American Short

A vibrant debut story collection—poignant, unflinching, and immersive—masterfully moving between sharp wit and profound tenderness, Guatemalan Rhapsody offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of an ever-changing country, the people who claim it as home, and those who no longer do. Ranging from a custodian at an underfunded college to a medicine man living in a temple dedicated to San Simon, the patron saint of alcohol and cigarettes, the characters in these stories find themselves at defining moments in their lives, where sacrifices may be required of them, by them, or for them.

Returning to the city that inspired his first prize-winning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens.

This is a small tale of a big betrayal.

About Found All I’ve ever cared about was being the type of man that God has called me to be, and having a woman in my life who will love me unconditionally. Then I Found her. She’s the prettiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, and the fact that she has those two darling little girls is enough to make me stake claim on all three of them. Now, she thinks her full-figured body, and the nut she used to be married to is enough to run me away. What she doesn’t understand is I love me a woman who I have to use every ounce of my strength to hold onto and I’m trained and equipped for any ...

Noelle Carter is looking forward to an uneventful holiday season at the office. But when a secret admirer starts sending her love poems signed, "Your Secret Santa," things take an unexpected turn. As Noelle navigates the mystery and mixed emotions, she's also juggling relationship issues for her best friend Karole. When Noelle suspects Karole's boyfriend is cheating, secrets threaten to ruin the holidays. Add in a hostile boss who seems to be out to get her, and Noelle has her hands full. Will Noelle be able to solve all her problems before Christmas comes? Or will they destroy her holiday ...

This collection is full of gritty stories of strong, spirited women who deal with everything from homicide and drugs to all sorts of turmoil - all while showing the men of the streets of Brooklyn that they are not afraid of anything. Perhaps the edgiest of all the Girls from da Hood books, this drama-filled installment follows a drug-fueled crime operation, which could put the girls and their extravagant lifestyles in permanent danger. But these girls from da hood are trying to find a way out of their troubles, by any means necessary.

A grieving mother calls out to her faraway son. A student forgoes the lurid appeal of dating apps in exchange for a painter’s love. The anonymous voices of queer native men converge amid violent eroticism. A man just out of prison balances the uneasy weight of family and freedom, while a professor returns home to conduct research only to be haunted by a dark specter. The stories and voices in Billy-Ray Belcourt’s debut story collection are buoyed by philosophical undergirding, poetic demand, and the complex relationship between aesthetics and ethics.

Marvelous creations, including a short story set in the world of The Matrix and others set in the worlds of gothic fiction and children's fiction, can be found in this extraordinary collection, which showcases Gaiman's storytelling brilliance as well as his entertaining (and dark) sense of humor.

A grieving mother makes a spreadsheet of everyone she’s lost. Elsewhere, a professor develops a troubled intimacy with her hairdresser. And every year, a restless woman receives an email from a strange man twice her age and several states away. In Yiyun Li’s stories, people strive for an ordinary existence until doing so becomes unsustainable, until the surface cracks and the grand mysterious forces—death, violence, estrangement—come to light. And even everyday life is laden with meaning, studded with indelible details.

I’m a Straight Police Officer, but I’m falling for a 19-year-old JOCK. Officer Landon Never in a million years did I imagine that stopping a speeding car one morning would thrust me into a wild encounter that would change the trajectory of my entire life. When I pulled over Trent, a 6'9 African American college basketball player who also happened to be a rich bad boy who had no regard for the law, I didn’t anticipate that his muscular frame that oozed sex appeal and deep voice would have me weak in the knees and questioning my sexuality. His flirtation and bribe to perform a naughty ...

When it comes to betrayal, no one understands the word better than Chrissy Shanice King. After learning her sister Lexi, carried on a two year affair with her husband; she knows her marriage is officially OVER! Discovering, Lexi even set her up to be rape and impregnated as a teenager; helped Chrissy see her sister for what she really is, and that's a scandalous h*e! Finally, setting Maceo free, and disowning Lexi, Chrissy is now focusing on herself. The only thing her heart desires is locating her twins, and building her fashion empire. Even though Chrissy tries her best to escape drama, ...

A finalist for the National Book Award, Lost in the City features 15 poignant short stories, each set in Washington, D.C. Far removed from marble monuments and the offices of rich politicians, the nation's capital that Jones captures is inhabited by self-willed African-Americans struggling to live their lives as best they can.

Silent Sisters: Profiles of the short lives of Karen Carpenter, Patsy Cline, Cass Elliot, Ruby Elzy, Janis Joplin and Selena Quintanilla-Perez. These talented Twentieth Century American songstresses worked diligently to propel themselves to stardom. Together, they sang it all: from Broadway tunes to classical, from folk and spirituals to popular songs and blues, and from country music to Tejano/Latino. Their triumphs and tragedies are told here with an eye to the possibility that exhaustion from relentless travel schedules may have influenced the dramas and anxieties surrounding their early...

What does it mean to be an American? The story of the African American past demonstrates the difficulty of answering this seemingly simple question. This book illuminates the US's core paradoxes, inviting profound questions about what it means to be an American, a citizen, and a human being. This book considers how, for centuries, African Americans have fought for what the black feminist intellectual Anna Julia Cooper called "the cause of freedom." It begins in Jamestown in 1619, when the first shipment of enslaved Africans arrived in that settlement.

Hot Water Music is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, published in 1983. The collection deals largely with: drinking, women, gambling, and writing. It is an important collection that establishes Bukowski's minimalist style and his thematic oeuvre.

Carl Weber brings the best of urban street lit authors together, all telling their own dramatic tales of life in the streets in known cities across the USA. The second installment continues with Treasure Hernandez telling the tale of the Dirty South.

Black Girl Magic. It is a term that is used a lot these days. It’s probably politically incorrect when I use it. But the truth is the truth. I have been attracted to black women since I was a teenager. Several circumstances have gotten in the way of me acting out my attraction: societal standards. Racist relatives. Fear. My wife. The list goes on. But now, I’m not willing to circumvent those attractions anymore. I am a deacon at a prominent church in the South. It’s a new day and age but interracial relationships are still pretty taboo, particularly when it comes to sex. I have ...

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.

It’s 1974 in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and 15-year-old Justine grows up in a family of tough, complicated, and loyal women, presided over by her mother, Lula, and Granny. After Justine’s father abandoned the family, Lula became a devout member of the Holiness Church - a community that Justine at times finds stifling and terrifying. But Justine does her best as a devoted daughter, until an act of violence sends her on a different path forever.

In Kenan's fictional territory of Tims Creek, North Carolina, an old man rages in his nursing home, a parson beats up an adulterer, a rich man is haunted by a hog, and an elderly woman turns unwitting miracle worker. A retired plumber travels to Manhattan, where Billy Idol sweeps him into his entourage. An architect who lost his famous lover to AIDS reconnects with a high school fling. Howard Hughes seeks out the woman who once cooked him butter beans.