31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 25: “Violations” by Catherine Lacey
“Violations” is a story that instructs its reader how to read it even as it is unfolding on the page.
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 24: “The Americans” by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The interplay among the characters in Nguyen’s story dramatizes the prickly concerns that crop up in the face of cultural conflicts and commingled histories.
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 22: “Furry Night” by Joan Aiken
A fantastical story with origins in myth and fairy tale, Aiken’s narrative imagines the world’s greatest Shakespearean actor as a werewolf.
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 21: “A Bear Hunt” by William Faulkner
One of Faulkner’s most exuberant tales, this story of poetic revenge is also uproariously funny.
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 18: “Jerry’s Kids Meet Wormboy” by David J. Schow
The term “splatterpunk” refers to a highly disreputable, extreme subgenre of graphic horror, but its best practitioners do much more with the form.
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 17: “Julia and the Bazooka” by Anna Kavan
Kavan’s story is typical of her technical approach, which telescopes time and proceeds in a kind of modified stream-of-consciousness narration.
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 16: “The Unfinished Novel” by Valerie Martin
Valerie Martin’s long story is about a poisonous artistic rivalry.
31 Days of Stories, Day 11: “Solitary” by John Edgar Wideman
The story is about the mother of an imprisoned son before, during, and after her bus trip to visit him.
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 10: “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston
Hurston’s story contains the folk idiom for which she is known, as well as being a signal example of her concern with women overcoming abuse at the hands of men.
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 9: “The Cloak” by Robert Bloch
Not a retread or homage, Bloch’s vampire story displays a momentum and technique typical of the author’s best work.