>Winter of Different Directions, by Steven J. McDermott

>Today is the last day of Short Story Month. I didn’t even come close to reading the 20 books I was aiming for. I…

>LitMag Wave: The Sun, June 2007

>As we near the end of Short Story Month, it seems fitting that we return to Alex Mindt, whose story collection The Male of…

>Spit Baths, by Greg Downs

>More Short Story Month: The stories in Greg Downs’s Spit Baths are filled with oddball characters and twisted relationships, often with an absent father…

>LitMag Wave: Short Story, No. 2, Spring 2007

>I mentioned here last week that I’d become aware of a new literary journal, Short Story. I now have in my possession No. 2,…

>LitMag Wave: One Story No. 89

>With this story, One Story takes a dark turn. “The Wolf Story” by Irina Reyn is about Galya, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor,…

>The New Yorker: "Puppy" by George Saunders

>I’m not completely sold on this story told in alternating points of view of two women who at first seem very different. First we…

>LitMag Wave: Willow Springs

>Willow Springs No. 58 (Fall 2006) is not the most recent issue, but it’s the one I’ve got. I enjoyed much of it, including…

>How to Write a Short Story

>This isn’t an essay on craft. No conflict, rising action, denouement; no Freitag’s triangle; no character, setting, plot. This is about process. More or…

>LitMag Wave: One Story #88

>“Aerogrammes” by Tania James is about Hari Panicker, a widowed Indian immigrant in the U.S. whose son Sunit is in New York trying to…

>The New Yorker: "A Beneficiary" by Nadine Gordimer

>This isn’t one of my favorites. I like the language well enough and the protagonist Charlotte is interesting (if not fully formed), but the…