This year has already seen the publication of notable short fiction collections, including Lauren Groff’s “Brawler,” Sydney Rende’s “I Could Be Famous,” Kim Samek’s “I Am the Ghost Here,” and Senaa Ahmad’s “The Age of Calamities.”
And we’re just getting started.
Next week, Louise Erdrich publishes her years-in-the-making collection, “Python’s Kiss” – and I talked with her about it, so please come back for that – joining collections from Helen Garner, Rachel Khong, Rebecca Roanhorse and the late Lore Segal, who died in 2024 at the age of 96.
There are also anthologies with global outlooks to consider, including one co-edited by 2025 National Book Award for Fiction winner Rabih Alameddine and “California Rewritten” author and editor John Freeman, and a spooky collection from California’s Two Lines Press featuring global ghost stories from Iceland, Korea, Tanzania, Yemen and more.
So whether you’re looking for a ripping yarn or something to read instead of doomscrolling, we’ve got you covered. These are in stores now, unless otherwise noted.
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Helen Garner, “Stories” (Pantheon)
Garner has a lifetime achievement award in her native Australia, and “Stories” gathers material from earlier collections. These short, spare pieces burst with meaning: two friends walk through a graveyard reflecting on shared experiences; or in Paris, a woman and a man can’t agree on what constitutes a proper meal.
Various authors, “I Was Alive Here Once: Ghost Stories” (Two Lines Press)
Published by California’s Two Lines Press, this collection features translated ghost stories from around the world in one spooky volume. In a story translated from Korean, a ghost aches with loneliness after scaring everyone away; in a story translated from Arabic, a midwife is called to aid with the birth of … something.
Rebecca Roanhorse, “River of Bones and Other Stories” (S&S/Saga Press)
Fans of Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky trilogy, a powerhouse epic fantasy series based on Indigenous American cultures, are familiar with her writing and worldbuilding gifts. The stories in this collection range from a novella from her post-apocalyptic Sixth World series to a science fiction piece about a conflicted student attending university on a space station.
Lore Segal, “Still Talking” (Melville House)
When she was a child, Segal, the author of the classics “Other People’s Houses” and “Her First American,” escaped the Nazis on the Kindertransport, which brought her to England. She’d move to the U.S. and become a contributor to the New Yorker, writing short pieces inspired by lunches she’d share with a group of longtime women friends. Her 90-year-old pal, writer Vivian Gornick, introduces the volume and reflects on Segal’s endless interest and curiosity about the world.
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Louise Erdrich, “Python’s Kiss” (Harper)
We’ve already praised this book, for good reason: it’s brilliant, moving and funny. A winner of both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Erdrich conjures quiet magic in these stories, whether writing a family drama, a prairie thriller, a ghost story or a science fiction satire. (out March 24)
Colm Tóibín “The News From Dublin” (Scribner)
The award-winning author, known for the novels “Brooklyn,” “The Master” and “The Blackwater Lightship,” offers nine stories here, including a novella about three sisters emigrating to Argentina, a story about an undocumented Irishman living in San Francisco, and two tales that intersect with his earlier novels. (out March 31)
Various authors, “The Penguin Book of the International Short Story” (Penguin Press)
With stories from Haruki Murakami, Jamaica Kincaid, Han Kang, Salman Rushdie and more, this wide-ranging collection features world-class authors and top-notch material, both in English and in translation. The volume’s sly introduction claims most anthologies rely on a formula to appear international – “the editors add more Irish stories” – but they hope to bring readers much more.
(out April 7)
Rachel Khong, “My Dear You” (Knopf)
The author of the acclaimed “Real Americans” and “Goodbye, Vitamin,” which won the California Book Award for First Fiction, returns with a collection of short fiction that explores love, dating, race, capitalism and many other things. In the title story, a young bride killed by a crocodile on her honeymoon adjusts to the afterlife, in which, among other things, “people in heaven are smoking hot.” (out April 7)
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Emma Copley Eisenberg, “Fat Swim” (Hogarth)
Praised by authors Kiese Laymon, Carmen Maria Machado and Kelly Link, these interconnected stories touch on queerness, love, and the body in all its varieties. Funny and moving, often at the same time, the stories mash together serious issues with pure comedy: In one regret-fueled conversation, Eisenberg notes that a character’s long hair is drooping into her bowl of rigatoni. But humor doesn’t hide the hurt, as when a body-conscious teen spends time with her divorced, newly svelte mother: “At mom’s house, even the air feels thin.” (out April 28)
Ruth Ozeki, “The Typing Lady: And Other Fictions” (Viking)
This collection is months away, but we cannot wait to read the latest from the Booker Prize-nominated author of “The Book of Form and Emptiness” and “A Tale for the Time Being.” With stories about language and leaf blowers and much more, this collection promises to be just what we’ll be reaching for in June. (out June 2)