31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 13: “Survivor Type” by Stephen King
King's accomplishment here is in combining his three levels of fear – terror, horror, and disgust – in a surprising and highly literary manner.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 12: “The Home Front” by Charles Ardai
The notion of redemption is an element of hardboiled crime fiction Ardai plays with in this story.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 11: “Milk” by Anuja Varghese
The story focuses on Anju, an overweight racialized high school student who is relentlessly bullied by a group of popular white girls.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 10: “The Peacocks” by Yukio Mishima; Juliet Winters Carpenter, trans.
"Peacock killing was not a rupture but the sensual intertwining of beauty and destruction."
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 9: “Burial Ground” by Carleigh Baker
The idea of progress, and what it displaces, takes on a surreal aspect in "Burial Ground."
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 8: “Progeny” by Philip K. Dick
In the world of Dick's story, efficiency and rationality are paramount.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 8: “Hairs on Me” by Virginie Despentes; Will McMorran, trans.
"Hairs on Me" is a complicated reckoning with female desire and the kind of bodily insecurity a media-saturated world imposes on women.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 6: “This Is Not a Story” by Denis Diderot; Edward Marielle, trans.
Like his contemporary, the Irish monk and writer Laurence Sterne, Diderot proved well ahead of his time.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 5: “Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby?” by Elyse Gasco
Gasco has endowed her story with something that is terribly unfashionable in book club circles and social media feeds: an unlikable narrator.
31 Days of Stories, Day 4: “The Mummers Parade” by Bridget Canning
The shifting ground of motivation and relationship between the two characters is brought out metaphorically in the mummers' costumes.