Fiction/Nonfiction: fiction

  • Saturday Girl by Frances Gapper

    A light and surprising ghost story about a kid who works weekends in the bakery: I had a Saturday job at the haunted bakery, where they can’t keep a Saturday girl for love nor money. But it wasn’t haunted when I worked there.Thirteen and a young thirteen, I spoiled their window display by putting cakes…

  • The Last Lipstick Factory by Dana Wall

    A melancholy love story about a world losing colour: First, the sky forgot how to hold blue. It started at the horizons, a slow leaching of color like wet paper left in sun. Then the fade crept upward, until even noon became an exercise in shades of ash. Birds flew through increasingly monochrome heavens, their…

  • Blackhearts by Beth Sherman

    A child watches her mother struggle to adapt after her marriage falls apart. Sherman writes this story like a memoir, and I had to double check that it wasn’t. You have to be badass, she told me. Make them want what they can’t have. I was twelve.

  • To the Other Side by Mari Klein

    A dreamlike vision of the apocalypse that begs to be turned into something longform. The mood of this story is haunting: There must have been thousands or tens of thousands of people marching along the winding streets ahead and behind them, but in the thick of the crowd, all they could see was an endless…

  • Heartbeat by Jisun Park

    Park writes about the anxiety and fear that comes with being a new parent in a way that brought me right back to those days: It occurs to me that there are an infinite number of ways that my baby could die, and it is up to me, an untrained civilian with no prior experience…

  • Calling the Boys Home by Katy Goforth

    A sweet, sad story about Donny Peirce, who has never spent time away from a tiny town in South Carolina. His best friend Teddy is off to college, and Donny’s not sure Teddy will have time for him anymore. Teddy and I have grown up together here on the Pee Dee. But Teddy left about…

  • Nobody’s Cowboy Now by David Waters

    Jack is a doctor filling in at an ER in Idaho, and his motto is ‘nothing messy’. Things get messy. This poignant story has lingered for a while. Jack’s heart was as soft as a beat-up Courtyard by Marriott pillow. He didn’t know this. He was a fine diagnostician for everyone but himself. All that…

  • My Savage Year by Jordan Harper

    This story about a small town’s secrets is filled with stunning turns of phrase, told by a narrator that you know is unreliable, but you don’t know how. When I was a senior in high school, my biology teacher murdered his entire family and got away with it. I’m going to lie to you about…

  • The Day After Easter, Atlantic City, 2024 by Jamey Gallagher

    A dark, grimy story about a couple of addicts at the end of their rope. Gallagher’s descriptions are so rich I was holding my breath so I didn’t smell the scene: She went back inside, finished with her first and probably only cigarette of the day (they had no money left) and her precious alone…

  • Nostalgia Act by Lena Valencia

    Blog fave Lena Valencia has a new story in The Baffler. An aging dude goes to a rock show with his new girlfriend and some strange stuff happens. It’s a slow build, it’s moody and fantastic.