Modern American Short Story

In the past 50 years, the American short story has changed dramatically. New voices, forms, and mixtures of genres have brought this unique US genre a thrilling burst of energy. This rich anthology celebrates this avalanche of talent. Beginning in 1970, it culls together a half century of powerful American short stories from all genres, including - for the first time in a literary anthology - science fiction, horror, and fantasy.

Every city has a story. Some will chill you long after the last page. From the neon glow of Las Vegas to the haunted tunnels beneath New York, America hides dark secrets in every skyline. This gripping anthology dives into 50 terrifying urban legends, each rooted in real locations, whispered folklore, and chilling mysteries that refuse to stay buried. 👻 Inside, you’ll discover: • Ghostly apparitions roaming iconic landmarks • Cursed objects and sinister doppelgängers • Unexplainable creatures lurking in lakes and alleyways • Vanished souls who demand to be remembered • ...

Featured in the Netflix series Love, Death & Robots Bestselling author Ken Liu selects his multiple award-winning stories for a groundbreaking collection—including a brand-new piece exclusive to this volume. With his debut novel, The Grace of Kings, taking the literary world by storm, Ken Liu...

A dazzling debut, a blazingly original voice: the ten stories in St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves introduce a radiant new talent. 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...

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.

Ange doesn't expect to find love, after all her past relationships with men have been farcical at best. Her past experiences have left her already fragile self-esteem in tatters.There wasn't much to begin with. She'd never expect a playboy businessman to give her a second look. But, then again she never expected to find herself in a lounge tapping her feet to music. After all she's a frumpy little accountant whose idea of a good time is a great mystery and her favorite tub of icecream on a Friday night. So, What would a hot male specimen with his pick of women want with her? She doesn't ...

Deep within the cold, primordial forest and the Algonquin people's consciousness lives the Wendigo: a towering, emaciated being with translucent skin draped over its skeletal frame like a veil of mortality. Its hollow eyes gleam like fiery coals, emanating a malevolent crimson glow that mirrors its unquenchable craving for human flesh. An extraterrestrial shifter, stranded on our planet millennia ago, assumes the forms of not only humans but also hideous creatures in order to survive. The story of the Wendigo spans millennia, entwining native folklore with modern-day mysteries.

Ashely Williams is down on her luck. Swimming in debt, her baby daddy won’t pay child support, and broke, her life wasn’t going anywhere. It wasn’t until she meets a sexy Irish man on Saint Patrick’s Day, when her life turns around. Luck of the Irish is a steamy interracial BWWM romance. This short story of 4,400 words is for mature readers only.

Nikki is tired of being single, childless, and unhappy. At thirty-five, she ready to start a family, and offers her best friend a chance to be her baby daddy. Her plan goes according to plan, however, what she didn’t expect was to catch feelings for him… The Proposal is a steamy BWWM interracial romance. This short story is 4,400 words and is for mature readers only.

Held captive by her employers -- and by her own demons -- on a mysterious farm, a widow struggles to reunite with her young son in this uniquely American story of freedom, perseverance, and survival. Darlene, once an exemplary wife and a loving mother to her young son, Eddie, finds herself...

The theme of trust, betrayed or fulfilled, runs through this collection of short stories: Parents lead children into peril, husbands abandon wives, wives manipulate husbands, and time undermines all. Love pangs, a favorite subject of the author, take on a new urgency as earthquakes, illnesses...

Today is the day I marry a complete stranger. I don’t know anything about him as he was matched with me by the producers of the dating TV show, Marrying a Stranger. As I walk down the aisle, I am shocked to find out he’s white. As a black woman, I never expected to marry a white man, however the more I get to know him, the more I fall for him. Our wedding day was beautiful, but our wedding night was even hotter. This steamy BWWM interracial romance is 3,500 words long and is for mature readers only.

An uncompromising and sensually charged collection from one of the great practitioners of the short story The debut story collection from Los Angeles writer Kate Braverman assembles a vivid patchwork of interconnected narratives set in Southern California. Through brief, often haunting snapshots...

Call If You Need Me includes all of the prose previously collected in No Heroics, Please, four essays from Fires, and those five marvelous stories that range over the period of Carver's mature writing and give his devoted fans a final glimpse of the great writer at work. The pure pleasure of Carver's writing is everywhere in his work, here no less than in those stories that have already entered the canon of modern literature.

In the tradition of George Saunders and Aimee Bender, an exuberantly imagined debut that chronicles an ordinary world marked by unusual phenomena. The eighteen stories of Manuel Gonzales’s exhilarating first book render the fantastic commonplace and the ordinary extraordinary, in prose that...

Lisa Johnson isn’t a fan of Valentine’s Day, until she is surprised with a bouquet of roses from a secret admirer. Once she finds out who he is, she falls head over heels for him in this holiday instalove steamy romance. This short BWWM interracial story is 3,000 words long and is for mature readers only!

19 short stories from the deep end. (Contains some salty language and subject matter--reader discretion advised.)

Like the timeless parables of Jesus, these contemporary stories seep into your consciousness, shift your viewpoint, and reveal insights into the rhythms of life's occurrences. Embark on an unforgettable journey across the heartland of America with "A Test of Character in Royal Swirls," the second volume of "Spirit-Filled Parables for Modern America." This visually stunning collection of 19 soul-stirring parables is brought to life by over 100 vibrant, full-color images that seamlessly blend the mundane and divine. In these pages, you'll traverse the rich tapestry of the American experience,...

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is Washington Irving’s famous short story of the Headless Horseman that is now part of American culture. - Accelerated Reader AR Quiz No. 7115 BL 11.0 AR Pts: 3.0 -The language of almost two hundred years ago has been extensively modernized -End notes, interpretation, and discussion of major themes follow the text -Biographical information on Irving included -Every effort has been made to keep the story as close to the original as possible -Modern readers will better understand and appreciate one of the first truly American short stories. For more short ...

The electric, unsettling, and often surreal stories in Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go explore the alienated, technology-mediated lives of restless Asian and Asian American women today. A woman escapes into dating simulations to forget her best friend’s abandonment; a teenager begins to see menacing omens on others’ bodies after her double eyelid surgery; reunited schoolmates are drawn into the Japanese mountains to participate in an uncanny social experiment; a supernatural karaoke machine becomes a K-pop star’s channel for redemption. In every story, characters refuse dutiful, docile stereotypes.