The 2024 Moon City Short Fiction Award

In a future facsimile of the Sonoran Desert, a girl and grandfather rebirth weather itself. Fathers watch children transform into minerals, tend pain-wracked saguaros, offer treasures to the Gulf for lost sons. A girl escapes her apple prison; a man struggles against choices his parents coded into his being. These twenty-two speculative fairy tales ask: How do we navigate parenthood's impossible permutations? When will our helpers rescue us? Can we return from the void that swallowed all we love—and would we even try?

A collection of short stories from Pultizer Prize winner, Edna Ferber

The short stories in this collection take the reader from small-town Wisconsin to the bustling streets of New York and Chicago and back again. While they range greatly in length and tone, they all share the trademark wit and affectionate insight of Edna Ferber.

Showcasing the facility with words that made her a mainstay at the Algonquin round table, Ferber explores some of her favorite themes: the role of women (especially strong or unconventional women) in modern society, the mores of the midwestern small town, and the changes over time in relationships between parents and children.

In “The Maternal Feminine,” a plain, overlooked child grows into a strong, resourceful businesswoman and forms a strong motherly bond with the children of her more attractive sister. In “April 25th, As Usual,” an aging Wisconsin couple reluctantly join their successful daughter in New York, where they try to adjust to a very different lifestyle. “Old Lady Mandle” is a bittersweet tale about an elderly Chicago mother coming to terms with the fact that she is no longer the most important woman in the life of her grown son. “One Hundred Per Cent” features Ferber’s celebrated heroine Emma McChesney, now re-married, seeing her husband off to war.

The stories gathered here are beautifully observed chronicles of early twentieth-century life and are filled with characters who, despite their very human foibles, are all bestowed by Ferber with warmth and dignity.

“This critical anthology is the result of a brilliant idea….A volume which not only will lead most readers to place more value on a number of stories previously passed over but that will likely extend the reader’s sense of Hemingway’s artistry.” —Studies in American Fiction

Hemingway’s Neglected Short Fiction is a groundbreaking exploration of Ernest Hemingway’s least‑examined stories, works long overshadowed by the towering fame of his novels. The collection reveals how many of Hemingway’s short stories have been cursorily summarized, misread, or simply ignored. Through twenty‑five original essays, leading scholars illuminate the breadth, experimentation, irony, and emotional range found in over thirty stories—tales that challenge the conventional “code hero” paradigm and expose a richer, more complex Hemingway. What emerges is a vivid portrait of an artist whose most overlooked pieces frequently contain his sharpest innovations and deepest moral provocations. 

Structured with historical awareness and critical freshness, the volume ranges from Hemingway’s earliest apprentice fiction (“The Mercenaries,” “Up in Michigan,” “My Old Man”) to his experimental, metafictional, or posthumously published works (“A Natural History of the Dead,” “Get a Seeing‑Eyed Dog,” “A Man of the World”). Contributors draw from an impressive range of approaches—rhetorical theory, linguistics, psychoanalysis, semiotics, religious studies, Bakhtinian dialogism, and close textual analysis. Along the way, they revisit stories distorted by biography (“Out of Season,” “Mr. and Mrs. Elliot”), reconsider stories dismissed as trivial (“A Pursuit Race,” “A Day’s Wait”), and restore neglected gems such as “Wine of Wyoming,” “The Sea Change,” and “Homage to Switzerland.” 

This book will captivate scholars of modernism, Hemingway specialists, teachers seeking fresh classroom material, and general readers who want to discover the Hemingway hidden between the lines. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the evolution of a major American writer and the vibrant life of the short story form.

A Prescription for Adversity makes the revolutionary case that Ambrose Bierce, far from being a bitter misanthrope, was instead both a compassionate and moral author. Berkove, focusing on Bierce's short fiction, establishes the necessity of recognizing the pattern of his intellectual and literary development over the course of his career. The author shows that Bierce, probably the American author with the most extensive experience of the Civil War, turned to classical Stoicism and English and French Enlightenment literature in his postwar search for meaning. Bierce's fiction arose from his ultimately unsatisfying encounters with the philosophies those sources offered, but the moral commitment as well as the literary techniques of heir authors, particularly Jonathan Swift, inspired him. Dating Bierce's fiction, and introducing uncollected journalism, correspondence, and important new literary history and biographical information, Berkove brings new insights to a number of stories, including "A Son of the Gods" and "A Horseman in the Sky," but especially "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," and presents compelling readings of the Parenticide Club tales and "Moxon's Master." A Prescription for Adversity substantiates how Bierce at his best is one of the few American authors who rises to the level of Mark Twain, and the only one who touches Jonathan Swift.

A work of both biography and literary criticism, this book rescues Ambrose Bierce and his literature from the neglect to which it has been assigned by "ill-founded, obtuse and unproductive approaches based on skewed notions of his personality and forced or facile readings of individual stories."

A one-of-a-kind collection of short stories for adolescent readers that celebrates Minnesota’s vibrant storytelling tradition—now in paperback

From the Dakota people who first inhabited the state to its generations of immigrants and today’s residents, Minnesota has long had a vibrant and unique storytelling tradition. A rich and often under appreciated part of this tradition is youth storytelling—a movement of which Minnesota is a national forerunner. Here, for the first time, two of the state’s beloved independent booksellers collect a wide array of short stories for young readers that pay homage to Minnesota's diverse cultures and stunning landscapes.

Sky Blue Water celebrates young adult and intermediate fiction from some of Minnesota’s most beloved and award-winning authors to emerging talents and many more. With each turn of the page, every young reader will find a poignant and relatable story: tales of discovering hidden truths about one’s family, dealing with a difficult bully, and falling for the new kid who dresses like a cowboy, as well as settings from Rainy Lake to Lake Calhoun and time periods from Prohibition to the present day. Featuring primarily never-published stories, this anthology beautifully captures the essence of a Minnesota adolescence in twenty short stories and poems. Sky Blue Water features a Q&A between Minnesota classrooms and the contributing authors as well as curriculum materials for families, teachers, and students.

This collection embodies passion for fostering literacy in young readers. A portion of the proceeds from Sky Blue Water will go to the Mid-Continent Oceanographic Institute, a Twin Cities organization offering free tutoring and writing assistance for students ages six to eighteen. 

Contributors: William Alexander; Swati Avasthi; Kelly Barnhill; Mary Casanova; John Coy; Kirstin Cronn-Mills; Anika Fajardo; Shannon Gibney; Pete Hautman; Lynne Jonell; Kevin Kling; Margi Preus; Marcie Rendon; Kurtis Scaletta; Julie Schumacher; Joyce Sidman; Phuoc Thi Minh Tran; Anne Ursu; Sarah Warren; Stephanie Watson; Kao Kalia Yang.

Southern writer and folklorist Kelly Kazek’s collection of eerie and enigmatic Alabama ghost stories

Dark secrets lurk beneath the sleepy surface of Alabama. Ghosts and grisly creatures haunt the towns and forests. In the great Southern ghost-story tradition, famed Alabama storyteller Kelly Kazek weaves a gothic tapestry of ten stories drawn from real people and legendary creatures, cursed places, and harrowing events.

Each story or legend takes readers to a different place in Alabama. Read about the bestial Wolf Woman who terrified Mobilians in the haunted old port city. In the northern city of Huntsville, visit the Dead Children’s Playground in gloomy Maple Hill Cemetery. In Jacksonville, feel the cold grip of the Old Mill Witch, rumored to protect the workers at the rickety cotton yarn mill. Hear about the mysterious green light that drifts along the Alabama River in the Black Belt hamlet of Gee’s Bend and learn about the role the Gee’s Bend Ferry played in the Civil Rights Movement.

Unlike most ghost-story collections, Some Nightmares Are Real includes an appendix of facts, historical resources, and information about how to visit the locations. These contemporary stories embrace a beloved Southern folkloric tradition for a new generation of young readers. The tales will terrify and ensnare ghost-story lovers of all ages. So settle in, pull the covers up tight, and maybe turn on the light, because the truth is: Some Nightmares Are Real.

Digging up the eerie aftermath of America’s deadliest disasters—where ghost stories take root, history lingers in the shadows, and the past refuses to stay buried.

In this haunting follow-up to Some Nightmares Are Real: The Haunting Truth Behind Alabama’s Supernatural Tales, journalist and storyteller Kelly Kazek investigates supernatural folklore grounded in historical catastrophe. This time, she ventures far beyond Alabama, unearthing the eerie legends born from their aftermath of nine of America’s most infamous disasters. From the strangling suffocation of the Boston Molasses Flood and the terror of Galveston’s notorious Great Storm, to flames blasting from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory disaster, Some Nightmares Are True examines ghost stories that have haunted communities long after the news headlines stopped.

Each spooky story blends vivid storytelling with meticulous research, connecting real events to the ghostly lore they inspired. Kazek explores not just the moment of disaster, but how grief, resilience, and remembrance shape the way stories live on—through newspaper archives, folklore, and generations of retelling.

With both wry Southern sensibility and journalistic rigor, Kazek explores how moments of tragedy like the Dixie Tornado Outbreak in Alabama, the capsizing of the SS Eastland in Chicago, and the haunting aftermath of the Schoolchildren’s Blizzard in Nebraska leave lasting imprints on generational memory. These sites of devastation become more than historical footnotes; they transform into hallowed grounds where grief lingers, legends remain, and the line between fact and folklore dissolves.

For ghost hunters, or simply those brave enough to follow their curiosity into learning more about the stories’ historical facts, Kazek has compiled a robust appendix that provides context, source materials, and location details, making this a perfect pick to toss in the car for that late-night road trip adventure. But remember, Some Nightmares Are True.

Ross Chambers shifs the emphasis to precisely the play of authority and mastery by focusing on the narrative situation or the “point” of telling a story in given context. He studies the relation between teller and listener in a set of French, English, and American short stories from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and detects in that relationship the key to the power of fiction. In each of these stories, the author identifies the narrative situation by recourse to the metaphor of seduction, a phenomenon Chambers finds characteristic of literary production in the modern period.

Tracing the origins of the modern short story, Michael Gorra provides the first fully realized picture of a century’s worth of great tales. 

The Storytellers offers a far-reaching account of the rich tradition of short narratives that flourished in nineteenth-century Europe and America, one that both prepared for and eventually gave way to the modern short story. Tracing unexpected resemblances across languages and decades, Michael Gorra restores a wide-angle view of the form in which works usually treated as stand-alone classics reveal themselves as parts of a single, lively conversation.

What unites these tales, Gorra argues, is their blend of novelty and unity. The book’s heart lies in a series of accessible readings of great tales by Herman Melville, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Guy de Maupassant, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles Chesnutt, and many more. Beyond its consideration of individual works, The Storytellers examines the formal and thematic concerns that bind the century together: the use of frame tales, accounts of social marginality, and an abundance of ghosts and uncanny coincidences. Over time, Gorra shows, these qualities yielded to a cooler realism, with Anton Chekhov as the key transitional figure. His compressed studies of ordinary lives inspired the modern short story and consigned the gothic flourishes of earlier tales to genre fiction.

What do we want from a story? What makes a tale worth telling? The nineteenth-century tale sought not the grand “meaning of life” promised by the novel, Gorra shows, but sudden revelations from singular events. The Storytellers gives readers an incomparable guide to a vast body of tales that still has the power to thrill and entertain.