Imaginary Museums by Nicolette Polek, a very real story collection from Soft Skull Press, reviewed by Erin Flanagan

This slim collection of compact stories left me dumbfounded that we’re given the agency to run our own lives when … More

Avery Colt Is a Snake, a Thief, a Liar, a debut novel by Ron A. Austin, reviewed by Erin Flanagan

Avery Colt is a kid who could use a break. In addition to the everyday struggles of adolescence, he’s caught … More

Erin Flanagan Reviews Jamel Brinkley’s Debut Story Collection, A Lucky Man

Absent fathers abound in this debut collection of stories, leaving behind their complicated legacies of race and love. As Eric … More

“Momentum of Connections”: Erin Flanagan Interviews Augustus Rose, Author of The Readymade Thief

Augustus Rose’s first novel, The Readymade Thief, is a fervent mix of art, deceit, puzzles, subterfuge, coincidence, and meaning, all … More

“Genuine and True”: An Interview with Melissa Fraterrigo, Author of Glory Days, by Erin Flanagan

Melissa Fraterrigo’s first novel in stories, Glory Days, captures the desperation and beauty of living in the hardscrabble Midwest. Populated … More

Review: Erin Flanagan on Sara Majka’s Story Collection Cities I’ve Never Lived In

From the very start of Cities I’ve Never Lived In, Majka plunks the reader into a world where opposites coexist: … More

Review: Erin Flanagan on Amy Gustine’s Story Collection You Should Pity Us Instead

Amy Gustine’s first collection of stories demonstrates a remarkable range, not only in situation and character, but also in the … More

The Loss of All Lost Things, short stories by Amina Gautier, reviewed by Erin Flanagan

Winner of the Elixir Press 2014 Fiction Award, Gautier’s collection The Loss of all Lost Things centers, not surprisingly, around … More

“Stealing Breath”: An Interview with Bryn Chancellor by Erin Flanagan

Bryn Chancellor’s collection When Are You Coming Home? won the 2014 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. Her stories have appeared in … More

Blackout, nonfiction by Sarah Hepola, reviewed by Erin Flanagan

Blackout follows Sarah Hepola’s life as a drinker, starting with sips in grade school and progressing through her first drunk … More

There’s Something I Want You to Do, stories by Charles Baxter, reviewed by Erin Flanagan

The epigraph from Primo Levi’s The Reawakening sets the stage for Baxter’s latest collection: “Everybody’s moral universe, suitably interpreted, comes … More

Get in Trouble, stories by Kelly Link, reviewed by Erin Flanagan

Kelly Link’s fiction follows the same kind of logic that lets you coast through a dream where your partner is … More

Almost Famous Women, short stories by Megan Mayhew Bergman, reviewed by Erin Flanagan

In her second story collection, Almost Famous Women, Megan Mayhew Bergman delves into the lives of real women who skirted … More

Faulty Predictions, stories by Karin Lin-Greenberg, reviewed by Erin Flanagan

Karin Lin-Greenberg’s collection, Faulty Predictions, winner of the prestigious Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, wonderfully captures the moments when … More

The Year of Perfect Happiness, stories by Becky Adnot-Haynes, reviewed by Erin Flanagan

In this collection, winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, Adnot-Haynes mines the iffy world of early … More