Forthcoming January 21, 2025: Save Me, Stranger (stories)

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 is coming out in January. If you want a free story for teaching purposes, please feel free to contact me for a .pdf!

Short Stories:

(Forthcoming) “Eat My Moose” in Conjunctions, Spring 2024 “Works and Days” issue. Will appear in forthcoming collection, Save Me, Stranger, January 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.
(Forthcoming) “Jude,” in Colorado Review, Summer 2024. Will appear in forthcoming collection, Save Me, Stranger, January 2025. First line: We visited my grandmother, Roberta, once per season while growing up, always in her crowded Brooklyn apartment.
(Forthcoming) “Fear Me as You Fear God” in The Southern Review, Summer 2024. Will appear in forthcoming collection, Save Me, Stranger, January 2025. 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.
“The Pole of Cold”—death and love in Oymyakon, Siberia. Appeared in One Story, March 25, 2015. Click here for an interview about the story. Reprinted here in Nowhere Magazine, March 2016. Finalist (Distinguished Story) for Best American Short Stories 2016. Will appear in forthcoming collection, Save Me, Stranger, January 2025. 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. Finalist (Special Mention) for the 2021 Pushcart Prize. Will appear in forthcoming collection, Save Me, Stranger, January 2025. 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. Winner of Longleaf Writers Conference Cabana Man Fellowship. Will appear in forthcoming collection, Save Me, Stranger, January 2025. 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”—content warning: told from the perspective of the daughter of a pedophile sex tourist. Appeared in The Kenyon Review, November/December 2016. Also featured in “Why We Chose It” and finalist (Special Mention) for the 2018 Pushcart Prize. Will appear in forthcoming collection, Save Me, Stranger, January 2025. 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. Finalist (Notable Nonrequired Reading) for Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019. Will appear in forthcoming collection, Save Me, Stranger, January 2025. 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. Finalist (Special Mention) for the 2017 Pushcart Prize. Will appear in forthcoming collection, Save Me, Stranger, January 2025. First line: My first date with Dr. David Constantino lasted five minutes.
“Lotus”—a convenience store holdup gets complicated. Appeared in Boulevard, Spring 2017. 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. 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. 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. 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. First line: My first wedding was Aunt Marcia’s second.