American Short

Alexander Chee, an essayist of “virtuosity and power” (Washington Post), selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

My Confession: “I get paid to please your husband, so you don’t have to.” When the blonde-haired and blue-eyed adonis approached me in a swanky Beverly Hills restaurant, I didn't expect him to be a big-shot lawyer ready to offer me a job. He had to be mistaken because I was just a pretty unknown actress with no major skills who was thirty days from being evicted from my apartment. Once he described the job and the compensation package, I knew it was too good of an offer to turn down. I was instructed to help the married men at his law firm relieve their stress and in the process find ...

After a devastating heartbreak, McKenzie Bishop swears off love to focus on her career as a branding consultant. But when her parents convince her to try the dating app, A Dime A Dozen, a seemingly harmless connection resurrects buried trauma and ignites dangerous desires. What starts as a reluctant search for companionship quickly spirals into a twisted game of deadly revenge. As McKenzie’s obsession deepens, fears are weaponized, secrets are uncovered, and no match is safe. Yet, someone has been watching her every move and is determined to expose her darkest truths. Can McKenzie ...

The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention blocked the establishment of Christianity as a national religion. But they could not keep religion out of American politics. From the election of 1800, when clergyman charged that deist Thomas Jefferson was unfit to lead a "Christian nation," to today, when some Democrats want to embrace the so-called Religious Left in order to compete with the Republicans and the Religious Right, religion has always been a part of American politics.

This magical realist short tale was inspired by the Latin American myth of El Sombrerón, the nighttime guardian of peace and justice. El Sombrerón arrives in a sleepy town to find that a young girl has stolen a golden necklace. El Sombrerón must convince the girl to return the necklace so she can avoid El Sombrerón’s justice…and before the sun rises.

Latasha Lee has always been extraordinary. The proud byproduct of her genius Botanist Mother Lola Lee, and her father, Commander Joseph Lee. However, she craved freedom within her chin-up and the shoulders-back world she lived in. Her idea ... to do something she'd never seen done before. Latasha wanted to pick her afro in space. Follow her wild ride with her group of friends to see if she can turn her dream into a reality.

After gracefully enduring marriage to a king who never loved her for his mourning of his first wife, and providing him two heirs, Queen Serenity is now free. Her husband, King Timothy is dead. As are her two stepsons from his first marriage. Whom she loved as her own. Now her own son is king. And she is free to love and be loved for the first time by a man who has carried a flame for her for years, or is she?

My Confession: "I'm falling for my girlfriend's dad." Cameron is straight. He planned on marrying his girlfriend Samantha after graduation, but when he caught her cheating with his best friend, Bradley, his heart broke in two and he temporarily gave up on love. Later that evening, an older, masculine, and muscular man named Clint showed up at his door. He needed assistance with a problem that only Cameron could help solve. Cameron felt a strong physical attraction and fell immediately under his charming and charismatic spell. There was only one problem, the man he was attracted to is his ...

In a daring and fierce debut work of fiction - the likes of which comes along once in a generation - Virginia’s landscapes, emblems, and Thomas Jefferson’s historic plantation set the stage for a cast of unforgettable characters fighting for their right to exist in America. Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging.

How do tons of people already learn several languages and have fun doing so? While you're probably hustling your way through boring dictionaries or old-school language learning books (and still no hablas español?), there are tons of people who already speak several languages and have fun while learning them.

🔥 A warrior king. A fearless princess. A storm of fate. Passion and power collide in a forbidden romance that will change history. On an uncharted island off the coast of West Africa, King Jahtgo, a fierce warrior, meets Princess Neeha, the bold and untamed leader of an elite band of female warriors. Their worlds clash in an intoxicating battle of passion, desire, and power, culminating in an erotic encounter that neither of them can deny. Set in the year 1245, this gripping historical romance unfolds in a world of dangerous betrayals, forbidden love, and raw ambition. As Jahtgo and ...

Spanning from a mediocre spa in Florida, to New York’s gritty East Village, to death row in Alabama, this collection reveals boundless suspense in small, quiet moments, offering startling twists in the least likely of places. From a powerful response to hateful bullying, to a fight for health care, to a gripping desperation to vote, these stories are equal parts shocking, devastating, and enthralling, revealing the tension pulsing through our everyday lives and affirming that mystery and suspense writing is better than ever before.

This third collecton of great American short stories includes titles by authors such as Stephen Crane, Ambrose Bierce, and Edgar Allan Poe.

The stories in This Is How You Lose Her, by turns hilarious and devastating, raucous and tender, lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weaknesses of our all-too-human hearts. They capture the heat of new passion, the recklessness with which we betray what we most treasure, and the torture we go through - "the begging, the crawling over glass, the crying" - to try to mend what we've broken beyond repair. They recall the echoes that intimacy leaves behind, even where we thought we did not care.

America’s most talented storytellers share their most interesting, engaging, unputdownable work in a collection made for story lovers. The third volume of the annual anthology that’s been praised nationwide by readers and numerous award-winning and bestselling authors, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2024 exudes its editors’ philosophy that a collection of widely appealing short stories can make for common ground that could unite rather than divide Americans. Toward this end, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2024 features a funny yet heart-stopping story by Agatha, Macavity, and Anthony Award ...

Millie Two Bears lives alone in a trailer in the heart of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. Since her husband went to jail, she’s been on the outs with the reservation. And it’s not just people she has to contend with. Now the prairie dogs are moving in on her patch of land. When a strange woman comes into Millie’s life, and Millie’s rodent war escalates, a fateful confrontation with vengeance, secrets, and survival is just underfoot.

A Spicy AMBW Interracial Romance Liya: When you're in a love drought, what would you do? Take up a new hobby? Travel somewhere you always wanted to? For me, it was hiring a male escort to accompany me for a night out in the city and all I can say, is that he was worth every penny. Kai: The first rule of being a male companion is to never let your feelings get involved with a client. It was an easy rule for me to follow, but that was until I got a request from a woman named Liya. Love Drought is a steamy interracial instalove romance that will make the perfect quickie in between longer works...

In this mind blowing, cliff hanging trilogy of never ending drama; Melissa, August, Mike, Chantel and the rest of the crew are faced with some life threatening situation. There are going to be times where they will all have to even look each other to see who’s being loyal or not. The past is coming back for them and they don't know who’s behind all of the crazy incidents that's been happening. With the new birth of baby Autumn all Melissa wants to do is focus on creating a new beginning for her family. One call to August phone changed everything.Will they all start dropping like flies? ...

Young, impressionable Aubrey is fascinated by the enigmatic Lord Ruthven, and accompanies him on a tour to Europe. But Aubrey develops a growing distaste for Lord Ruthven’s sinister and grotesque conduct - especially as it concerns human blood. This novella, penned during that tempestuous night in Switzerland amongst such notables as Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley, served as the great inspiration for Bram Stoker to create Dracula.

Spanning several decades, Ghassan Zeineddine’s debut collection examines the diverse range and complexities of the Arab-American community in Dearborn, Michigan. In ten tragicomic stories, Zeineddine explores themes of identity, generational conflicts, war trauma, migration, sexuality, queerness, home and belonging, and more.