So, there was something ancestral, something almost at the gene level in his renewed interest in music, which on the one hand aligned him (and depressingly) with all of his grandfather's failure and abandoned aspirations, and which on the other hand was just plain tranquil. Ella Mei Yon
Tuesday
In the black of night, the buildings' structures are barely visible, and so windows of all shapes and sizes, alternately filled with light, create a mosaic of awkward patterns. These are the city's stars. Nellie Hermann
Meanness
Even the crowded streets were beautiful to Ahsan. It didn't happen often, that they were so transformed, but when it did he felt an expanse open in his chest; it was as if suddenly, for a brief moment, he became hollow inside, and it was only when he was empty that he could properly see. Alexi Zentner
Finis
We're not in love, he said, are we? We could be. Why don't we give it a try? Charles Baxter
Interview by Jeremiah Chamberlin
People spend much of their lives trying to repress and hide things, and I've come to feel that it's the business of fiction to bring up to visibility those things that families and social groups and individuals habitually hide. Philip Tate
Gas
My mother doesn't recognize me at first. Then I raise my hand to cover the bald spot at the front of my head. She laughs a good long time. Oh, it's good to be home. Everything is back to normal. Jennifer Tomscha
Sure Gravity
Then someone, concerned, strong, broke open the door, and this was the beginning of the first day. Rebecca Podos
The Fourth
Next door, the Masciarelli sisters tanned on their deck, towels between their bodies and the wood planks. It seemed like tough work. They would roll to the left, reset an egg timer, roll to their backs when it rang, and turn to the right, oiling themselves regularly. Hugh Sheehy
Whiteout
When he hung up, he knew by the sound of their voices that they had not believed him completely. It was not disbelief he had heard, or even skepticism, but an awareness of who he had always been. Karen Russell
Interview by Carmiel Banasky
There are these living, deeply embedded constellations of types. I don't know if that's something to struggle against or just go for. But it is awkward. One story I wanted to set in the dust-bowl drought but I looked at it and said, Wait a second, it's you people again.« less