From a newly divorced woman employed by a front for illegal drugs, to a man who seeks revenge when the farm he loves is invaded by meth producers, to a shady Arkansas businessman wrestling with his own wildness (and that of his teen son) as he attempts to return a domesticated bobcat to its native…

Sherrie Flick is is the author of the novel Reconsidering Happiness (University of Nebraska Press), the flash fiction chapbook I Call This Flirting (Flume Press), and two short story collections with Autumn House Press: Whiskey, Etc. (2016), and Thank Your Lucky Stars (Fall 2018). Her fiction appears in many anthologies including Norton’s Flash Fiction Forward,…

Veronica looks at Ralfy’s bronze face and sees that beautiful grin, that smile that she really wants to believe exists only for her. It breaks the hardness of his face, and he seems like two boyfriends at once. Since she was thirteen, she’s seen him at all the parties, and even then she wanted to…

In the opening short story of Renee Simms’ debut collection Meet Behind Mars (Wayne State University Press), protagonist Hattie attends a literary conference and receives a disappointing manuscript critique. Her novel is rejected because it doesn’t conform to the stereotypical tropes readers and publishers ascribe to and look for in black fiction. Lacking drugs, hip…

I first read Tara Masih’s work with the publication of her story collection Where the Dog Star Never Glows. I admired her language and voice and sense of structure. Next, she edited The Rose Metal Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, a volume which has helped many writers start or refine their skills in a…

It’s just that he’s already found what he spent his twenties looking for. How this came to be seems every bit as mysterious now as it did seventeen years ago. A geopolitical event got him sent halfway around the world, and he stumbled upon the right person. That his domestic happiness is firmly grounded in…

Kerry Neville is the author of a previous story collection, Necessary Lies (BkMK Press Books). Her new story collection, Remember to Forget Me (Braddock Avenue Books), is a raw and beautiful collage of heartbreak, pain, loss, and remembrance. Neville creates characters who struggle with mental illness, failed marriages, and the challenges of parenthood, resulting ultimately…

Marian Crotty’s debut short story collection What Counts as Love was published by the University of Iowa Press as the winner of its 2017 John Simmons Short Fiction Award. The ten stories in this collection take place in self-healing houses, rehab facilities, expatriate communities in the United Arab Emirates and various unexpected locales. Featuring mostly…

The very best stories have the ability to render the reader thrilled, understood, comforted. They promote growth and challenge us to closely examine our values. Chauna Craig’s debut story collection, A Widow’s Guide to Edible Mushrooms (Press 53, 2017), is just the place to find such stories. Here Craig delves deep into the realm of…

I first met Susan Muaddi Darraj at an MLA convention in Philadelphia, where she was speaking on an editor’s panel on publishing. Sometime after that I ran into her again, this time at the AWP conference, where she was signing copies of her linked short story collection Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly (University…

James Tadd Adcox’s writing has appeared in Granta, TriQuarterly, The Literary Review, PANK, Barrelhouse, Mid-American Review, and Another Chicago Magazine, among many other places. He is the author of The Map of the System of Human Knowledge (Tiny Hardcore, 2012), Does Not Love (Curbside Splendor, 2014), and Repetition (Cobalt Press, 2016). In addition to being…

I met Joseph Scapellato fifteen years ago in Milwaukee, Wisconsin through mutual friends in Marquette University’s theater department. We bonded over fiction and writing. Since then we have kept in touch, meeting up now-and-again to swap manuscripts over coffee or beer, sharing advice and book recommendations. Scapellato now teaches at Bucknell University and has published…