Here’s the final list of stories I read in May to commemorate Short Story Month. You can find brief commentaries on these stories on my Facebook Author Page here, where I kept up daily posts.
- All five stories nominated for this year’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story: “Steve’s Story” by Cathy Ace, “A Death at the Parsonage” by Susan Daly (which won!), and “Where There’s a Will” by Elizabeth Hosang, all from the anthology The Whole She-Bang 3; and “The Ascent” by Scott Mackay and “The Granite Kitchen” by David Morrell, both from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.
- “Whose Wine Is It Anyway?” by Barb Goffman from the new anthology 50 Shades of Cabernet.
- “Williamsburg Bridge” by John Edgar Wideman from Harper’s, republished in last year’s Best American Short Stories.
- “Obsession,” “The Fever Dream,” “Jimmy and I,” and “Interrupted Story” by Clarice Lispector from the massive collection Complete Stories.
- “The Jar” by my wife, Tara Laskowski, from JMWW and recently selected for the Wigleaf Top 50, honoring the best flash fiction stories of the previous year.
- “Vanity Case” by John Floyd from the just-released Spring issue of Mysterical-E.
- “Acknowledgements” by Martin Edwards, a stand-alone, limited edition publication for this year’s Malice Domestic by Crippen & Landru.
- “Put Yourself in My Shoes” by Raymond Carver from his debut collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
- “Dreaming of Rain and Peter Lovesey” by Ann Cleeves from the anthology Motives for Murder: Stories by the Detection Club for Peter Lovesey, published by Crippen & Landru.
- “No More Waiting” by Helen Nelson from the anthology The Whole She-Bang 3.
- “Pulpo” by Leigh Camacho Rourks at SmokeLong.
- “Hourglass” by Clare Beams from her collection We Show What We Have Learned.
- “Night Class” by David Dean from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.
- “A Garden for Adonis” by Debra Goldstein from Texas Gardener’s Seeds.
- “The Summer People” by Kelly Link from her collection Get in Trouble.
- “The Seven” by Elaine Viets from the anthology Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Historical.
- “Queen of the Dogs” by Holly West from the anthology 44 Caliber Funk: Tales of Crime, Soul, and Payback.
- “Crime on Mars” by Arthur C. Clarke and “Goodbye, Pops” by Joe Gores, both from the volume The Sixties from the multi-volume anthology Masterpieces of Mystery, edited by Ellery Queen.
- “The Way Up to Heaven” by Roald Dahl from The New Yorker—in 1954.
- “Dead Yellow Women” by Dashiell Hammett from The Big Knockover—celebrating Hammett’s birthday!
- “The Sweet Unsweet” by Jay Merrill from Matchbook.
- “How to be Another Person in Five Days” by Rebecca Bernard and “After the Third Notice, the City Shuts Off Our Power” by Wynne Hungerford, both from SmokeLong Quarterly.
- “Lady Tremaine’s Rebuttal” by Karen Pullen from Every Day Fiction.
- “Breadcrumbs” by Victoria Weisfeld from Betty Fedora, winner of this year’s Derringer Award for Best Long Story.