March 2024 favorites

March 2024

The March stories ordered solely by my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Torch Song’ by John Cheever
  2. ‘You Never Get It Back’ by Cara Blue Adams
  3. ‘Three Women Of Chuck’s Donuts’ by Anthony Veasna So
  4. ‘The Worm In Philly’ by Sam Lipsyte
  5. ‘Brigid’ by Mary Lavin
  6. ‘Chance’ by Alice Munro
  7. ‘Departure’ by Andrew Porter
  8. ‘The Long Black Line’ by John L’Heureux
  9. ‘The Run Of Yourself’ by Richard Ford
  10. ‘The Slip-Up’ by John McGahern
  11. ‘The Maths Tutor’ by Tessa Hadley
  12. ‘Hearts Of Oak And Bellies Of Brass’ by John McGahern
  13. ‘Take Half, Leave Half’ by Thomas McGuane
  14. ‘What Feels Like The World’ by Richard Bausch
  15. ‘Seeing Ershadi’ by Nicole Krauss
  16. ‘The Triumph Of Night’ by Edith Wharton
  17. ‘Ocracoke Island’ by Alice Adams
  18. ‘Those As Are Brothers’ by Nancy Hale
  19. ‘The Man Who Saw The Flood’ by Richard Wright
  20. ‘Envoy’ by Caleb Crain
  21. ‘Rumm Road’ by Alice Elliott Dark
  22. ‘The Glass House’ by Chris Adrian
  23. ‘A Story Without A Title’ by Anton Chekhov
  24. ‘Beach Town’ by Amy Hempel
  25. ‘The Help’ by Mary Robison
  26. ‘Korean Jesus’ by Pete Hsu
  27. ‘So Late In The Day’ by Claire Keegan
  28. ‘The Kid Nobody Could Handle’ by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  29. ‘Xífù’ by K-Ming Chang
  30. ‘Miss Mary Pask’ by Edith Wharton
  31. ‘You Tell Me’ by Clare Sestanovich

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January 2024 favorites

January 2024

The January stories ordered solely by my personal tastes.

  1. ‘City Of Churches’ by Donald Barthelme
  2. ‘In The Cart’ by Anton Chekhov
  3. ‘Parker’s Back’ by Flannery O’Connor
  4. ‘Death’ by Sherwood Anderson
  5. ‘Sophistication’ by Sherwood Anderson
  6. ‘Harrison Bergeron’ by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  7. ‘The Continuity Of Parks’ by Julio Cortázar
  8. ‘The Night’s For Cryin’’ by Chester Himes
  9. ‘Love Is Not A Pie’ by Amy Bloom
  10. ‘The House Behind’ by Lydia Davis
  11. ‘Queer’ by Sherwood Anderson
  12. ‘The Untold Lie’ by Sherwood Anderson
  13. ‘Fjord Of Killary’ by Kevin Barry
  14. ‘Drink’ by Sherwood Anderson
  15. ‘U.F.O. In Kushiro’ by Haruki Murakami
  16. ‘Ruthy And Edie’ by Grace Paley
  17. ‘What It Takes To Keep A Young Girl Alive’ by Jayne Anne Phillips
  18. ‘In A Different Light’ by Elizabeth Taylor
  19. ‘Departure’ by Sherwood Anderson
  20. ‘An Awakening’ by Sherwood Anderson
  21. ‘Under The Boardwalk’ by Jayne Anne Phillips
  22. ‘One Night In New Jersey’ by Chester Himes
  23. ‘It’s Not You’ by Elizabeth McCracken
  24. ‘Three Popes Walk Into A Bar’ by Amy Hempel
  25. ‘My Mother’s Memoirs, My Father’s Lie, And Other True Stories’ by Russell Banks
  26. ‘Pool Night’ by Amy Hempel
  27. ‘Thunderbirds: Who, Why, and How’ by Rebecca Scherm
  28. ‘University Days’ by James Thurber
  29. ‘An Enigmatic Nature’ by Anton Chekhov
  30. ‘The New Lodger’ by Amy Hempel
  31. ‘Detour’ by Évelyne Trouillot

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

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October 2023 favorites

October 2023

The October stories ordered solely by my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Seven Floors’ by Dino Buzzati
  2. ‘Behzin Meadow’ by Ivan Turgenev
  3. ‘The Yellow Ranch’ by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
  4. ‘Moist House’ by Kate Folk
  5. ‘Scenes From The Left Of A Double Monster’ by Vladimir Nabokov
  6. ‘Time And Again’ by Breece D’J Pancake
  7. ‘A Tree Of Night’ by Truman Capote
  8. ‘2 B R 0 2 B’ by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  9. ‘Out There’ by Kate Folk
  10. ‘Thrawn Janet’ by Robert Louis Stevenson
  11. ‘The Hidden Cause’ by Machado de Assis
  12. ‘Blind Girls’ by Jayne Anne Phillips
  13. ‘Luvina’ by Juan Rulfo
  14. ‘Diary Of A Madman’ by Lu Xun
  15. ‘Catskin’ by Kelly Link
  16. ‘The Eyes Have It’ by Philip K. Dick
  17. ‘Brad Carrigan, American’ by George Saunders
  18. ‘Frights’ by Allegra Hyde
  19. ‘The Horla’ by Guy de Maupassant
  20. ‘The Intruder’ by Nada Alic
  21. ‘The Price’ by Neil Gaiman
  22. ‘The Self-Improvement Of Salvadore Ross’ by Henry Slesar
  23. ‘A Little More Research’ by Joan Hess
  24. ‘Death Of A Romance Writer’ by Joan Hess
  25. ‘What A Thought’ by Shirley Jackson
  26. ‘The Hammer Of God’ by G.K. Chesterton
  27. ‘Asleep At The Wheel’ by T. Coraghessan Boyle
  28. ‘The Call Of Cthulhu’ by H.P. Lovecraft
  29. ‘The Jewel Robbery At The Grand Metropolitan’ by Agatha Christie
  30. ‘Man-Size In Marble’ by Edith Nesbit
  31. ‘The Temple’ by Joyce Carol Oates

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

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June 2014 favorites

June 2014

The June stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Venus, Cupid, Folly And Time’ by Peter Taylor
  2. ‘Blackberry Winter’ by Robert Penn Warren
  3. ‘Babylon Revisited’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  4. ‘Upon The Sweeping Flood’ by Joyce Carol Oates
  5. ‘Good Country People’ by Flannery O’Connor
  6. ‘My Old Man’ by Ernest Hemingway
  7. ‘I’m A Fool’ by Sherwood Anderson
  8. ‘Sonny’s Blues’ by James Baldwin
  9. ‘Only The Dead Know Brooklyn’ by Thomas Wolfe
  10. ‘Double Birthday’ by Willa Cather
  11. ‘The View From The Balcony’ by Wallace Stegner
  12. ‘The Magic Barrel’ by Bernard Malamud
  13. ‘No Place For You, My Love’ by Eudora Welty
  14. ‘The Schreuderspitze’ by Mark Helprin
  15. ‘The Hartleys’ by John Cheever
  16. ‘O City Of Broken Dreams’ by John Cheever
  17. ‘A Day In The Open’ by Jane Bowles
  18. ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson
  19. ‘In The Zoo’ by Jean Stafford
  20. ‘The Lost Phoebe’ by Theodore Dreiser
  21. ‘Welcome To The Monkey House’ by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  22. ‘How Beautiful With Shoes’ by Wilbur Daniel Steele
  23. ‘The Little Wife’ by William March
  24. ‘A Distant Episode’ by Paul Bowles
  25. ‘The Faithful Wife’ by Morley Callaghan
  26. ‘The Golden Honeymoon’ by Ring Lardner
  27. ‘Resurrection Of A Life’ by William Saroyan
  28. ‘The State Of Grace’ by Harold Brodkey
  29. ‘A Telephone Call’ by Dorothy Parker
  30. ‘The Survivors’ by Elsie Singmaster