American Short Fiction blog

Doug Dorst, Nell Freudenberger, ZZ Packer, Angela Pneuman, Wells Tower. In a panel discussion that includes American Short Fiction’s own Jill Meyers.

The Austin Public Library Friends Foundation presents the New Fiction Confab, featuring some of America’s most prominent emerging writers. On the agenda for this Saturday, April 17: a 3:45 pm panel discussion as mentioned above, moderated by Texas Monthly editor Jake Silverstein. Arrive at 1 pm for a series of short readings and Q&A with the writers.

This confab is free and open to the public. It happens at Faulk Central Library (800 Guadalupe Street). Need more info? Grab it here.

Also on this day from 10 to 11:15am at libraries throughout Austin: fiction workshops for elementary, junior high, and high school students led by Nell Freudenberger, Angela Pneuman, and Wells Tower. Check it.

About the authors… (more…)

Hi, y’all.

It’s that time again. American Short Fiction is looking for passionate readers and writers who are in Austin (or willing to brave the scorching Austin heat for a few months) and interested in interning at the magazine this summer. Our editorial interns do things like evaluate submissions, correspond with authors, copyedit and proofread stories, help plan events, and research for future issues and various ASF projects. Interns usually work 10 to 15 hours a week for a period of 3 months. Our internships are unpaid. We recommend that applicants have a strong background in English or American literature, or a related field.

If you’d like to apply, send a résumé and cover letter to me, callie.collins [at] americanshortfiction.org. In your cover letter, let us know why we’d love to have you around the office and let us know about your experience with contemporary short fiction. We’d love to know about a story, an author, or a journal you adore and why.

We can’t wait to hear from you!

Jill Meyers is reading. . .

Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia (“A great roundup of writing by 22 young Russian fiction writers. For many of them, this the first time their work is appearing in English.”)
The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World
Complexity: A Guided Tour

Johannes Lichtman’s reading all things punk and heavy metal, with a foray into a “rhapsodic and piercing post-9/11 lament over aggression, greed, and racism, and a ravishing blues for the soul’s unending loneliness.” (That’s from the Booklist review of Man Gone Down.)

Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas
Sound of the Beast by Ian Christe
Heavy Metal by Deena Weinstein
The Philosophy of Punk by Craig O’Hara
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Sarah Wambold is reading…

A galley of  Joshua Ferris’s  The Unnamed and most likely  The Two Mrs Grenvilles by Dominick Dunne, RIP.

Dina Guidubaldi’s reading. . .

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (“I gave up trying to hate him.”)
A bunch of handwritten freshman essays.
The Convalescent by Jessica Anthony

American Short Fiction is thrilled to welcome Dina Guidubaldi and Stacy Muszynski, our new Web editors. These two are devoting themselves to all things Web, as they select stories for our monthly online series and develop the blog. (Which, you have may noticed, now features more frequent posts as well as broader arts coverage.)

Both of our talented new editors are brilliant writers and active in Austin’s literary community. Guidubaldi teaches writing at Texas State. Her fiction has been featured in the Santa Monica Review and Ninth Letter, and her journalism in Spin. She is currently a columnist for the Austin American-Statesman. Muszynski is an organizer and cohost of Five Things Austin and a contributor to Identity Theory and The Rumpus. She currently has fiction in elimae and Opium Magazine and forthcoming in an anthology of Austin writers by Dalton Publishing. Guidubaldi and Muszynski are longtime ASF volunteers, and we are proud to have them along for this new venture.

Hooray!