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 (not) [...]

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 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 Yorker. I [...]

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 was [...]

By Sana Krasikov

By Scott Hutchins
With a reward of $30,000, reeling in the nun-eating shark would be quite a prize — enough to lure Wylie from Arkansas to Corpus Christi. But who exactly is the bait?

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

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 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 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. He [...]

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.