When we recommend fiction, we usually recommend novels. It’s rare for someone to recommend a collection of short stories. An avid reader might never have picked up a short story collection.
Even in school, teachers usually assign us excerpts from long poems or entire novels, never a short story collection like Chekhov’s, and that’s a shame. I’m convinced that if we started from the other side, literacy statistics would be far less alarming.
Flash fiction in particular (< 1,000 words) is even more invisible to the reader, which is ironic considering it is one of the oldest and most versatile narrative forms that people encounter daily in their lives.
I remember that when I opened my TikTok account (now deleted), I had thousands of videos of people telling anecdotes and bizarre stories (the algorithm worked damn well), but I digress.
What I mean is that today’s readers actually consume enormous amounts of short fiction, but they just don’t call it that way.
As a writer, even though I have to meet the expectations of other writers and publishers, the most important person to me is the reader. I just realized, while talking to friends who aren’t writers, that they don’t even know literary magazines exist and have never heard of “flash fiction.”
But instead of retreating into my ivory tower, I realize it’s part of my duty to educate people who are willing to listen.
In any case, this is my first attempt to share some of my culture. For me, reading short stories is not only part of my duty as a writer, but also a real pleasure, a pastime.
And I am also aware that my knowledge is really just the tip of the iceberg. More than 4,000 English-language magazines are publishing high-quality work, each specializing in a particular niche or audience, not to mention other unknown works in languages other than English.
This collection is my personal anthology of works that I find unforgettable, whether for their prose, plot, the writer’s voice, or the underlying message.
I hope you enjoy it. Save this post or copy and paste it for later. Take the time you need to read.
Literary fiction is serious. Instead of being plot-driven and action-oriented, it is a genre that is more artistic and sophisticated, and doesn’t generally appeal to a mass audience.
I studied this story in a class, and now I revisit it every once in a while. Poetic prose, non-linear storytelling. It’s incredible how much is left to the reader, how in less than 1000 words we have a feel of an entire lifetime. Masterful execution of words that melt in your brain like honey.
Everyone recommends The Lady with the Toy Dog from Chekhov, but please, read this one. You finish it knowing the social rules, the historical context, without any historical lecture. It’s funny until it isn’t.
From a narrative standpoint, this story is inventive. Written as a series of second-person instructions—“do this, feel that”—it pulls you into the experience, and you become the character. It’s a unique technique that I love, but it might make some people feel uncomfortable. The story is raw, and if you’ve ever struggled with your relationship with your mother, this story doesn’t sugarcoat anything, but it’s not a condemnation either.
You should’ve expected an Italian short story. This is a classic of Italian literature, required reading in Italian schools. A red-haired boy works in a sand quarry in 19th-century Sicily. Because of the color of his hair, everyone around him treats him as if he were inherently evil. He internalizes this judgment.
Get your tissues ready for this story.
Speculative is an umbrella term that englobes all the genre fiction of the what-if: science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, magical realism, and so on. Since I’m not a fan of hyper segmentation, a small description of the story can give you a better idea if the story tends towards science fiction or more fantasy. I honestly don’t care about the separation.
If you’re familiar with Philip K. Dick novels, this short story will not disappoint you.
This one is a trip. The title alone is a story.
When it comes to science fiction, everyone recommends the original story of Ursula K. Le Guin. I find this revisit brilliant and bold.
Men, I’m a huge fan of Samantha Murray’s stories. I read EVERY. SINGLE. SHORT. STORY she published. The prose is masterful. The elegiac, poetic atmosphere that she creates is just… otherworldly. And yes, I re-read this piece every once in a while.
If you love fantasy and you are tired of “show, don’t tell,” this story is for you. I love the “tells”. I love fables. Everyone starts with fables early in their life, so why did we give up on this powerful narrative? Nonsense. But since this story has been published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, it possesses literary complexity; it’s a mythopoeic fantasy.
I highly recommend this story. I loved it. LOVED IT!!
I couldn’t put it down. This is a plot-driven story, without sacrificing the prose. If you liked Inception, this story is for you.
Small, telepathic aliens crash land on Earth and form an unlikely friendship with the farm family who rescues them.
I highly recommend this story if you’re tired of the usual trope that aliens are evil and we must fight them.
This personal anthology ends here this week. I hope you enjoy it. See you next.
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