American Short Fiction

America's richest legends come from the frontier - from the land where the events of a single moment might erase the lines between law and lawlessness, between safety and mortal danger, between heroes and villains. The carefully selected stories in this collection are vibrant proof that the great American West is a fertile ground to storytellers. Here's the most varied collection of short stories, by 17 highly acclaimed Western writers.

The woman she’s had a crush on for years needs a fake girlfriend, and Elana is ready to volunteer for the job! Toya is in a bind. Her little sister is getting married, and her mother is insisting she bring her girlfriend to the wedding. She’d told a little white lie to get her mom off her back, but now it’s backfiring. Her mom thinks she’s in a committed relationship, so Toya needs to find a pretend girlfriend, and fast. Elana fell in love with Toya the minute she set eyes on her. Unfortunately, she somehow went right into the friend zone. Elana has been hesitant to rock the boat, ...

What is Katie’s career-ending mishap? Will she get over it in time to find a suitable husband? What is the secret of Jane? Will it hinder her from Mrs. Eva’s Services? To what ends will Mrs. Eva go to find a suitable match for Jane? Meet Katie and Jane, the latest enrollees in Mrs. Eva Crabtree’s Matrimonial Services. Katie is a school teacher who encountered an event that ended her career, which forces her to join Mrs. Eva’s Matrimonial Services. Jane is an adventurous and choosy girl who has a secret that even Mrs. Eva doesn’t know. Read all books by bestseller and Kindle All-...

American Mail order brides of the West, historically inspired clean and wholesome short story romance. Come on down to Atlanta Georgia, pour yourself a glass of homemade lemonade and nibble on some fresh baked pastries made by our lovely ladies Violet, Georgina, and Lana. Hang out with the beautiful, dark haired Angeline, an outgoing and friendly girl who loves to meet the newcomers. Missy and Sarah who loves to chitchat and bake with the girls. And get to know the likes of Eloise Stanton, the dressmaker, and Jane Whitman, the midwife, both friends of Eva’s who were willing to help out by...

There's a sayin' that if you come from my part of town, that you're from around the way. Around the Way Girls 4 is a look at the life of some street-smart women who think they have the world in the palm of their hands but are about to find out that things aren't always what they seem.

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own. Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: In the American short story, literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look.

A wonderful collection of short stories" by some of the all-time great American writers: 1. "The Diamond Lens" by Fitz James O’Brien; 2. "Titbottom’s Spectacles" by George William Curtis; 3. "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe; 4. "The Eyes of the Panther" by Ambrose Bierce; 5. "The Lightning Rod Man" by Hermann Melville; 6. "Seeds" by Sherwood Anderson; 7. "Who Was She?" by Bayard Taylor; 8. "The Man who stole a Meeting House" by John Townsend Trowbridge; 9. "Memoirs of a Yellow Dog" by O. Henry

Akashic Books’ acclaimed series of original noir anthologies has set a high standard for portraying cities and their neighborhoods in all their dark and violent splendor. Now, Mexico City Noir surpasses that standard with phantasmagorical tales of double-dealing, corruption, violence and self-delusion.... This collection is such a varied literary feast.

From the remarkable Ha Jin, winner of the National Book Award for his celebrated novel Waiting, comes this collection of comical and deeply moving tales of contemporary China that are as warm and human as they are surprising, disturbing, and delightful. In the title story, the head of security at a factory is shocked, first when the handsomest worker on the floor proposes marriage to his homely adopted daughter, and again when his new son-in-law is arrested for the "crime" of homosexuality.

Traplines is extraordinary fiction that presents the menacing underside of family life. In crackling prose, Eden Robinson describes homes ruled by bullies, psychopaths, and delinquents; families whose conflict resolution techniques range from grand theft to homicide; and kids who just can't get a break.

In this followup to his hugely popular Midnight Storm Moonless Sky: Indigenous Horror Stories, Blackfoot storyteller Alex Soop plunges us again into enthralling tales that mix reality with dark terror. Within its stories, Whisper at Night and They Will Come reveals ancient theories of the paranormal, post apocalyptic scenarios, impossible wells of grief, and monstrous phobias. Soop scares the wits out of listeners, all the while uncovering overlooked social anxieties and racism affecting Indigenous Peoples across North America.

A girl who believes in UFOs; a boy who might have finally found his Prince Charming; a hopeful performer who dreams of being cast in her school’s production of The Sound of Music; a misunderstood magician of sorts with a power she doesn’t quite understand. These plotlines and many more compose the eclectic stories found within the pages of this dynamic, exciting, and expansive collection featuring exclusively Black characters.

Can Cordelia be open to love when she’s determined to make a way for herself without the help of a man? Cordelia Smith grew up in an orphanage outside of Denver. For most of her life, she heard she was unworthy of love. Mrs. Finch’s constant reminder no one would love an orphan sent Cordelia on a path only taken by men: to write for the local newspaper. At the age of twenty-five, she must find a way to support herself while helping out at the orphanage in order to have a place to lay her head. When Mrs. Finch catches wind of Cordelia’s job, she kicks her out of the only home she’s ...

Before being torn down in 2007, the Stateway Gardens public housing projects on Chicago’s South Side were ridden with deprivation and crime. But for some, like Tracy, the shy, intelligent young boy at the center of this enthralling collection of linked stories, they are simply home. Set in the mid-1980s and taking listeners up to the point of the destruction of the infamous Cabrini-Green housing projects, this collection gives an intimate look at the hopes, dreams, failures, and fortunes of a group of people growing up with the deck always stacked against them.

Ranging from Texas, to Chile, to New Mexico and New York, in this new collection Berlin writes about the good, the bad and everything in between: struggling young mothers, husbands who pack their bags and leave in the middle of the night, wives looking back at their first marriage from the distance of their second.... Evening in Paradise is a careful selection from Lucia Berlin's remaining stories - a jewel box follow-up for her hungry fans.

Before Jack Kerouac expressed the spirit of a generation in his 1957 classic On the Road, he spent years figuring out how he wanted to live and, above all, learning how to write. Atop an Underwood brings together more than sixty previously unpublished works that Kerouac wrote before he was twenty-two, ranging from stories and poems to plays and parts of novels, including an excerpt from his 1943 merchant marine novel, The Sea Is My Brother. These writings reveal what Kerouac was thinking, doing, and dreaming during his formative years and reflect his primary literary influences.

On the heels of the best seller success of her novel The Wedding, Dorothy West, the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance, presents a collection of essays and stories that explore both the realism of everyday life, and the fantastical, extraordinary circumstances of one woman's life in a mythic time.

In James William Gardner’s new collection of short stories, the listener will gain authentic insight into the fascinating world of the American south. With humor and sensitivity, the writer grapples with important cultural themes. His characters live and breathe, places become real, tradition is revealed and you may never feel the same way about the south again.

Following in the footsteps of its successful predecessors, Around the Way Girls Seven showcases three popular Urban Books authors and their versions of some very tough, street-smart girls. Nina and Mouse are a couple just trying to survive the hater nation. Only problem is Nina's a little paranoid when it comes to other women, and Mouse is usually guilty as charged. Fed up with Mouse's cheating, Nina begins to creep a little herself, but will her revenge blow up in her face?

Migration. Betrayal. Family secrets. Doomed love. Uncertain futures. In Daniel Alarcón's hands, these are transformed into deeply human stories with high-stakes. In "The Thousands", people are on the move and forging new paths; hope and heartbreak abound. A man deals with the fallout of his blind relatives' mysterious deaths and his father's mental breakdown and incarceration in "The Bridge". A gang member discovers a way to forgiveness and redemption through the haze of violence and trauma in "The Ballad of Rocky Rontal".