short fiction
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Nowhere to Hide
At the Guardian, Lisa McInerney explains how writing short fiction helped her to develop the skills to write a novel: Short fiction leaves its author nowhere to hide. I cannot disappear into a character or some grand conspiracy, as I can…
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The Rumpus Interview with Annie Liontas
Annie Liontas talks about her debut novel Let Me Explain You, crafting voices, and the benefits—and occasional pitfalls—of returning to get an MFA after years of writing in the dark.
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That Thought and Nothing Else
If you’re still waiting for the Muse to show up, look behind you—it might be driving the other direction. Ann Beattie tells the New Yorker how a bumper sticker inspired her story, “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowgirl”: I thought,…
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The Kind of Madness That Is Passion
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been alone with herself. Maybe never. It was always her–with others, and in these others she was reflected and the others were reflected in her. Nothing was–was pure, she thought without understanding what…
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You May Read a Book
Why live in the moment when you can start planning your 2016 reading list now? Next spring, Rumpus contributor Paula Whyman will release her debut linked story collection “You May See a Stranger.” One of its stories was featured in…
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Form Over Function
Will 2015 be the year of the short story? Probably not. But Ben Marcus is making sure it will at least be a year of some short stories. Chin up.
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Living in the Republic
The church on Siegfeldstrasse was open to anyone who embarrassed the Republic, and Andreas Wolf was so much of an embarrassment that he actually resided there, in the basement of the rectory, but unlike the others—the true Christian believers, the…
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When the Story Begins
Longreads gifts us newly translated fiction from Antonio Tabucci: He must be almost ninety, he spends his afternoons gazing out the window at New York’s skyscrapers, a Puerto Rican girl comes each morning to tidy up his apartment, she brings…
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Life, Death, and Jokes
When I drew my last breath, no one saw me. The car that hit me drove quickly away, and a driver stopped to carry me out of the center of the road. I was already dead when he carried me,…
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Scaly Tales
Joseph Hernandez writes about family and fish in a lovely bit of short fiction for The Offing magazine.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Out on the Coast
When he was five, six, seven, and eight, Max spent most of the summer thinking about the whale, sitting in his room with the shades drawn remembering the first visit and looking forward to the second, just before the new…
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Cecil and His Women
Over at BOMB Magazine, César Aime treats us all to new fiction (translated by Chris Andrews).