“Pema wants to ask Jamal, Have you seen the news? But of course he hasn’t. He’s got other things to think about and now so does she.”
Short Fiction
Did Your Walls Keep Them Out, or Lock You In?
Gabriela Garcia’s short story about a women fighting a cold war with her new neighbor is deeply political without explicitly being about politics at all.
Of Politics and Prose
Roxane Gay writes about the necessary and inevitable influence of politics on literature at this fraught time in history.
What Does a Political Story Look Like in 2018?
An essay in which Roxane Gay reveals how she chose the short stories for inclusion in Best American Short Stories 2018 — with an eye toward writing that engaged with the political in thoughtful, engaging, diverse and inclusive ways.
‘They’ve Forked Baby Hitler’
High-stakes time travel adventure from sci-fi writer Jo Lindsay Walton.
‘Because pretending was sometimes the only way to get through the day.’
A teacher helping fidgety students pass a rainy recess with a familiar game — don’t touch the floor, it’s lava! — finds that the ability to pretend takes on an unexpected gravity.