2022 favorites

2022 Favorites

Happy new year to you!

Time for the annual rundown of the SSMT stories. In 2022, we traveled to a different state (plus D.C. and Puerto Rico) each week. It was fun if a little more difficult than I expected. The toughest state to find stories for was Delaware. California and New York, predictably, could have filled the entire calendar.

Anyway, for 2023, SSMT is done with the concepts. No more organizing principles. The plan simply is to post a new magic trick every single day – 365 days, 365 stories. Easy.

First, the annual list ranking the stories highlighted this year on the site, sorted in order of my own enjoyment.

Enjoy.

1. ‘Roses, Rhododendron’ by Alice Adams
2. ‘Foaling Season’ by Aryn Kyle
3. ‘Children On Their Birthdays’ by Truman Capote
4. ‘The Last Thing We Need’ by Claire Vaye Watkins
5. ‘Read This And Tell Me What It Says’ by A. Manette Ansay
6. ‘The Happiest I’ve Been’ by John Updike
7. ‘Indianapolis (Highway 74)’ by Sam Shepard
8. ‘Ghosts, Cowboys’ by Claire Vaye Watkins
9. ‘What Have You Done?’ by Ben Marcus
10. ‘Reunion’ by Julie Schumacher
11. ‘End Of The World’ by Dean Doner
12. ‘A Jury Of Her Peers’ by Susan Glaspell
13. ‘The Murder’ by John Steinbeck
14. ‘San Francisco’ by Amy Hempel
15. ‘Are You All Right?’ by Wendell Berry
16. ‘Iona Moon’ by Melanie Rae Thon
17. ‘Caveat Emptor’ by Joan Hess
18. ‘The Mud Below’ by Annie Proulx
19. ‘Three-Ten To Yuma’ by Elmore Leonard
20. ‘A Father-To-Be’ by Saul Bellow
21. ‘Snow Blind’ by Elizabeth Strout
22. ‘Something That Needs Nothing’ by Miranda July
23. ‘The Family Meadow’ by John Updike
24. ‘The Mountain Day’ by Jean Stafford
25. ‘The Night Rhonda Ferguson Was Killed’ by Edward P. Jones
26. ‘Home’ by Jayne Anne Phillips
27. ‘The Man Who Knew Belle Starr’ by Richard Bausch
28. ‘A Vermont Tale’ by Mark Helprin
29. ‘The Paper Menagerie’ by Ken Liu
30. ‘The Whole World Knows’ by Eudora Welty
31. ‘Warm River’ by Erskine Caldwell
32. ‘The Ant Of The Self’ by ZZ Packer
33. ‘A Story In Almost Classical Mode’ by Harold Brodkey
34. ‘Indian Burial’ by Dean Doner
35. ‘God Writes A Bad Hand’ by J.F. Powers
36. ‘A View Of The Woods’ by Flannery O’Connor
37. ‘Complicities’ by Alice Adams
38. ‘Willing’ by Lorrie Moore
39. ‘The Years Of My Birth’ by Louise Erdrich
40. ‘Nemecia’ by Kirstin Valdez Quade
41. ‘Where The Mountains Are’ by Bill Barich
42. ‘Seeing Clear’ by Cara Blue Adams
43. ‘The Five Wounds’ by Kirstin Valdez Quade
44. ‘The Canoeists’ by Rick Bass
45. ‘Tiny In The Wilderness’ by Tom Drury
46. ‘Blackie’ by Elizabeth Spencer
47. ‘Talkin Bout Sonny’ by Toni Cade Bambara
48. ‘Birdland’ by Michael Knight
49. ‘Back Then’ by Mary Grimm
50. ‘Naked Ladies’ by Antonya Nelson
51. ‘The Champ’ by Pedro Juan Soto
52. ‘Sybil’ by A. Manette Ansay
53. ‘This Is Paradise’ by Kristiana Kahakauwila
54. ‘Georgetown Nights’ by Nancy Hale
55. ‘In My Next Life’ by Pam Houston
56. ‘The Face’ by Virginia Sorensen
57. ‘Buck Boy’ by James McBride
58. ‘Friends From Philadelphia’ by John Updike
59. ‘Clytie’ by Eudora Welty
60. ‘Travis, B.’ by Maile Meloy
61. ‘The Half-Skinned Steer’ by Annie Proulx
62. ‘Rock Springs’ by Richard Ford
63. ‘Hollow’ by Breece D’J Pancake
64. ‘Close Enough’ by Nora Shalaway Carpenter
65. ‘Before Crowned Heads’ by Dean Doner
66. ‘Jacklighting’ by Ann Beattie
67. ‘My Kinsman, Major Molineaux’ by Nathaniel Hawthorne
68. ‘Ava Wrestles The Alligator’ by Karen Russell
69. ‘Ashes’ by Cristina Henríquez
70. ‘The Wellman Twins’ by Mary Robison
71. ‘Chasing Birds’ by Cristina Henríquez
72. ‘Too Much To Bare’ by Joan Hess
73. ‘Grandma’s Wake’ by Emilio Díaz Valcárcel
74. ‘Detroit Skyline 1947’ by Bobbie Ann Mason
75. ‘Dalyrimple Goes Wrong’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
76. ‘The Prospectors’ by Karen Russell
77. ‘Community Life’ by Lorrie Moore
78. ‘Désirée’s Baby’ by Kate Chopin
79. ‘River Of Names’ by Dorothy Allison
80. ‘Hellion’ by Julia Elliott
81. ‘Sugar Babies’ by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
82. ‘The Beautiful Mountains’ by John Cheever
83. ‘Small Avalanches’ by Joyce Carol Oates
84. ‘The Walk’ by Elizabeth Strout
85. ‘Nebraska’ by Ron Hansen
86. ‘Drive’ by Cristina Henríquez
87. ‘Changes In Louise’ by Tom Drury
88. ‘The Sculptor’s Funeral’ by Willa Cather
89. ‘Waugh’ by Bryan Washington
90. ‘Car Crash While Hitchhiking’ by Denis Johnson
91. ‘Thrift Store Coats’ by Brooks Rexroat
92. ‘The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky’ by Stephen Crane
93. ‘Consolation’ by Richard Bausch
94. ‘Strange Moonlight’ by Conrad Aiken
95. ‘A Wagner Matinée’ by Willa Cather
96. ‘Nest Egg’ by Jesse Stuart
97. ‘The Tin Butterfly’ by Mary McCarthy
98. ‘The Train’ by Flannery O’Connor
99. ‘Who Am I This Time?’ by Kurt Vonnegut
100. ‘May Queen’ by Mary Robison
101. ‘The Mappist’ by Barry Lopez
102. ‘Agnes Of Iowa’ by Lorrie Moore
103. ‘Kansas’ by Antonya Nelson
104. ‘Camping Out’ by James Wilcox
105. ‘That Thing Around Your Neck’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
106. ‘Beautiful Grade’ by Lorrie Moore
107. ‘Job History’ by Annie Proulx
108. ‘Polaroid’ by Sally Wells
109. ‘Something Nice’ by Mary Gaitskill
110. ‘The Terrapin’ by Patricia Highsmith
111. ‘Displaced’ by Richard Ford
112. ‘The Quest For “Blank Claveringi”’ by Patricia Highsmith
113. ‘Sucker’ by Carson McCullers
114. ‘To Hell With Dying’ by Alice Walker
115. ‘The Devil And Daniel Webster’ by Stephen Vincent Benét
116. ‘The Local Production Of Cinderella’ by Allegra Goodman
117. ‘Greyhound People’ by Alice Adams
118. ‘Elk’ by Rick Bass
119. ‘The Story Of Keesh’ by Jack London
120. ‘Four Lean Hounds, ca. 1976’ by Maile Meloy
121. ‘A Visit’ by Steven Millhauser
122. ‘Sun City’ by Caitlin Horrocks
123. ‘Mrs. Box’ by Michael Chabon
124. ‘Fish And Fences’ by Veeda Bybee
125. ‘The Boys’ by Ethan Coen
126. ‘The State’ by Tommy Orange
127. ‘Purification On Cristo Street’ by René Marqués
128. ‘Road’s End’ by Alexis Smith
129. ‘Afternoon In Linen’ by Shirley Jackson
130. ‘The Weave’ by Charles Johnson
131. ‘Maggie Of The Green Bottles’ by Toni Cade Bambara
132. ‘The Landlord’ by Wells Tower
133. ‘Why I Like Country Music’ by James Alan McPherson
134. ‘Uncle High Lonesome’ by Barry Hannah
135. ‘Alaska’ by Alice Adams
136. ‘Riddle’ by Thomas McGuane
137. ‘Flower Hunters’ by Lauren Groff
138. ‘Do With Me What You Will’ by Joyce Carol Oates
139. ‘A Figure Of Speech’ by Tess Gallagher
140. ‘A Respectable Woman’ by Kate Chopin
141. ‘Sauerkraut Soup’ by Stuart Dybek
142. ‘Our Lady Of Peace’ by ZZ Packer
143. ‘Impulse’ by Conrad Aiken
144. ‘Residents And Transients’ by Bobbie Ann Mason
145. ‘Giving Blood’ by John Updike
146. ‘Where Nothing Is Long Ago’ by Virginia Sorensen
147. ‘Death Of A Favorite’ by J.F. Powers
148. ‘Son In The Afternoon’ by John A. Williams
149. ‘The Old Halvorson Place’ by Larry Woiwode
150. ‘Naked Woman Playing Chopin’ by Louise Erdrich
151. ‘Sunday Lunch’ by Nancy Hale
152. ‘Beatrice Trueblood’s Story’ by Jean Stafford
153. ‘Heathen’ by Mike Wilson
154. ‘Donna’ by Michaella Thornton
155. ‘Happy Hour’ by Denis Johnson
156. ‘An Orange Line Train To Ballston’ by Edward P. Jones
157. ‘The Nevada School Of Acting’ by Judy Troy
158. ‘Haircut’ by Ring Lardner
159. ‘Ghost Patrol’ by Sinclair Lewis
160. ‘Island Rodeo Queen’ by Yamile Saied Méndez
161. ‘White Girl, Fine Girl’ by Shirley Ann Grau
162. ‘Benediction’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
163. ‘Peyo Mercé: English Teacher’ by Abelardo Díaz Alfaro
164. ‘Dundun’ by Denis Johnson
165. ‘I Walk Between The Raindrops’ by T. Coraghessan Boyle
166. ‘On The Oregon Trail’ by Caitlin Horrocks
167. ‘Strays’ by Mark Richard
168. ‘Spit In The Governor’s Tea’ by Shay Youngblood
169. ‘A Death In The Desert’ by Willa Cather
170. ‘Monroe’s Wedding’ by John Holman
171. ‘With Reference To An Incident At A Bridge’ by William Maxwell
172. ‘The Appropriation Of Cultures’ by Percival Everett
173. ‘The Day The Dam Broke’ by James Thurber
174. ‘Officer Friendly’ by Lewis Robinson
175. ‘Going To Shrewsbury’ by Sarah Orne Jewett
176. ‘Peter’ by Willa Cather
177. ‘Correspondence’ by Carson McCullers
178. ‘Treasure State’ by Smith Henderson
179. ‘Magnolia Flower’ by Zora Neale Hurston
180. ‘The Sentimentality Of William Tavener’ by Willa Cather
181. ‘Snakebite’ by Arthur Bradford
182. ‘Rain On Tanyard Hollow’ by Jesse Stuart
183. ‘Young Francis Whitehead’ by William Maxwell
184. ‘Song On Royal Street’ by Richard Blessing
185. ‘Playing Before Royalty’ by Ian MacMillan
186. ‘The Princess And The Puma’ by O. Henry
187. ‘The Way Of The World’ by Willa Cather
188. ‘One Christmas’ by Truman Capote
189. ‘Happy’ by Jayne Anne Phillips
190. ‘Happy’ by Joyce Carol Oates
191. ‘Without Inspection’ by Edwidge Danticat
192. ‘FAQs’ by Allegra Goodman
193. ‘Boys’ by Rick Moody
194. ‘Murder At Fork Junction’ by Alston Anderson
195. ‘I Get By’ by Mary Robison
196. ‘Bad Latch’ by Curtis Sittenfeld
197. ‘Through The Safety Net’ by Charles Baxter
198. ‘The Go-Getter’ by P.G. Wodehouse
199. ‘The Naked Lady’ by Madison Smartt Bell
200. ‘The Walled Garden’ by Peter Taylor
201. ‘Soldier’s Home’ by Ernest Hemingway
202. ‘The Haunter Of The Dark’ by H.P. Lovecraft
203. ‘Different Shorelines’ by S.E. Hinton
204. ‘Magnificent Desolation’ by Jess Walter
205. ‘The Alaska Of Giants And Gods’ by Dave Eggers
206. ‘Along The Frontage Road’ by Michael Chabon
207. ‘What I Hear’ by Mary Robison
208. ‘This Is My Living Room’ by Tom McAfee
209. ‘How To Cure A Cold’ by Mark Twain
210. ‘The Artichoke’ by Marilyn Krysl
211. ‘The Child Screams And Looks Back At You’ by Russell Banks
212. ‘The Intermediate Class’ by Sam Allingham
213. ‘The Texas Principessa’ by William Goyen
214. ‘From 100 Elvis Stories’ by Lisa Walker