i've been reading a bunch of short fiction anthologies (mostly the 'best american short stories' from various years, but also classics and regional collections) lately and got curious as to everyone else's favorite short stories/short fiction authors.

i know my friend really like tobias wolff, but my personal favorite has to be raymond carver or ambrose bierce right now. chekov also wrote some really good stuff, and there are some one-offs in the anthologies that are really good, namely:

Snares by Louise Edrich Inn Essence by Ralph Lombreglia Entrechat by Edith Milton

and uh!! yeah!! i'm just really curious as to your favorite short stories!

(also maybe discuss WHY short stories and not entire novels. for me, as a senior in high school, i literally just don't have time to sit down and read a whole novel right now. five to ten pages for a story is GREAT, and i love the succinctness of the feeling you get from a single story. i love the snapshot tale. idk idk)

Oh man, I'm so here for short stories! I sat down a few days ago and made a list of how many I've read this year alone and thing's got longer than 100. And I'm a huge fan of Chekhov as well! Love that guy.

Anyway, my favorite ones that are easy to find in English are the following:

• "Morella", by Edgar Allan Poe (I'm writing a thesis on this one, delightfully creepy like so many of Poe's stuff)
• "House Taken Over", by Julio Cortázar (the feeling of domesticity vs. the unknown just plain freaked me out)
• "The Shadow in the Rose Garden", by D.H. Lawrence (beautiful omg beautiful take on relationships and memories and all that jazz)
• "The Dead", by James Joyce (pretty famous one and more on the long side with 30+ pages but MY GOODNESS that ending was a punch to the gut and it's so beautifully written too, definitely worth reading if you haven't yet)
• "The Nightingale and the Rose", Oscar Wilde (magical fairytale atmosphere vs. crushing reality, just the way I like it)

My other suggestions are unfortunately written in languages other than English and are hard if not impossible to find translated online, sadly. As for WHY short stories specifically: the feeling of succinctness, like you said, and also because I tend to be a slow reader when it comes to novels and short stories make me feel productive like oh wow, I actually finished reading something!

Pretty much any of Ray Bradbury`s short stories, though his stories are meant to be read aloud.

There Will Come Soft Rains is one of my favorites, and The Veldt. His story A Piece of Wood always gives me shivers no matter how many times I read it.

Two of my absolute faves are "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates and "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" by Sherman Alexie.

My favorite short story is "By the Waters of Babylon," by Stephen Vincent Benet.

Me too!

I also really enjoyed “The Year of Silence” by Kevin Brockmeier.

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