Selected Short Stories & Essays

These are the short stories and essays that don't make me cringe. Anywhere there's an active link, you can grab a full-text PDF of the following short stories or essays. Thank you for reading!

Note: there are fewer links than usual because my collection just came out in January. I’ll repost the PDFs a year after the paperback is out (so, 2027). If you want a free story for teaching/learning purposes, please feel free to contact me for a PDF and I’ll be happy to send one!

Short Stories:

“Jude”—The granddaughter of a nameless Holocaust survivor. Appeared in Colorado Review, Summer 2024 (online feature: read it here), and in my collection, Save Me, Stranger. First line: We visited my grandmother, Roberta, once per season while growing up, always in her crowded Brooklyn apartment.
“I Feel Like I Could Stand Here With You All Night and It Would Be the Worst Night of My Life”—Selling racist antiques in Ohio. Online here in the September issue of Cleaver, and in my collection, Save Me, Stranger. First line: I work at Ye Olde Curio Shoppe downtown.
“Fear Me as You Fear God”—Escape to a haunted B&B in the Colorado mountains. Appeared in The Southern Review, Summer 2024, and in my collection, Save Me, Stranger. First line: I drove all night on tangled mountain back roads to escape my husband in Idaho, panicking at every set of headlights in my rearview.
“Eat My Moose”—Euthanizers in Alaska. Winner of the 2025 Edgar Award for Best Short Story. Appeared in Conjunctions, Spring 2024 “Works and Days” issue, in my collection, Save Me, Stranger, and will appear in 2025 Best Mystery Stories of the Year and The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2025. First line: Who knows what a euthanizer is supposed to look like, but judging from my clients’ expressions when they answer their doors, they don’t expect a sweat-sopped middle-aged guy in overalls, nauseated from a bumpy flight or a long truck drive on a chip seal highway.
“The Pole of Cold”—Death and love in the coldest town on earth. Appeared in One Story, March 25, 2015. Click here for an interview about the story. Reprinted here in Nowhere Magazine, March 2016, and in my collection, Save Me, Stranger. Finalist (Distinguished Story) for Best American Short Stories 2016. First line: I live in the coldest town on earth.
“North of Dodge”—Driving an ice cream truck through the slums of Omaha, Nebraska. Appeared in Glimmer Train 106, Fall 2019, their last-ever issue, and in my collection, Save Me, Stranger. Finalist (Special Mention) for the 2021 Pushcart Prize. First line: My high school voted me ‘Most Likely to Leave Dunfield,’ so a week after graduation I stole my uncle’s station wagon and did just that.
“The Standing Man”—A Tokyo-suburb ramen shop with a mystery. Appeared in The Iowa Review, Fall 2018, and in my collection, Save Me, Stranger. Winner of Longleaf Writers Conference Cabana Man Fellowship. First line: I recognized the Standing Man the second he stepped into our ramen shop, although I had never seen his eyes open before.
“When in Bangkok”—CW: told from the perspective of the daughter of a pedophile sex tourist. Appeared in The Kenyon Review, November/December 2016, featured in “Why We Chose It,” and in my collection, Save Me, Stranger. Finalist (Special Mention) for the 2018 Pushcart Prize. First line(s): The morning after we landed in Bangkok, my father tossed some baht onto the restaurant table without counting it. Enough eating, he said.
“The Piano”—Piano vs. marriage. Appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Winter/Spring 2018, and in my collection, Save Me, Stranger. Finalist (Notable Nonrequired Reading) for Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019. First line: The customer entered our store with her hands in her pockets, never a good sign.
“Wounds of the Heart and Great Vessels”—Dating an insomniac anesthesiologist. Appeared in Crazyhorse, Spring 2015, and in my collection, Save Me, Stranger. Finalist (Special Mention) for the 2017 Pushcart Prize. First line: My first date with Dr. David Constantino lasted five minutes.
“Lotus”—A convenience store holdup gets complicated. Appeared in Boulevard, Spring 2017, and in my collection, Save Me, Stranger. First line: I was buying my daughter hot cocoa at a convenience store when the three of them walked in, pulling guns from their winter coats.
“The Husbands”—Dating husbands…including your sister’s. Appeared in The New Yorker, Summer Fiction Issue, June 18th and 25th, 2001. Reprinted here by The New York Times, and in my first collection, Come Up and See Me Sometime. First line: I like to sleep with other women’s husbands.
“Other People’s Mothers”—Mothers aren’t always on your side. Appeared in Ploughshares, Winter 1999-2000, editor: Madison Smartt Bell, and in my first collection, Come Up and See Me Sometime. First line: While Wanda had an abortion, I had lunch with her mother.
“What I Wore”—You are what you pretend to be. Appeared in Story, Spring 1999, and in my first collection, Come Up and See Me Sometime. First line: I left Jerry the same day I auditioned for the role of a boysenberry in a yogurt commercial.
“My Weddings”—My first short story! Appeared in The Atlantic, October 1998, and in my first collection, Come Up and See Me Sometime. First line: My first wedding was Aunt Marcia’s second.