Story Magazine

02/05/2025

Congratulations to Laura Leigh Morris and her nomination for Best Small Fictions, "Learn to Love Your New Body," from Issue 19 of STORY.

01/29/2025

Re-Meet the Editor-in-Chief of STORY, Michael Nye!

When reading through submissions, Michael looks for stories that explore and ask questions. He says: "As much as possible, I try not to have any preconceived notion of what I'm looking for in a story. My hope is that in whatever way (character, language, narrative perspective, etc.) the story wants to explore fascinating questions, I'm along for the ride. One of the things we stress at Story is to look for a reason to accept a story, not reject a story."

We asked Michael what he enjoys most about working with STORY, and he said: "Like all writers (I hope), I love to read, and so I love the rush of reading a fantastic story for the first time, and then working with the writer to make it even stronger. I love having this physical thing to read, to discover a writer's most recent work, and to share the process of Making A Thing with other people. And though I complain (a lot) I do love the work of trying to get readers interested in Story. Everyone enjoys sharing something they deeply care about, and for me, literary magazines like Story are just that."

Finally, we asked Michael to name his favorite (published) short story from a magazine other than ours. He replied: "I've recently been raving about Robin Romm's "Martial Problems," which first appeared in the Sewanee Review. It opens with a married couple standing and arguing in their kitchen, and the language and observation in the story is just incredible. It takes a few fascinating turns I didn't expect, and a story I've now been thinking about for weeks since I first read it."

Michael Nye is the author of three works of fiction: the novel ALL THE CASTLES BURNED (Turner Publishing, 2018), and two story collections, STRATEGIES AGAINST EXTINCTION (Queen’s Ferry Press, 2012) and UNTIL WE HAVE FACES (Turner Publishing, 2020). His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in literary magazines such as Kenyon Review, Epoch, Northwest Review, North American Review, The Millions, Literary Hub, American Literary Review, Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, Crab Orchard Review, New South, Normal School, Sou’wester, and South Dakota Review, among many others. His writing has been a finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in fiction and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. In 2022, he received an Individual Artistic Excellence award from the Ohio Arts Council. For almost twenty years, he has taught creative writing and publishing courses for both graduate and undergraduate students at places such as the University of Missouri, Washington University, Kenyon College, and Denison University.

Find Michael on Facebook

01/22/2025

ICYMI: Recently, we sat down with , whose story “Jesus Louise” appeared in Issue #18, to talk about how she created such an incredible story and how it fits in her story collection, Choose This Now (Noemi Press, 2024). In addition to the story, Nicole Haroutunian discusses how a story collection comes together, the book’s publication in light of Small Press Distribution folding, and other aspects of the creative life. Read the full interview here: https://www.storymagazine.org/interview-conversation-nicole-haroutunian/

01/15/2025

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01/08/2025

STORY is excited to announce Heather Aronson as our contest editor. In this position, Heather is overseeing the submissions for our Foundation Prize. We're delighted by the number and quality of the submissions we've received! Thanks to everyone who submitted to the contest for trusting us with your work.

Heather Aronson's stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, CRAFT, Story, and Witness, as well as in other journals. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and selected as finalists for CRAFT's Flash Fiction Contest and the Story Foundation Prize, among others. Her story "The Side of the Road Forever" was the winner of Sonora Review's themed fiction contest ("Rage") in 2022. She holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Arizona and was an early Fellow in Fiction at the University of Wisconsin's Institute for Creative Writing. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA, with her husband and some of their five children. She has been a contributing editor at Story since January, 2023

01/02/2025

New Year, New Content! In 2025, Story will be publishing reviews on our website, and our first one is officially live. In this review, Kristin Tenor, our very own Reviews Editor, discusses Allegra Hyde's short story collection, The Last Catastrophe. Also included is a conversation between Kristin and Allegra. Read it here:
https://www.storymagazine.org/allegra-hyde-interview-last-catastrophe-review/

12/31/2024

Happy New Year’s Eve!

In honor of the holiday, here’s a quote from Ann Aspell’s story “What Happens to the Rest.” If you’re full of “anticipatory giddiness” for the new year, you can read more at https://www.storymagazine.org/what-happens-to-the-rest/

Ann Aspell’s fiction has appeared in One Story and Chautauqua and her poems in a variety of journals, including Spillway, Poetry International, and Hunger Mountain Review, as well as in the anthology The Traveler’s Vade Mecum (Red Hen Press).

12/18/2024

Story is very excited to introduce our Social Media Editor, Marisa Helff. Keep an eye on our social media to see their work in the coming year.

Marisa Helff is a recent graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, where they studied creative writing and literature. During their time there, they were awarded the Cusie L. Pfeifer Endowed Scholarship for Writing and won first place for Nancy Lynn Schwartz Prize, an award for fiction writing. They’ve been working with Story as a Fiction Editor since January, and took on the role of Social Media Editor in November. Currently, they work at R.J. Booksellers in Connecticut, and spend most of their time reading q***r fiction.

12/13/2024

Deadline This Weekend! Submit to our 6th Annual STORY Foundation Prize by midnight on December 15 for $1500 and publication in STORY. Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things and With Teeth, will read the finalists and choose our winner. All entries will be considered for publication. Head to our website or use the link: https://www.storymagazine.org/news/2024-story-foundation-prize-writing-contest/ to learn more

12/10/2024

STORY is proud to announce our Pushcart nominees!

From Issue 19: "The Apology" by Genevieve Abravanel, "Vegans" by Scott Ditzler, "Oklahoma" by Justin Chandler, and "There Are Many Ways to Kill a Child" by Olakunle Ologunro

From Issue 20: "Rich Strike" by Christie Hodgen and "Easement" by Kim Samek

12/04/2024

Deadline Approaching! Submit to our 6th Annual STORY Foundation Prize by December 15 for $1500 and publication in STORY.

Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things and With Teeth, will read the finalists and choose our winner. All entries will be considered for publication.

Head to our website or use the link: https://www.storymagazine.org/news/2024-story-foundation-prize-writing-contest/to learn more!

11/26/2024

We're falling in love with the cover of our Autumn 2024 issue! 🍂 Preorder Issue 20 now to get your copy fresh off the press this December.

Issue #20

11/07/2024

Our STORY Foundation Prize is open until December 15—and general submissions are always open. We look forward to reading your boldest, most radical work.

As always, please DM or email us with any questions about submitting.

https://www.storymagazine.org/submissions/

10/31/2024

Happy Halloween! Get into the spooky spirit with Amanda Avutu's "The Bad Sleep." Find the complete story here >> https://www.storymagazine.org/the-bad-sleep/

Amanda Avutu’s nonfiction appears in “O” the Oprah Magazine, the New York Times, The Washington Post, Tin House, Atlanta Magazine, Bitter Southerner, and the Brevity blog. Her fiction appears in Fifth Wednesday Journal, Green Mountains Review, Story, and Fiction Fix. Her stories have also been selected as finalists in Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers contest.

10/03/2024

Bestselling author Kristen Arnett will judge the STORY Foundation Prize this year! The winner receives a $1500 award and publication. Submit by December 15 to be considered.

Kristen Arnett is the q***r Floridian author of With Teeth: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2021) which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction and the New York Times bestselling debut novel Mostly Dead Things (Tin House, 2019) which was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction and was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. She was awarded a Shearing Fellowship at Black Mountain Institute, has held residencies at Ragdale Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, the Millay Colony, and the Studios of Key West, and was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Her work has appeared at The New York Times, TIME, The Cut, Oprah Magazine, Guernica, Buzzfeed, McSweeneys, PBS Newshour, The Guardian, Salon, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. Her next novel, STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE, about a le***an birthday party clown, will be published by Riverhead Books (Spring 2025), followed by the publication of an untitled collection of short stories. She has a Masters in Library and Information Science from Florida State University and lives in Orlando, Florida.

09/19/2024

Meet another member of the STORY team! Contributing Editor Adam McDonald is one of the many team members reading incoming submissions.

In our submissions queue, Adam says: "I read ten submissions a week on the train ride to work every morning and afternoon. I'm looking for writing that transports me from that environment. For me, stories that do that are injected with the writer's personhood. I love the short story because it's a looking glass into how another person's imagination works. I want to feel that when I'm reading."

When we asked what he enjoys most about working with our team, he said: "It keeps me connected to the literary world. I'm in full-time, post-MFA work as a content creator for a consulting firm, and it's easy to feel untethered from the arts. Reading stories by writers like me makes me feel connected and encouraged to keep going, keep writing, keep trying to express myself as purely as I can through the short story."

Last but not least, we asked her to name her favorite short story from a magazine other than ours. His response: "I can't name just one, but I can say I've been in love with recent issues of The Paris Review. It seems every issue is packed with stories that open up my understanding of what a short story can do. 'This Then Is a Song, We Are Singing' by Sterling HolyWhiteMountain, 'Exhaling' by Emmanuel Carrère, 'Trial Run' by Zach Williams, and "A Good Samaritan" by Addie E. Citchens."

Adam McDonald was born and raised in southern California. After graduating from the MFA program at Texas State, he moved with his wife to Portland, Oregon.