2nd Quarter 2025 favorites

2nd Quarter 2025

The 2nd Quarter (Apr-Jun) stories ordered solely by my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Office Hours’ by Ling Ma
  2. ‘The Country Husband’ by John Cheever
  3. ‘Marito In Citta’ by John Cheever
  4. ‘Korea’ by John McGahern
  5. ‘They’re Not Your Husband’ by Raymond Carver
  6. ‘A Clearing’ by Wendell Berry
  7. ‘Snowfall’ by Deesha Philyaw
  8. ‘La Vita Nuova’ by Allegra Goodman
  9. ‘The Toast’ by Rebecca Curtis
  10. ‘Helen On Eighty-Sixth Street’ by Wendi Kaufman
  11. ‘Blackbird Pie’ by Raymond Carver
  12. ‘The Hunter’s Wife’ by Anthony Doerr
  13. ‘When Eddie Levert Comes’ by Deesha Philyaw
  14. ‘Do Not Disturb’ by A.M. Homes
  15. ‘The Shell Collector’ by Anthony Doerr
  16. ‘Lessons With Father’ by Jai Chakrabarti
  17. ‘Across The Bridge’ Graham Greene
  18. ‘What’s Wrong With You? What’s Wrong With Me?’ by J.M. Holmes
  19. ‘They Told Us Not To Say This’ by Jenn Alandy Trahan
  20. ‘The Last Grownup’ by Allegra Goodman
  21. ‘A Sudden Story’ by Robert Coover
  22. ‘Fathers’ by Robley Wilson Jr.

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May 2023 favorites

May 2023

The May stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘A Strange And Sometimes Sadness’ by Kazuo Ishiguro
  2. ‘Some Of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby’ by Donald Barthelme
  3. ‘My Father’s Friends’ by William Maxwell
  4. ‘The Young Painters’ by Nicole Krauss
  5. ‘The First Day’ by Edward P. Jones
  6. ‘The Things They Carried’ by Tim O’Brien
  7. ‘Panther Eyes’ by Luisa Valenzuela
  8. ‘The Baby Party’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  9. ‘The War Of The Alligators’ by Horacio Quiroga
  10. ‘New York Girl’ by John Updike
  11. ‘Baster’ by Jeffrey Eugenides
  12. ‘Circus At Dawn’ by Thomas Wolfe
  13. ‘Future Cat’ by Xuan Juliana Wang
  14. ‘A Nursery Tale’ by Vladimir Nabokov
  15. ‘The Sorrows Of Gin’ by John Cheever
  16. ‘Tomorrow’ by Lu Xun
  17. ‘Apple Cake’ by Allegra Goodman
  18. ‘When We Were Happy We Had Other Names’ by Yiyun Li
  19. ‘Everything Is Far From Here’ by Cristina Henríquez
  20. ‘The Flood’ by Emile Zola
  21. ‘Now More Than Ever’ by Zadie Smith
  22. ‘Talpa’ by Juan Rulfo
  23. ‘Gideon’ by ZZ Packer
  24. ‘Alms’ by Stuart Dybek
  25. ‘They Tell Me… Now I Know’ by Shay Youngblood
  26. ‘In The West Country’ by Leslie Norris
  27. ‘The Starlet Apartments’ by Jonathan Lethem
  28. ‘The Voter’ by Chinua Achebe
  29. ‘The $30,000 Bequest’ by Mark Twain
  30. ‘The Huntress’ by Sofia Samatar
  31. ‘Two Ruminations On A Homeless Brother’ by David Means

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May 2022 favorites

May 2022

The May stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Children On Their Birthdays’ by Truman Capote
  2. ‘A View Of The Woods’ by Flannery O’Connor
  3. ‘Complicities’ by Alice Adams
  4. ‘This Is Paradise’ by Kristiana Kahakauwila
  5. ‘Birdland’ by Michael Knight
  6. ‘Consolation’ by Richard Bausch
  7. ‘Strange Moonlight’ by Conrad Aiken
  8. ‘The Quest For “Blank Claveringi”’ by Patricia Highsmith
  9. ‘Sucker’ by Carson McCullers
  10. ‘Buck Boy’ by James McBride
  11. ‘Friends From Philadelphia’ by John Updike
  12. ‘To Hell With Dying’ by Alice Walker
  13. ‘The Devil And Daniel Webster’ by Stephen Vincent Benét
  14. ‘The Local Production Of Cinderella’ by Allegra Goodman
  15. ‘Young Francis Whitehead’ by William Maxwell
  16. ‘Playing Before Royalty’ by Ian MacMillan
  17. ‘The Child Screams And Looks Back At You’ by Russell Banks
  18. ‘The Intermediate Class’ by Sam Allingham

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January 2022 favorites

January 2022

The January stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘The Whole World Knows’ by Eudora Welty
  2. ‘Clytie’ by Eudora Welty
  3. ‘The Family Meadow’ by John Updike
  4. ‘Travis, B.’ by Maile Meloy
  5. ‘Ava Wrestles The Alligator’ by Karen Russell
  6. ‘Displaced’ by Richard Ford
  7. ‘Four Lean Hounds, ca. 1976’ by Maile Meloy
  8. ‘Uncle High Lonesome’ by Barry Hannah
  9. ‘Alaska’ by Alice Adams
  10. ‘Riddle’ by Thomas McGuane
  11. ‘Flower Hunters’ by Lauren Groff
  12. ‘Treasure State’ by Smith Henderson
  13. ‘Magnolia Flower’ by Zora Neale Hurston
  14. ‘Happy’ by Joyce Carol Oates
  15. ‘Without Inspection’ by Edwidge Danticat
  16. ‘FAQs’ by Allegra Goodman
  17. ‘Boys’ by Rick Moody
  18. ‘Through The Safety Net’ by Charles Baxter

As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.

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