• THIS WEEK'S STORY In A World of Small Truths Ray Morrison Press 53 “Laid To Rest” “Laid to Rest” is from Ray Morrison’s debut story collection, IN A WORLD OF SMALL TRUTHS (Press 53, 2012).  His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Fiction Southeast, Ecotone, Aethlon, Carve Magazine, Word Riot, Night Train, and others. He won first prize in the Short Story category of the 2011 Press 53 Open Awards.  ...Read More

• My Escapee: Stories Corinna Vallianatos University of Massachusetts Press “My Escapee” “My Escapee” is from Corinna Vallianatos’s debut collection, My Escapee: Stories (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012), winner of the 2011 AWP Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, selected by Jhumpa Lahiri.   Vallianatos’s stories have appeared in Tin House, McSweeney’s, A Public Space, Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere, and included as one of “100 Other Distinguished ...Read More

• Little Raw Souls Steven Schwartz Autumn House Press “Absolute Zero” “Absolute Zero” is from Steven Schwartz’s collection LITTLE RAW SOULS (Autumn House Press, 2013).  Schwartz is the author of two previous story collections, To Leningrad in Winter and Lives of the Fathers, and two novels, Therapy and A Good Doctor’s Son. His writing has received the Nelson Algren Award, the Colorado Book Award for the ...Read More

• Something In My Eye Michael Jeffrey Lee Sarabande Books “If We Should Ever Meet” “If We Should Ever Meet” is from Michael Jeffrey Lee’s debut collection, SOMETHING IN MY EYE (Sarabande Books, 2012), winner of the 2010 Mary McCarthy prize in short fiction selected by Francine Prose.  Lee lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he earns his living as a typist, a waiter, and a nightclub singer. A frequent ...Read More

• I Want To Show You More Jamie Quatro Grove/Atlantic “Georgia The Whole Time” “Georgia The Whole Time” is from Jamie Quatro’s debut story collection, I Want To Show You More (Grove, 2013).  The collection was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and an Indie Next pick for March 2013. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The O.Henry Prize Stories, The Kenyon Review, Tin House, Ploughshares, McSweeney’s, ...Read More

• Little Sinners and Other Stories Karen Brown University of Nebraska Press “Passing” “Passing” is from Karen Brown’s second collection, LITTLE SINNERS AND OTHER STORIES (University of Nebraska Press, 2012).   The collection received the 2011 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction.  Her first collection of stories, PINS AND NEEDLES, received AWP’s Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction and was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2007. ...Read More

• Godforsaken Idaho Shawn Vestal New Harvest “Families Are Forever!” “Families Are Forever!” is from Shawn Vestal’s debut collection, GODFORSAKEN IDAHO (New Harvest, 2013).  Vestal’s first published story appeared in McSweeney’s in 2007 and since then his work has appeared in Tin House, American Short Fiction, Ecotone and elsewhere.   Vestal said this about the origin of his story:  “What’s with all this lying?”  That’s ...Read More

• There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself Ludmilla Petrushevskaya Penguin “A Murky Fate” “A Murky Fate,” is from Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s new collection THERE ONCE LIVED A GIRL WHO SEDUCED HER SISTER’S HUSBAND, AND HE HANGED HIMSELF,” slyly subtitled “Love Stories” (Penguin, 2012). These 17 tales have been selected and translated by Anna Summers.   Petrushevskaya was born in Moscow in 1938 and is the only indisputable canonical writer ...Read More

Top 10 Lists

Shawn Vestal’s debut collection, GODFORSAKEN IDAHO, was released in 2013. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s, Tin House and elsewhere. He said: It was awfully hard, once the choosing began, to choose just 10. I picked stories that expanded my view of the form when I first encountered them, as well as stories I find myself rereading repeatedly. I also omitted certain stories that I assume we all must love without reservation if we are to be decent human animals, such as Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” or Chekov’s “The Lady with the Dog. “Bullet in the Brain,” for obvious reasons, is structurally daring, and opened up my concept of how a story might manipulate the order of a life, and how boldly a voice could reach for omniscience. Each of my choices has that kind of a resonance for me.

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