As noted previously:
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 12, edited by Ellen Datlow (a series which directly followed Datlow's co-edited annual of horror and fantasy fiction and poetry for 21 consecutive volumes)
Best New Horror #30, edited by Stephen Jones (this series is on a year's lag compared to the others, aside for The Pushcart Prize volume, and this year Rich Horton's delayed annual--the 2020 Best New Horror volume draws from 2018; the first several volumes of the Jones annual were co-edited by Ramsey Campbell)
The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, Volume 1, edited by Paula Guran, after ten volumes of an annual with a nearly identical title for another publisher, and three volumes of a paranormal romance/romantic fantasy BOTY before that set.
Year's Best Hardcore Horror 5: Going Global, edited by Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax
...we seemingly having lost in the last several years Best British Horror, The Best Australian Horror (which included New Zealand writers and publication), and the Year's Best Weird Fiction annuals and attempts at annuals, rather a pity...though it's amusing and a bit sad we have essentially four horror annuals and no annual devoted exclusively to the full range of fantasy fiction--as not a few have noted in recent years. I think also that perhaps it's time for a bit more subtlety in horror annual covers...Year's Best Weird Fiction had in-one's-face but less garish covers for most of its volumes, as did some of the early volumes of Best New Horror...I understand the nostalgic pull of the 1950s horror comics covers on recent Best New Horror volumes, and am aware that Year's Best Weird Fiction is no longer with us, but I don't think the covers sunk that annual, any more than than they hurt sales of the DAW Books annual in the '70s or '80s nor those early '90s Best New Horrors...
But, then, we lost the O. Henry Prize Stories volume for a year, after series editor Laura Furman stepped down with the 100th anniversary volume. The new editor has released a preliminary description that manages to get the historical details of the O. Henry series wrong, while proudly describing, without admitting this, a new system of single guest editors each year/volume, which apes the slightly older Best American Short Stories, as opposed to the three-writer O. Henry panels of recent decades; for its part Best American Short Stories has inspired at Houghton Mifflin (now also Harcourt) over the last couple of decades a flock of other "Best American" annuals, which in its turn has already shut down some of the most interesting of those offshoots (such as Best American Comics and Best American Non-Required Reading).
And we lost all but one of the crime-fiction annuals some years before 2020, leaving only The Best American Mystery Stories; in 2021, we should see at least two annuals in CF, with the Michele Slung/Otto Penzler team moving on to edit a new series for Penzler's own publishing line, after disagreements with HM Harcourt, who are launching a Best American Mystery and Suspense with series editor Steph Cha.
The Best American Short Stories, BA Essays, BA Science and Nature Writing are all interesting enough for me to pick up in a flush year (I'm not passionate nor completist enough to seek out also the travel, sports and food-writing volumes--my loss); BA Poetry, like BA Magazine Writing, are products of other publishers, and Best American Magazine Writing is the large-budget-periodical correspondent to the Pushcart Prize volumes, which hope to gather the best from small-press publications; both have their questionable self-restrictions/qualifications (Magazine has a steep entry fee, and chooses in the 2020 volume to give the fiction prize, seemingly all but an afterthought, to a Paris Review short, while Pushcart 2021 offers among others a story from Zoetrope All-Story, a small press by dint of having major film/wine guy, Francis Ford Coppola, behind it rather than the board of directors largely left over from the era of George Plimpton and the Aga Khan's stewardship at Paris), and all can at times seem to be destined for coffee tables and eventually attics than avid reading, which, however deftly or poorly edited, seems also the fates of most annuals. The public libraries which bother to buy them often seem to discard them more often than they would in previous decades, when keeping as many volumes of the series on the shelves seemed a point of pride...they may not be the first or last word on what Lasts among the literature, but they are usually at least interesting as snapshots of their eras. However, the new volumes as they appear seem to get relatively few reviews, even on the web (there certainly are some, but most passing or capsule at best...this bit of typing is more a notice-taking and eventually a contents listing than, certainly, a review, though those might follow).
I wonder if the lack of an O. Henry has helped the sales of Best Debut Short Stories 2020, from the O. Henry volume's former co-sponsor PEN America, the writer's group. Happily, the impressive writer Nicholas Royle continues to be able to put together Best British Short Stories, a bit smaller than the US/Canadian correspondent (do they flip a coin for the Jamaican, Bermudan and Barbadan stories?). Come to think of it, isn't it interesting that the horror, crime fiction and science fiction/fantasy annuals are now more likely to be edited by literati who are not fiction writers themselves than in most previous decades...losing writer/editor Gardner Dozois a handful of years after Ed Gorman and, more than a decade earlier, Karl Edward Wagner and Terry Carr and Donald Wollheim, along with Ramsey Campbell, Robert Silverberg, Maxim Jakubowski, Gerald W. Page, and other survivors having stepped away, often when the Reaper came for their publishing houses rather than they themselves...
Among the extant speculative fiction annuals, we retain Jonathan Strahan and his The Year's Best Science Fiction, Volume 1, which follows for a new publisher 13 volumes of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, and before that series continuing, usually with Karen Haber, a few volumes of the fantasy and sf annuals she had started with her husband, Robert Silverberg, as well as a short-lived pendant novellas annual.
And, though his most recent volume has been delayed by his publisher, Rich Horton's series of ten, soon likely to be eleven, annual The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy has also been a notable continuing contribution, which followed three volumes each of Fantasy: The Best of the Year and Science Fiction: The Best of the Year and a single volume in 2010 gathering a best-of sf published on the web in 2008.
John Joseph Adams has been the series editor for The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy for six volumes starting in 2015; Neil Clarke has offered five volumes of The Best Science Fiction of the Year starting in 2016.
It looks as if David Afsharirad's military/adventure sf annual best-of is as gone as the gay/lesbian focused BOTY fantasy/sf annuals from Steve Berman and co-editors...the reprint erotica year's best annuals from Maxim Jakubowski or Susie Bright or Rachel Kramer Bussel seem not to have heirs, either, but Bussel and others are publishing what seem to be original-fiction anthologies with similar titles.
I hope to augment the rather casually-assembled data below, from ISFDB, WorldCat and other sources, with some uniform fonts and formats that give the original publication sources and dates (when available), and perhaps even some actual reviews...the wheel grinds slow, but perhaps not quite to the recent complete halt...
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Twelve • [The Best Horror of the Year • 12] • anthology by Ellen Datlow
Contents
- A Song for Wounded Mouths • (2019) • short story by Kristi DeMeester
- They Are Us (1964) : An Oral History • (2019) • short fiction by Jack Lothian
- Birds of Passage • (2019) • short story by Gordon B. White
- Playscape • (2019) • short story by Diana Peterfreund
- The Butcher's Table • (2019) • novella by Nathan Ballingrud
- • (2019) • short fiction by Paul Tremblay
- The Puppet Motel • (2019) • short fiction by Gemma Files
- The Pain-Eater's Daughter • (2019) • short story by Laura Mauro
- The Night Nurse • (2019) • short fiction by Sarah Langa
- This Was Always Going to Happen • (2019) • short fiction by Stephen Graham Jones
- I Say (I Say, I Say) • (2019) • short story by Robert Shearman
- As Dark As Hunger • (2019) • short fiction by S. Qiouyi Lu
- How to Stay Afloat When Drowning • (2019) • short fiction by Daniel Braum
- The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team • (2019) • short fiction by Joe R. Lansdale
- Adrenaline Junkies • (2019) • short fiction by Ray Cluley
- Mr. and Mrs. Kett • (2019) • short fiction by Sam Hicks
- Below • (2019) • short fiction by Simon Bestwick
- My Name is Ellie • (2019) • short fiction by Sam Rebelein
CONTENTS
- Introduction of Horror in 2018 STEPHEN JONES
- The House PETER BELL
- Smiling Man SIMON KURT UNSWORTH
- Holiday Reading ROSALIE PARKER
- Resonant Evil GRAHAM MASTERTON
- Redriff MICHAEL CHISLETT
- The Blink NICHOLAS ROYLE
- The Deep Sea Swell JOHN LANGAN
- Sisters Rise CHRISTOPHER HARMAN
- The Run of the Town RAMSEY CAMPBELL
- The Marvellous Talking Machine ALISON LITTLEWOOD
- Who’s Got the Button? JAMES WADE
- The Typewriter RIO YOUERS
- The Keepers of the Lighthouse KEN MACKENZIE
- The Hungry Grass TRACY FAHEY
- Ghostly Studies, Dr. Grace, and The Diodati Society DANIEL McGACHEY
- It Never Looks Like Drowning DAMIEN ANGELICA WALTERS
- The Window of Erich Zann MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH
- Posterity MARK SAMUELS
- Octoberland THANA NIVEAU
- Porson’s Piece REGGIE OLIVER
- He Sings of Salt and Wormwood BRIAN HODGE
- Virginia Story CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN
- The Virgin Mary Well PETER BELL
- Necrology STEPHEN JONES & KIM NEWMAN
The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: Volume 1 • [The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror • 1] • anthology by Paula Guran
Contents
- xi • Introduction: Strange Days • essay by Paula Guran
- 1 • The Fourth Trimester is the Strangest • (2019) • short story by Rebecca Campbell
- 16 • Shattered Sidewalks of the Human Heart • (2019) • short story by Sam J. Miller
- 27 • The Surviving Child • (2019) • short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates
- 73 • The Promise of Saints • (2019) • short story by Angela Slatter
- 83 • Burrowing Machines • (2019) • short story by Sara Saab
- 94 • About the O'Dells • (2019) • short fiction by Pat Cadigan
- 121 • A Catalog of Storms • (2019) • short story by Fran Wilde
- 134 • Thoughts and Prayers • (2019) • short story by Ken Liu
- 152 • Logic Puzzles • (2019) • short story by Vaishnavi Patel
- 159 • A Strange Uncertain Light • (2019) • novelette by G. V. Anderson
- 199 • Conversations with the Sea Witch • (2019) • short story by Theodora Goss
- 208 • Haunt • (2019) • short story by Carmen Maria Machado
- 212 • Nice Things • (2019) • novelette by Ellen Klages
- 233 • Glass Eyes in Porcelain Faces • (2019) • short fiction by Jack Westlake
- 244 • Phantoms of the Midway • (2019) • short fiction by Seanan McGuire
- 265 • Hunting by the River • (2019) • short fiction by Daniel Carpenter
- 274 • Boiled Bones and Black Eggs • (2019) • short story by Nghi Vo
- 286 • His Heart Is the Haunted House • (2019) • short fiction by Aimee Ogden
- 300 • In That Place She Grows a Garden • (2019) • short fiction by Del Sandeen
- 317 • The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye • (2019) • novelette by Sarah Pinsker
- 341 • The Coven of Dead Girls • (2019) • short story by L'Erin Ogle
- 348 • Blood Is Another Word for Hunger • (2019) • short story by Rivers Solomon
- 367 • The Thing, with Feathers • (2019) • short story by Marissa Lingen
- 384 • Some Kind of Blood-Soaked Future • (2019) • short story by Carlie St. George
- 395 • Read After Burning • (2019) • short story by Maria Dahvana Headley
GOING GLOBAL: INTRODUCTION by Randy Chandler & Cheryl Mullenax
FEAST FOR SMALL PIECES by Hailey Piper
GODDESS OF GALLOWS by Kristopher Triana
LATE NIGHT INCIDENT AT THE WHITE TRASH MOTEL by Duane Bradley
A NEW MOTHER’S GUIDE TO RAISING AN ABOMINATION by Gwendolyn Kiste
UPPER CRUST by Michael Paul Gonzalez
REDLESS by Annie Neugebauer
A TOUCH OF MADNESS by Tim Waggoner
PARADISUM VOLUPTATIS by Joanna Koch
RADIX MALORUM by Sean Patrick Hazlett
LACKERS by Leo X. Roberson
WHY DO BIRDS SUDDENLY APPEAR? by Rajiv Moté
DARJEELING by Syon Das
MRSA ME by Alicia Hilton
WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE CHILDREN? by David L Tamarin
HAVE A HEART by Matthew V. Brockmeyer
SWINGS AND SUSPENSIONS by D.A. Xiaolin Spires
KIRTI by Alessandro Manzetti
THE TEA AND SUGAR TRAIN by DEBORAH SHELDON
SCREAMS FOR STARGIRL by Ben Pienaar
QUEER WEATHER by Scáth Beorh
Table of Contents:
- Justice / Pamela Blackwood
- Home Movie / Jerry M. Burger
- Deportees / James Lee Burke
- Second cousins /Michael Cebula
- Surrogate Initiative / Brian Cox
- Shanty Falls / Doug Crandell
- Duelist / David Dean
- Security / Jeffery Deaver
- Rhonda and Clyde / John M. Floyd
- On Little Terry Road / Tom Franklin
- See humble and die / Richard Helms
- All this distant beauty / Ryan David Jahn
- Miss Martin / Sheila Kohler
- The Most powerful weapon / Jake Lithua
- Baddest outlaws / Rick McMahan
- What ever happened to Lorna Winters / Lisa Morton
- Girl with an ax / John Sandford
- Pretzel logic / David B. Schlosser
- Nightbound / Wallace Stroby
- The Last hit / Robin Yocum
Contents:
The apartment / T.C. Boyle --
A faithful but melancholy account of several
barbarities lately committed / Jason Brown --
Sibling rivalry / Michael Byers --
The nanny / Emma Cline --
Halloween / Marian Crotty --
Something Street / Carolyn Ferrell --
This is pleasure / Mary Gaitskill --
In the event / Meng Jin --
The children / Andrea Lee --
Rubberdust / Sarah Thankam Mathews --
It's not you / Elizabeth McCracken --
Howl Palace / Leigh Newman --
The nine-tailed fox explains / Jane Pek --
The hands of dirty children / Alejandro Puyana --
Octopus VII / Anna Reeser --
Enlightenment / William Pei Shih --
Kennedy / Kevin Wilson --
The special world / Tiphanie Yanique.
Responsibility: selected from U.S. and Canadian magazines
by Curtis Sittenfeld with Heidi Pitlor;
with an introduction by Sittenfeld.
Driving as metaphor / Rachel Cusk --
The humanoid stain / Barbara Ehrenreich --
After the three-moon era / Gary Fincke --
Cosmic latte / Ron Huett --
A street full of splendid strangers / Leslie Jamison --
A letter to Robinson Crusoe / Jamaica Kincaid --
Maly Trostinets / Joseph Leo Koerner --
Body language / Alex Marzano-Lesnevich --
A thing about cancer / Clinton Crockett Peters --
The other Leopold / Susan Fox Rogers --
To grieve is to carry another time / Matthew Salesses --
77 Sunset me / Peter Schjeldahl --
Under the sign of Susan / A.O. Scott --
Semantic drift / Lionel Shriver --
Ode al vento occidentale / Mark Sullivan --
Holiday review / Mark Sundeen --
My pink lake and other digressions / Alison Townsend --
Bed / David L. Ulin --
Breathe / Jerald Walker --
The unfound door / Stephanie Powell Watts --
Soul-error / Philip Weinstein --
Was Shakespeare a woman? / Elizabeth Winkler.
Contents: Foreword --
Introduction --
A journey into the animal mind (from The Atlantic) / Ross Andersen --
Sleep no more (from Wind) / Kelly Clancy --
What remains (from the California Sunday magazine) / Daniel Duane --
With a simple twist, a "Magic" material is now the big thing in physics (from Quanta magazine) / David H. Freedman --
The eighth continent (from the New Yorker) / Rivka Galchen --
The tumultuous history of a mysterious brain (from the Atlantic) / Bahar Gholipour --
Younger longer (from The New Yorker) / Adam Gopnik --
Right under our noses (from Wires) / Sara Harrison --
I, language robot (from Los Angeles review of books) / Patrick House --
Beauty of the beasts (from the New York Times magazine) / Ferris Jarr
Ghosts of the future (from The Washington post ) / Sarah Kaplan --
Intelligent ways to search for extraterrestrials (from New Yorker) / Adam Mann --
Total eclipse (From Aeon) / Deanna Csomo McCool --
We have fire everywhere (from the New York Times magazine) / Jon Mooallem --
Vaccines reimagined (from Scientific American) / Melinda Wenner Moyer --
New blood (from the New Yorker) / Siddhartha Mukherjee --
The day the dinosaurs died (from The New Yorker) / Douglas Preston --
The final five percent (from Longreads) / Tim Requarth --
The next word (from The New Yorker) / John Seabrook --
Troubled treasure (from Science magazine) / Joshua Sokol --
The hidden heroines of chaos (from Quanta magazine) / Joshua Sokol --
The hunt for planet nine (from Longreads) / Shannon Stirone --
A different kind of theory of everything (from The New Yorker) / Natalie Wolchover --
The brain that remade itself (from OneZero) / Andrew Zaleski
Series Title: Best American series.
Responsibility: edited and with and introduction by Michio Kaku;
The Best American Magazine Writing 2020
Columbia University Press
Introduction, by Jonathan Dorn, president, American Society of Magazine Editors
Acknowledgments, by Sid Holt, chief executive, American Society of Magazine Editors
“False Witness,” by Pamela Colloff (New York Times Magazine in partnership with ProPublica): Winner—Reporting
“We’ve Normalized Prison,” by Piper Kerman (Washington Post Magazine): Winner—Single-Topic Issue
“Can We Build a Better Women’s Prison?,” by Keri Blakinger (Washington Post Magazine): Winner—Single-Topic Issue
“Epidemic of Fear,” by Erika Fry (Fortune): Finalist— Reporting
“Las Marthas,” by Jordan Kisner (The Believer): Finalist—Feature Writing
“The Schoolteacher and the Genocide,” by Sarah A. Topol (New York Times Magazine): Winner—Feature Writing
“Unlike Any Other,” by Nick Paumgarten (New Yorker): Finalist—Feature Writing
“Jerry’s Dirt,” by Jacob Baynham (Georgia Review): Winner—Profile Writing
“Elizabeth Warren’s Classroom Strategy,” by Rebecca Traister (New York): Finalist—Profile Writing
“Tactile Art,” by John Lee Clark (Poetry): Winner—Essays and Criticism
“India: Intimations of an Ending,” by Arundhati Roy (The Nation in partnership with Type Media Center): Finalist—Essays and Criticism
“When Disability Is a Toxic Legacy and The Ugly Beautiful and Other Failings of Disability Representation and What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Mental Health and Medication,” by s.e. smith (Catapult): Winner—Columns and Commentary
“Kanye West’s Sunday Service Is Full of Longing and Self-Promotion and Love, Death, and Begging for Celebrities to Kill You" and "E. Jean Carroll’s Accusation Against Donald Trump, and the Raising, and Lowering, of the Bar,” by Jia Tolentino (New Yorker): Finalist—Columns and Commentary
“Nothing Sacred and An Assault on the Tongue and Interlopers,” by Ligaya Mishan (T: The New York Times Style Magazine): Finalist—Columns and Commentary
“Our Democracy’s Founding Ideals Were False When They Were Written. Black Americans Have Fought to Make Them True.” by Nikole Hannah-Jones (New York Times Magazine, “The 1619 Project”): Winner—Public Interest
“Fight the Ship,” by T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose, and Robert Faturechi (ProPublica): Finalist—Public Interest
“Under the Ackee Tree,” by Jonathan Escoffery (Paris Review): Winner—ASME Award for Fiction
Permissions
List of Contributors
The other child / David Kelly Lawrence --
Summertime / Mohit Manohar --
Cats vs. cancer / Valerie Hegarty --
The water tower and the turtle / Kikuko Tsumara ; translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton --
Failure to thrive / Willa C. Richards --
Gauri kalyanam / Kristen Sahaana Surya --
Dog dreams / Sena Moon --
Bat outta hell / Damitri Martinez --
Madam's sister / Mbozi Haimbe --
Don't go to strangers / Matthew Jeffrey Vegari --
The good, good men / Shannon Snaders.
Responsibility: edited by Yuka Igarashi.
Guest Editor: PAISLEY REKDAL
Table of Contents
Julia Alvarez, Saving the Children
Appeared in: The Nation
Brandon Amico, Customer Loyalty Program
Appeared in: The Kenyon Review
Rick Barot, from The Galleons
Appeared in: Poetry
Kaveh Bassiri, Invention of I
Appeared in: Copper Nickel
Reginald Dwayne Betts, A Man Drops a Coat on the Sidewalk and Almost Falls into the Arms of Another
Appeared in: Tin House
Ryan Black, Nothing Beats a Fair
Appeared in: The Southern Review
Bruce Bond, Bells
Appeared in: Michigan Quarterly Review
William Brewer, Orange
Appeared in: American Poetry Review
Lucie Brock-Broido, Tender
Appeared in: Parnassus
Victoria Chang, Obit
Appeared in: Mississippi Review
Heather Christle, The Waking Life
Appeared in: Salamander
Ama Codjoe, Becoming a Forest
Appeared in: The Adroit Journal
Meg Day, In Line to Vote on Our Future Climate
Appeared in: Poetry Society of America
Timothy Donnelly, All Through the War
Appeared in: New England Review
Hazem Fahmy, In Which the Devil Asks Me for My Name
Appeared in: Asian American Literary Review
Vievee Francis, The Shore
Appeared in: The Virginia Quarterly Review
Rachel Galvin, Little Death
Appeared in: The Nation
Julian Gewirtz, To X (Written on This Device You Made)
Appeared in: Harvard Review
Regan Good, Birches Are the Gods' Favorite Tree
Appeared in: Copper Nickel
Christine Gosnay, Sex
Appeared in: Poetry
Jorie Graham, It Cannot Be
Appeared in: The New York Review of Books
Samuel Green, On Patmos, Kneeling in the Panagia
Appeared in: Prairie Schooner
B C Griffith, Big Gay Ass Poem
Appeared in: Fence
Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Good Mother
Appeared in: Tin House
Jennifer Grotz, The Conversion of Paul
Appeared in: New England Review
Camille Guthrie, During the Middle Ages
Appeared in: Iowa Review
Janice N. Harrington, Putting the Pieces Together
Appeared in: Poetry Northwest
Tony Hoagland, Sunday at the Mall
Appeared in: New Ohio Review
Kimberly Johnson, Fifteen
Appeared in: The Cincinnati Review
Troy Jollimore, The Garden of Earthly Delights
Appeared in: ZYZZYVA
Ilya Kaminsky, In a Time of Peace
Appeared in: The New Yorker
Douglas Kearney, Sho
Appeared in: Poetry
Donika Kelly, I Never Figured How to Get Free
Appeared in: Poem-a-Day
Christopher Kempf, After,
Appeared in: The Georgia Review
Steven Kleinman, Bear
Appeared in: The Gettysburg Review
Jennifer L. Knox, The Gift
Appeared in: Ploughshares
Yusef Komunyakaa, The Jungle
Appeared in: The New York Review of Books
Corey Van Landingham, Recessional
Appeared in: Pleiades
Nick Lantz, After a Transcript of the Final Voicemails of 9/11 Victims
Appeared in: Copper Nickel
Shara Lessley, On Faith
Appeared in: The Gettysburg Review
Steven Leyva, When I Feel a Whoop Comin' On
Appeared in: jubilat
Cate Lycurgus, Locomotion
Appeared in: The Sewanee Review
Khaled Mattawa, Qassida to the Statue of Sappho in Mytilini
Appeared in: The Kenyon Review
Jennifer Militello, The Punishment of One Is the Love Song of Another
Appeared in: Waxwing
Susan Leslie Moore, Night of the Living
Appeared in: The Commuter
John Murillo, A Refusal to Mourn the Deaths, by Gunfire, of Three Men in Brooklyn
Appeared in: American Poetry Review
Hieu Minh Nguyen, Chasm
Appeared in: The Massachusetts Review
Sharon Olds, Hyacinth Aria
Appeared in: AGNI
Matthew Olzmann, Letter to the Person Who, During the Q&A Session After the Reading, Asked for Career Advice
Appeared in: Waxwing
Paul Otremba, Climate is Something Different
Appeared in: The Kenyon Review
Cecily Parks, The Seeds
Appeared in: New England Review
Carl Phillips, Something to Believe In
Appeared in: Poem-a-Day
Stanley Plumly, At Night
Appeared in: Poem-a-Day
Jana Prikryl, Fox
Appeared in: American Poetry Review
Kevin Prufer, Archaeology
Appeared in: Cherry Tree
Ariana Reines, A Partial History
Appeared in: Poetry
Max Ritvo, The Poorly Built House
Appeared in: Parnassus
Clare Rossini, The Keeper Will Enter the Cage
Appeared in: Parnassus
Robyn Schiff, American Cockroach
Appeared in: The New Yorker
Brandon Som, Shainadas
Appeared in: Poetry Northwest
Jon William Stout, Dysphonia
Appeared in: New England Review
Arthur Sze, Sprang
Appeared in: Mānoa
James Tate, The Prayer
Appeared in: Conduit
Brian Teare, Sitting Isohydric Meditation
Appeared in: New England Review
Craig Morgan Teicher, I Am a Father Now
Appeared in: Conduit
Lynne Thompson, She talk like this 'cause me Mum born elsewhere, say
Appeared in: Pleiades
Matthew Thorburn, The Stag
Appeared in: Cave Wall
Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad, Isfahan, 2010
Appeared in: Michigan Quarterly Review
Rosanna Warren, Samson, 1674
Appeared in: The Paris Review
Robert Wrigley, Machinery
Appeared in: The Georgia Review
Ryo Yamaguchi, Reading Not Reading
Appeared in: Poetry Northwest
John Yao, The President's Telegram
Appeared in: The Massachusetts Review
Emily Yong, Opioid, Alcohol, Despair
Appeared in: The Kenyon Review
Monica Youn, Study of Two Figures (Pasiphaë/Sado)
Appeared in: Poetry
Matthew Zapruder, My Life
Appeared in: The New Yorker
576 pages ; 25 cm
Contents:
In the event / Meng Jin --
The master's castle / Anthony Doerr --
Blake Griffin dunks over a car / Matthew Olzmann --
Milk / Jane Hirshfield --
Touch / Poppy Sebag-Montefiore --
Upright at Thyatira / Darrell Kinsey --
Late rumspringa / Austin Smith --
The red one who rocks / Aamina Ahmad --
Fall River wife / Peter Orner --
Entreaty / Catherine Pierce --
A town somewhere / Ted Kooser --
Teamwork / Shawn Vestal --
Iowa / T. R. Hummer --
The samples / Kristopher Jansma --
The rules / Leila Chatti --
Post-NICU villanelle / Joyelle McSweeney --
Howl palace / Leigh Newman --
Vows / David Means --
Composed / Brian Swann --
The golden age of television / Karl Taro Greenfeld --
A season in hell with Rimbaud / Dustin Pearson --
The lonely ruralist / Janisse Ray --
Charlie / Colleen O'Brien --
Object lesson / Claire Schwartz --
Aunt Job / Nickalus Rupert --
Fifty-eight percent is concrete road, 12 percent loose sand / David Wojahn --
We at Old Birds welcome messages from God, even if unverifiable / Annie Sheppard --
Alive / Natasha Sajé --
The book of fly / John Philip Johnson --
Anatomy of a Korean inheritance / Esther Ra --
The missing are considered dead / V. V. Ganeshananthan --
The out & proud boy passes the baseball boy / Josh Tvrdy --
Longshore drift / Julia Armfield --
Hoeing beets, 1964, Skagit Valley / Samuel Green --
Marceline wanted a bigger adventure / Shena McAuliffe --
Something street / Carolyn Ferrell --
House of prayer / Alycia Pirmohamed --
Qassida to the statue of Sappho in Mytilini / Khaled Mattawa --
Laramie time / Lydia Conklin --
Meteorology is the science of remembering the sky stays relatively the same / Inam Kang --
The shame exchange / Karen E. Bender --
On the overnight train / Alice Friman --
On the footage of Monet painting / Samuel Cheney --
Sycamore / Stanley Plumly --
Turner's clouds for Plumly / David Baker --
Give my love to the savages / Chris Stuck --
Childish things / Chris Forhan --
Adagio / Robert Pinsky --
Return of the blue nun / Madeline DeFrees --
A beloved duck gets cooked / Lydia Davis --
Letters / Ilya Kaminsky --
Freak corner / John Rolfe Gardiner --
Untitled / T. C. Tolbert --
Rivers / Jo McDougall --
The fifth hour of the night / Frank Bidart --
My father recycles / Naira Kuzmich --
In a good way / Polly Duff Kertis --
And I thought of glass flowers / A. V. Christie --
Chastity / Siqi Liu --
It's not you / Elizabeth McCracken --
Remembering John L'Heureux / Molly Antopol --
The night drinker / Luis Alberto Urrea --
A refusal to mourn the death, by gunfire, of three men in Brooklyn / John Murillo --
Governing bodies / Sangamithra Iyer.
Other Titles: 2021 Pushcart prize XLV :
Pushcart prize 2021
Pushcart prize 45
Responsibility: edited by Bill Henderson, with the Pushcart Prize editors.
Description: xix, 243 pages ; 20 cm.
Contents:
Introduction / Nicholas Royle --
Beyond Criticism / Luke Brown --
Nudibranch / Irenosen Okojie --
The Phone Call / David Constantine --
Vashti / Zakia Uddin --
Energy Thieves: Five Dialogues / Richard Lawrence Bennett --
Halloween / Nicola Freeman --
In the Mountains / Amanthi Harris --
The Girl With the Horizontal Walk / Andrew Hook --
She Said He Said / Hanif Kureishi --
Safely Gathered In / Sarah Schofield --
Belly / Sonia Hope --
The Further Dark / Jeff Noon and Bridget Penney --
Same Same But Different / Stephen Thompson --
Backbone / KJ Orr --
Whale Watching / Diana Powell --
Greetings From the Fat Man in Postcards / David Rose --
The White Cat / NJ Stallard --
Maxine / Tim Etchells --
Dreams Are Contagious / Adrian Slatcher --
Weaning / Helen Mort --
Purity / Robert Stone
Series Title: Best British Short Stories
Responsibility: series editor Nicholas Royle.
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Volume 1 • [The Year's Best Science Fiction (Strahan) • 1] • anthology by Jonathan Strahan
Contents
- xiii • Introduction (The Year's Best Science Fiction: Volume 1) • essay by Jonathan Strahan
- 1 • The Bookstore at the End of America • (2019) • short story by Charlie Jane Anders
- 23 • The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex • (2019) • short story by Tobias S. Buckell
- 37 • Kali_Na • (2019) • short fiction by Indrapramit Das
- 59 • Song of the Birds • (2019) • short fiction by Saleem Haddad
- 77 • The Painter of Trees • (2019) • short story by Suzanne Palmer
- 91 • The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir • (2019) • short story by Karin Tidbeck
- 109 • Sturdy Lanterns and Ladders • (2019) • short story by Malka Older
- 123 • It's 2059, and the Rich Kids Are Still Winning • (2019) • short story by Ted Chiang
- 127 • Contagion's Eve at the House Noctambulous • (2019) • novelette by Rich Larson
- 151 • Submarines • (2019) • short story by Han Song (trans. of 潜艇?2014)
- 161 • As the Last I May Know • (2019) • short story by S. L. Huang
- 179 • A Catalog of Storms • (2019) • short story by Fran Wilde
- 193 • The Robots of Eden • (2019) • short story by Anil Menon
- 213 • Now Wait for This Week • (2019) • novelette by Alice Sola Kim
- 243 • Cyclopterus • (2019) • short story by Peter Watts
- 263 • Dune Song • (2019) • short story by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
- 277 • The Work of Wolves • (2019) • novella by Tegan Moore
- 331 • Soft Edges • (2019) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
- 343 • Emergency Skin • (2019) • novelette by N. K. Jemisin
- 371 • Thoughts and Prayers • (2019) • short story by Ken Liu
- 391 • At the Fall • (2019) • novelette by Alec Nevala-Lee
- 423 • Reunion • (2019) • short fiction by Vandana Singh
- 453 • Green Glass: A Love Story • (2019) • short story by E. Lily Yu
- 465 • Secret Stories of Doors • (2016) • short story by Sofía Rhei
- 483 • This is Not the Way Home • (2019) • novelette by Greg Egan
- 507 • What the Dead Man Said • (2019) • short story by Chinelo Onwualu
- 523 • I (28M) Created a Deepfake Girlfriend and Now My Parents Think We're Getting Married • (2019) • short story by Fonda Lee
- 533 • The Archronology of Love • (2019) • short story by Caroline M. Yoachim
- 561 • Recommended Reading: 2019 • essay by Jonathan Strahan
"The Savannah Problem" by Adam-Troy Castro (Analog, 1-2/19)
"Love in the Time of Immuno-Sharing" by Andy Dudak (Analog, 1-2/19)
"Empty Box" by Allison Mulvihill (Analog, 11-12/19)
"At the Fall" by Alec Nevala-Lee (Analog, 5-6/19)
"Anosognosia" by John Crowley (And Go Like This)
"Tourists" by Rammel Chan (Asimov’s, 3-4/19)
"At the Old Wooden Synagogue on Janower Street" by Michael Libling (Asimov’s, 9-10/19)
"The Ocean Between the Leaves" by Ray Nayler (Asimov’s, 7-8/19)
"Cloud" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s, 11-12/19)
"Cloud-Born" by Gregory Feeley (Clarkesworld, 11/19)
"Give the Family My Love" by A.T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld, 02/2019)
"Tick Tock" by Xia Jia (Clarkesworld, 5/19)
"The Visible Frontier" by Grace Seybold (Clarkesworld, 07/2019)
"Secret Stories of Doors" by Sofia Rhei (Everything is Made of Letters)
"miscellaneous notes from the time an alien came to band camp disguised as my alto sax" by Tina Connolly (F&SF, 3-4/19)
"Mighty are the Meek and the Myriad" by Cassandra Khaw (F&SF, 7-8/19)
"Shucked" by Sam J. Miller (F&SF, 11-12/19)
"How to Kiss a Hojacki" by Debbie Urbanski (F&SF, 5-6/19)
"Green Glass: A Love Story" by E. Lily Yu (If This Goes On, edited by Cat Rambo)
"Fix That House!" by John Kessel (Interzone, 9-10/19)
"Ink, and Breath, and Spring" by Frances Rowat (Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, 11/19)
"The Death of Fire Station 10" by Ray Nayler (Lightspeed, 10/19)
"The Archronology of Love" by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed, 04/19)
"The Fine Print" by Chinelo Onwualu, (New Suns, edited by Nisi Shawl)
"The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations" by Minsoo Kang (New Suns, edited by Nisi Shawl)
"Bark, Blood, and Sacrifice" by Alexandra Seidel (Not One of Us, 10/19)
"Mnemosyne" by Catherine MacLeod (On Spec, 04/19)
"A Country Called Winter" by Theodora Goss (Snow White Learns Witchcraft)
"And Now His Lordship is Laughing" by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons, 09/20/19)
"The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear" by Kelly Link (Tin House, Summer 2019)
"The Hundredth House Had No Walls" by Laurie Penny (Tor.com, 09/11/19)
"Knowledgeable Creatures" by Christopher Rowe (Tor.com, 03/06/19)
"Vis Delendi" by Marie Brennan (Uncanny, 3-4/19)
"The Migration Suite: A Study in C Sharp Minor" by Maurice Broaddus (Uncanny, 7-8/19)
"A Catalog of Storms" by Fran Wilde (Uncanny, 1-2/19)
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 • [The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy] • anthology edited by Diana Gabaldon; series editor John Joseph Adams
Contents (view Concise Listing)
- ix • Foreword (The Best American Science fiction and Fantasy 2020) • essay by John Joseph Adams
- xvii • Introduction (The Best American Science fiction and Fantasy 2020) • essay by Diana Gabaldon
- 1 • Life Sentence • (2019) • short story by Matthew Baker
- 26 • Another Avatar • (2019) • novella by S. P. Somtow
- 65 • Between the Dark and the Dark • (2019) • short story by Deji Bryce Olukotun
- 97 • Thirty-Three Wicked Daughters • (2019) • novelette by Kelly Barnhill
- 125 • Bullet Point • (2019) • short fiction by Elizabeth Bear
- 140 • The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra's Diary) • (2019) • short story by Gwendolyn Kiste
- 150 • The Archronology of Love • (2019) • short story by Caroline M. Yoachim
- 173 • Shape-Ups at Delilah's • (2019) • short story by Rion Amilcar Scott
- 192 • The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex • (2019) • short story by Tobias S. Buckell
- 204 • The Bookstore at the End of America • (2019) • short story by Charlie Jane Anders
- 223 • Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island • (2019) • short fiction by Nibedita Sen
- 227 • The Freedom of the Shifting Sea • (2019) • short story by Jaymee Goh
- 243 • Sacrid's Pod • (2019) • short fiction by Adam-Troy Castro
- 265 • Canst Thou Draw Out the Leviathan • (2019) • short fiction by Christopher Caldwell
- 280 • Thoughts and Prayers • (2019) • short story by Ken Liu
- 296 • The Time Invariance of Snow • (2019) • short story by E. Lily Yu
- 306 • The Robots of Eden • (2019) • short story by Anil Menon
- 323 • Erase, Erase, Erase • (2019) • novelette by Elizabeth Bear
- 348 • A Brief Lesson in Native American Astronomy • (2019) • short fiction by Rebecca Roanhorse
- 360 • Up from Slavery • (2019) • novelette by Victor LaValle
- 391 • Contributor's Notes (The Best American Science fiction and Fantasy 2020) • essay by uncredited
- 405 • Other Notable Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories of 2019 • essay by John Joseph Adams
The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 5 • [The Best Science Fiction of the Year • 5] • anthology by Neil Clarke
Contents
- Moonlight • (2019) • short story by Cixin Liu (trans. of 月夜?2009) [as by Liu Cixin]
- Permafrost • (2019) • novella by Alastair Reynolds
- Give the Family My Love • (2019) • short story by A. T. Greenblatt
- At the Fall • (2019) • novelette by Alec Nevala-Lee
- Sympathizer • (2019) • short fiction by Karin Lowachee
- The Painter of Trees • (2019) • short story by Suzanne Palmer
- Cratered • (2019) • novelette by Karen Osborne
- The Work of Wolves • (2019) • novella by Tegan Moore
- The Ocean Between the Leaves • (2019) • novelette by Ray Nayler
- Rescue Party • [Universe of Xuya] • (2019) • novelette by Aliette de Bodard
- By the Warmth of Their Calculus • (2019) • novelette by Tobias S. Buckell
- The Empty Gun • (2019) • short story by Yoon Ha Lee
- In the Stillness Between the Stars • (2019) • novelette by Mercurio D. Rivera
- On the Shores of Ligeia • (2019) • short story by Carolyn Ives Gilman
- The Justified • (2019) • short fiction by Ann Leckie
- Kali_Na • (2019) • short fiction by Indrapramit Das
- Close Enough for Jazz • (2019) • short fiction by John Chu
- Deriving Life • (2019) • novelette by Elizabeth Bear
- Old Media • (2019) • short story by Annalee Newitz
- Painless • (2019) • short story by Rich Larson
- Emergency Skin • (2019) • novelette by N. K. Jemisin
- Song Xiuyun • (2019) • novelette by 阿缺?(trans. of宋秀云?2018) [as by A Que]
- The River of Blood and Wine • (2019) • novelette by Kali Wallace
- Knit Three, Save Four • (2019) • short story by Marie Vibbert
- Such Thoughts Are Unproductive • (2019) • short story by Rebecca Campbell
- Mother Ocean • (2019) • short story by Vandana Singh
- The Little Shepherdess • (2019) • short story by Gwyneth Jones
- Introduction: The State of the Short SF Field in 2019 • essay by Neil Clarke
- One Thousand Beetles in a Jumpsuit • (2019) • novelette by Dominica Phetteplace
- 2019 Recommended Reading List (The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 5) • essay by Neil Clarke