How Many Short Stories, Which Short Stories

Have some you'd like to add to my list?

Did you hear? I am reading a short story a day for 2022. Being a fiction writer (who has been working on a nonfiction book for the past couple years) I have read my share of short stories. I’ve also taught a bunch of short stories. But I’m not limiting myself to stories I’ve never read in 2022. I will read as many stories as I can, whether I’ve read them before or not. For right now, I am compiling a list of stories to read in January 2022. Note that even though I have read some of these before, I forget what I read so so easily, it almost is like I am reading them for the first time.

So, here are some of my own rules:

1. Not everything can be from the New Yorker (this is actually challenging).

2. I am prioritizing stories I can find online and put on hold at the library.

3. A diverse range of authors, in every aspect. Queer, BIPOC, and non-American authors need to be as plentiful (if not more plentiful) as white American writers.

4. A diverse mix of classics, brand new, and everything in between.

5. Stories in translation (I’d love to find stories by international writers lesser known in the American “canon”).

6. Nothing over forty pages.

7. Flash fiction is fine, but will be grouped together.

8. My readers have a say in what I read. I will choose fifteen stories per month, and then pick the rest of the stories from reader suggestions.

9. I will write something about every single story I read, even if it’s just a paragraph.

10. No repeat authors.

Any other rules you think I should implement? Have a story to suggest?

Comment here:

First stories of 2021:

This is my first fifteen days. The last fifteen days are up to you! If you suggest a short story, please either link to it or name the book it lives in, so I can put it on hold at the library. Leave your suggestion in the comments.

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January 1: Gabriel Bump: “To Buffalo Eastward”

January 2: Rita Chang-Eppig: “My Father, the Morning Star”

January 3: James Baldwin: “Sonny’s Blues” (reread)

January 4: Jamaica Kincaid: “Girl” (reread)

January 5: Nafissa Thompson-Spires “Suicide, Watch” (reread)

January 6: Anthony Veasna So: “The Shop” (reread)

January 7: Sejal Shah: “The Half King”

January 8: Raymond Carver: “Call If You Need Me”

January 9: Flannery O’Connor (undecided which story, tell me in comments!)

January 10: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah “Zimmer Land” (reread)

January 11: Tobias Wolff: “Bullet in the Brain” (reread)

January 12: Amy Hempl: “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried”

January 13: Miranda July: “Roy Spivy”

January 14: Andrew Zhou: “Inheritance”

January 15: Donald Barthelme “The School” (reread)

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