Second, the offputting book covers that make some of the editions look like bad airport fiction, which couldn’t be further from the truth that lies inside. Third is the fact that a lot of her work retreads similar territory: mostly, women being shoved into the ground by time, fate, small towns and smaller minds. First up, the sheer volume: more than 150 stories across fourteen collections since the late ’60s. There are a few things that make it difficult to know where to start with Munro’s catalogue. Loosely stringing together events, coincidences, fateful decisions and missed connections, often across decades, her stories combine everyday drudgery and occasional flashes of emotion with enough intensity to sear your heart like a juicy steak.

Octogenarian, Canadian and one of only 15 women to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Munro writes very, very good short stories: micro-novels of rural or suburban life, occasionally linked by recurring characters or places. Well, if you’re up for exploring that feeling in more depth, there’s no one who articulates it better than Alice Munro. Speculative fiction on Fridays, literary fiction on Sundays, and more.Stuck is something everyone is feeling right now – a weird blend of frustration, claustrophobia and longing for what might have happened if this hadn’t. If you're craving more short stories, r/ShortProse has got you covered.

Bonus essay from Kochai: How Final Fantasy VII Taught Me to Write. Jamil Jan Kochai's collection The Haunting of Hajji Hotak won the 2023 Aspen Prize and its title story was selected for the 2023 O. Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain by Jamil Jan Kochai George Saunders' collection Liberation Day was one of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2022. Her 2022 debut collection Send Nudes won the Edge Hill short story prize. This story won Sams the coveted BBC national short story award. Henry Prize, selected by guest editor Lauren Groff. This story is one of the winners of the 2023 O.

Ling Ma won the Story Prize for her collection Bliss Montage. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to showcase great short stories published recently. LitHub is posting new stories every work day of May (1st: Alice Munro's Wenlock Edge, 2nd: Gabriel García Márquez' The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, 3rd: TBD).

Alice munro new selected stories