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A Conversation With PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2019 Author Laura Freudig
“When you feel like you have no power in a relationship, withholding becomes one of the only ways you can maintain the illusion of agency.”
PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2019
My husband, John, calls me a good mother. He says this with a glint of unease in his eyes, as though he is telling a lie or working a charm. He calls during his coffee breaks—he doesn’t drink coffee, so he has time to talk—and asks, “How is Clint?” and when I say, “Fine,” or “Sleeping,” or “Alive,” he asks, “And how are you, sweetie?” He’s learned that sweetie is a potent word. Still, my answers vary.
I know if he dared, he’d go next door to Humpback Ales after work and drink until I became bearable, which would be at least two hours for him, because he’s a slow drinker. But he’s home every day at 5:07 because he loves Clint, who is named after the ideal country lane where my husband grew up. He wants a similar childhood for his son, who may not be getting it.
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A Roundtable With the PEN America Best Debut Short Stories Judges: Sabrina Orah Mark, Emily Nemens, and Deesha Philyaw
Many of the stories felt written on the edge of an edge of an edge of a world.
On “getting creatively lost”: Robert J. Dau Prize Winner Mathapelo Mofokeng
Learn about Mathapelo Mofokeng’s short story “The Strong-Strong Winds,” which was selected for ‘Best Debut Short Stories 2021.’
“The most innocent thing you can do is want to create”: Robert J. Dau Prize Winner Isaac Hughes Green
Learn about Isaac Hughes Green’s short story “The First Time I Said It,” which was selected for ‘Best Debut Short Stories 2021.’
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A Conversation With PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018 Author Celeste Mohammed
“My focus was on the character and emotions of the immigrant: the loneliness, the sense of loss and disconnection.”
A Conversation with Jessica J. Lee, Author of ‘Two Trees Make a Forest’
I just can’t stop coming back to this idea of human migrations, family migrations, and plant migrations.
A Conversation With Best Debut Short Stories 2020 Author Willa C. Richards
“I wanted to portray the pain of trying to reach someone who is inside their own, unreachable pain, and how this often puts untenable pressure on relationships.”