At night, the trees whispered. Told ghost stories, their leaves trembling. Remembered the fallen. Joked. Dry laughter rustled the dark. What happens when a writer wants to tell a hundred stories but doesn’t have the time to write a hundred books? They write the seeds of those stories and cast them to the wind... A Small Fiction presents a collection of illustrated micro-fiction, all told in 140 characters or fewer. From the humorous to the bleak, the dystopian to the dog-filled, there’s a story for every occasion, and an occasion for every story.

A shape-shifter arrives at Tokyo harbour in human form, set to embark on an unstoppable rampage through the city’s train network… A young woman is accompanied home one night by a reclusive student, and finds herself lured into a flat full of eerie Egyptian artefacts… A man suspects his young wife’s obsession with picnicking every weekend in the city’s parks hides a darker motive… At first, Tokyo appears in these stories as it does to many outsiders: a city of bewildering scale, awe-inspiring modernity, peculiar rules, unknowable secrets and, to some extent, danger. Characters observe their fellow citizens from afar, hesitant to stray from their daily routines to engage with them. But Tokyo being the city it is, random encounters inevitably take place – a naïve book collector, mistaken for a French speaker, is drawn into a world he never knew existed; a woman seeking psychiatric help finds herself in a taxi with an older man wanting to share his own peculiar revelations; a depressed divorcee accepts an unexpected lunch invitation to try Thai food for the very first time… The result in each story is a small but crucial change in perspective, a sampling of the unexpected yet simple pleasure of other people’s company. As one character puts it, ‘The world is full of delicious things, you know.’

Presents over seventy short stories five pages long or less by such American authors as Joyce Carol Oates, Ray Bradbury, Langston Hughes, and Raymond Carver, and includes authors' commentary on the genre.

Offering 3 stories by 33 authors, 3 X 33 combines both a breadth and depth not seen in other contemporary or modern short fiction anthologies.

Ten years ago, Jerome Stern, director of the writing program at Florida State, initiated the World's Best Short Short Story Contest. Stories were to be about 250 words long; first prize was a check and a crate of oranges. Two to three thousand stories began to show up annually in Tallahassee, and National Public Radio regularly broadcast the winner. But, more important, the Micro form turned out to be contagious; stories of this "lack of length" now dot the literary magazines. The time seemed right, then, for this anthology, presenting a decade of contest winners and selected finalists. In addition, Stern commissioned Micros, persuading a roster of writers to accept the challenge of completing a story in one page. Jesse Lee Kercheval has a new spin on the sinking of the Titanic; Virgil Suarez sets his sights on the notorious Singapore caning; George Garrett conjures up a wondrous screen treatment pitch; and Antonya Nelson invites us into an eerie landscape. Verve and nerve and astonishing variety are here, with some wild denouements. How short can a Micro be, you wonder. Look up Amy Hempel's contribution, and you'll see.

Fiction. Short Stories. Flash Fiction. Hybrid Genre. THE BEST SMALL FICTIONS 2017 offers readers 55 exceptional small fictions by 53 authors. This acclaimed new annual series, hailed as a "milestone for the short story," continues to honor contemporary masters and emerging writers of short- short and hybrid forms from across the globe. Guest editor Amy Hempel chose the winners from a pool of 105 finalists: "They conjure and seduce, they startle and haunt, they are funny and searing, short and shorter." The 2017 volume includes Pamela Painter, Brian Doyle, Ian Seed, Frankie McMillan, Karen Brennan, Stuart Dybek, and W. Todd Kaneko, and spolights Joy Williams and SmokeLong Quarterly. Additional Contributors include Nick Admussen, Nick Almeida, Lydia Armstrong, Matthew Baker, Amy Sayre Baptista, Larry Brown, Randall Brown, Erin Calabria, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Carrie Cooperider, Emily Corwin, Christopher DeWan, Kathy Fish, Sherrie Flick, Scott Garson, Jesse Goolsby, Michael Hammerle, Hannah Harlow, Allegra Hyde, Joy Katz, Jen Knox, Len Kuntz, Tara Laskowski, Oscar Mancinas, Ras Mashramani, Heather McQuillan, Cole Meyer, Eugenie Montague, Alvin Park, Kimberly King Parsons, Gen Del Raye, Mona Leigh Rose, Na'amen Gobert Tilahun, Cameron Quincy Todd, Matt Sailor, Rebecca Schiff, Robert Scotellaro, Alex Simand, Julia Slavin, Michael C. Smith, Phillip Sterling, Anne Valente, Harriot West, Keith Woodruff, William Woolfitt

Inspired by an experiment on Twitter, these 300 moving stories are no bigger than a sentence or two, on themes like love, death, and family. In this one-of-a-kind collection, author Sean Hill has crafted hundreds of engaging stories that conjure an entire novel in just a sentence or two. Sometimes sad, often humorous and always creative, these tales touch on a wide range of life experiences from romance and family to death and sex. Nana rocked in her old wooden rocking chair. “Timmy, you have always been my favorite,” she said. He looked at her. “Nana, I’m Bobby.” Read your diary, discovered your secret. I thought I loved you, but now I’m not sure. Don’t know what to do, you look so human. Clowning was Daryl’s profession, cooking was his passion. Stella thought he was perfect. She liked to laugh and never learned to cook. Alex bought Sharon a ring for Valentine’s Day, which she sold to buy the gun that stopped him from loving her. In 2009, Sean Hill combined his love of writing and technology by creating @VeryShortStory, a Twitter feed where he interacts with his readers and shares his 140-character stories. Praise for Very Short Stories “Some are touching, some ring true, but most are laugh-out-loud funny.” —Seattle Times “The book is a treasure-trove of fascinating exploration into the craft of language and storytelling.” —Summit Daily “Story telling is his bag, pure and simple.” —Austin American Statesman “The best of the stories might rival Hemingway's classic six word story in their descriptive brevity and their ability to tell a complete and affecting tale.” —Short and Sweet NYC “Witty, well-crafted and always thought-provoking.” —Salt Lake Tribune