories in order to select the best for an anthology. With the tormented poet Catullus as his guide, he went from Chekhov to Nabokov to Alice Munro and discovered that the greatest works depend on disappointment, boredom and broken hearts. A review of My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro.

A short little news flash about what might be—as the post's title proposes—the best anthology ever. And if it’s not, what would make it so in your opinion?

Feel you have a cat story meowing and scratching to be typed out? Well, wait no longer than until Feb 29th. The Cat Magazine in the UK is offering a short story competition. Suggested themes are: comical cats, courageous cats and true tales!

After the last child reached for the golden ring and descended from painted wooden horses, after the music stopped playing and the world stopped spinning, after the shops closed their doors and the crowds returned home, Damien Fry sat alone.