By Aryn Kyle The summer before Kate’s sister dropped out of college, they both got jobs working for a dentist.  Kate was sixteen and had been sent to stay with Claudia in Claudia’s college apartment while their parents figured a few things out, including whether or not they wanted to stay married to each other [...]

Justin Taylor is the author of the novel “The Gospel of Anarchy” and the story collection “Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever.” The Millions called “The Gospel of Anarchy” a “bold casserole of sensual encounter and deranged proclamation… Loudly, even rapturously, Taylor succeeds in making the clamoring passion of his characters real, their raw, [...]

By Nam Le
Shaken by the demise of a bad relationship, Sarah flies to Iran to visit her friend, Parvin, who left America to fight for women’s rights in Tehran. On the terrifying streets, and alone with her friend, Sarah comes face to face with secrets, suspicions and fears.

By Darin Strauss
The story of everyone’s life deserves to be a book. Right?

By Laura Dave Sheila Rice and Jordan Lurie — June 2, 2001 — Registry Number: 2392  You may view any item from the registry.  Then, when you find the gift of your choice, click BUY NOW.  *Please note that the cost of all items will be confirmed only upon check out*                    Item Name                                                Wants        Has Bone [...]

By Rhett Miller
Joe worked at the used bookstore and dreamed about the cute girl who came in to sell her old books. He wanted to ask her to come away with him. He never imagined her answer might be yes.

By Lydia Millet I knew a great man once. At the same time I knew a great man and a woman who loved him. When I first met Mr. Tesla he looked like Count Dracula — tall and painfully thin, with cheeks sunken in. It was during the Second World War at the Hotel New [...]

By Adam Rapp
Ambition slips away slowly. Your band never quite takes off, your wife leaves, your favorite brother is killed in Iraq. And suddenly you find you haven’t left the house in 14 months.

By Maggie Shipstead When Mia sat down at an evening lecture beside a man she recognized as a physics professor, she did not expect to marry him. She expected only to occupy that particular seat for the length of the talk and then to leave and walk back alone to her dormitory, where her roommate [...]

By Sana Krasikov

By Keija Parssinen It’s summer. Jed is saying something. It travels slowly through the air, which is so thick you could slice it up and have it for breakfast. I can almost see the words undulating through the atmosphere, a mirage of letters. “It’s so hot I could kill an Arab.” That’s what comes out, [...]

By Keija Parssinen That evening the floods come down, big ripped clouds bouldering with thunder, rattling the brass mirrors that hang in my mother’s sitting room. I’ve got all the windows open, the smell of rain whooshing through, clean as chalk. Somewhere, a door slams shut. Behind the house, the darkening hills meet the sky [...]

By Keija Parssinen Even before the Army, I pursued a messy, physical life, wrapping myself up in men who didn’t bathe or whose tattoos threatened to rub off on my skin. We dirtied ourselves together, lay in our filth, fucked in ways that made love seem something clean and dry and distant. I lived a [...]

By Keija Parssinen It’s summer. Jed is saying something. It travels slowly through the air, which is so thick you could slice it up and have it for breakfast. I can almost see the words undulating through the atmosphere, a mirage of letters. “It’s so hot I could kill an Arab.” That’s what comes out, [...]

By Keija Parssinen Brad’s gone, and I hear my mother slide out of bed, her raw silk duvet rustling softly. “Fair? Are you getting ready?” she calls. “I’m up,” I say, clutching the side of the bed as I strap on my prosthesis. As we drive toward town, I see that it is a morning [...]

By Keija Parssinen Now that I’m home, I’ve picked up with a handful of high school friends like Brad. They still linger around the lake, buzzing like mosquitoes over a still pond. They know it’s a stagnant sort of life, working as waiters or tending bar, getting high before their shifts so that the glow [...]

By Brock Clarke
His best friend’s novel was so moving that it blinded Brent’s wife. So why couldn’t Brent’s love story make his wife fall for him again?

By Sarah Heyward Two letters, that’s how it started.  They arrived within days of each other last May.  The first was addressed to me, Tora Goodman, from the Fayette County Probate Court in Texas: my grandmother had died.  Until this summer, I knew nothing about my mom’s side of the family.  What the letter explained, [...]

By Karl Taro Greenfeld Til Lint woke in his hammock, the hemp sling slung between beams and making the hook screw creak as it swung. He glanced at the table, his gear spread out on the cheap, warped wood: the dropper, the tinted glass vials, the beaker of alcohol, the oil lamp, the empty foil [...]

By Jeffrey Frank
The newspaper business is in crisis. The Sentinel’s internal personnel memos might help explain why.

By Liz Moore Oh it was all too much for them.  Dinner beforehand — Marv said let’s pick a place we know from home, the Olive Garden, T.G.I.Friday’s, but Mim said no, a new place, anyplace, please — and now a show, one with old-fashioned costumes and a spotlight that followed the leading man around [...]

By Liz Moore Howie tried to pick up the bill when it came and Marv growled, Oh no, you don’t, and snatched it from him, literally, took it from his hands. Daddy, said Sherry. What? said Marv.  I’ve got it. It’s been a pleasure, Marv. Thank you, said Howie Plank. *   *   * Outside, the [...]

By Liz Moore When the food came, Howie rubbed his hands together, looking at his monstrous sandwich, and said he had forgotten all about the Carnegie Deli until Sherry had suggested it.  It’s nice to have tourists in town, he said, because you get to see the best parts of New York all over again!  [...]

By Liz Moore Oh it was all too much for them.  Dinner beforehand — Marv said let’s pick a place we know from home, the Olive Garden, T.G.I.Friday’s, but Mim said no, a new place, anyplace, please — and now a show, one with old-fashioned costumes and a spotlight that followed the leading man around [...]

By Liz Moore Mim felt breathless.  For a moment, she stood still in her spot by the door.  Howie and Sherry walked away from her, hand in hand behind the host; Marv followed.  Mim asked herself some questions: the first was this man’s age — to her he looked fifty, maybe older; the second was [...]

By Liz Moore Sherry told them that her new boyfriend was going to meet them at the Carnegie Deli.  Mim was delighted; everything was going right.  For a piece of late-night pie! she said, and Sherry said, Cheesecake.  Not pie. Marv said, Boyfriend? Boyfriend? I should have brought my shotgun!, which wasn’t right, didn’t make [...]

By Anthony Varallo Leaf wasn’t really allowed into Studio Art I, but Mr. Ware insisted.  Leaf had Mr. Ware last year for Drawing I, her first unhappy try at being a freshman, although she’d gotten an A in that class.  She’d failed every other course, including gym.  Now she was fifteen and a freshman again.  [...]

By Nathaniel Rich
The three of them were a single unit when trainchasing from platform to platform. Until suddenly one of them disappeared.

By Pauls Toutonghi
When Archie’s young wife died in a car accident, the only place he could find solace was at funerals.

By David Schickler

Treckman thought himself plenty sophisticated. But the prom had not gone well, and neither had tryouts for the musical or the baseball team. Summer had to be better than spring, especially since his family was vacationing in a famous New York spa. Or so Treckman thought — until he found himself at summer camp.

By Jennifer Close In the apartment, Sophie couldn’t sleep.  She lay awake for hours and stared at the ceiling.  She lay perfectly still, as if she could trick herself into slumber.  She tried counting sheep, walking through the rooms of the house where she grew up, imagining that she was on a beach or in [...]

By George Singleton
Professors of fried chicken. Studies of Waffle House grape jelly. Yes, you might be at a low-residency graduate program of Southern Culture Studies.

By Diana Spechler “Someday soon, he says, I’ll go to sleep and not wake up. You tell him no. You’re talking to yourself.” –Richard Hugo The sensation Tia experiences after crossing all those time zones, taking all those desultory naps, eating all those meals punctuated by all those unsweetened desserts, wiping her hands with all [...]

By Steven Amsterdam I remember standing next to my father at the supermarket, helping him pack our groceries while my mother paid the cashier. Other customers filed past with their shopping, but one old man slowed down when he got close. He was holding a barely concealed bottle of beer in a small brown bag. [...]

By Paul G. Tremblay
It’s lonely to be the two-headed girl, sharing your shoulders with great women of literature and history, when the person you really want to talk to is your dad.