Featured Stories

Here’s Your Hat What’s Your Hurry

Here’s Your Hat What’s Your Hurry: Short story by Elizabeth McCrackenIn this story by Elizabeth McCracken, a homeless woman with no family has spent her life traveling the countryside and staying at the homes of people she says are distant relatives. Now in her eighties, she visits a young couple claiming to be the niece of the man’s great-grandfather. While there, she forms an unlikely attachment to a neglected, undisciplined young boy living nearby. When the truth comes out and it is time for her to leave, she considers taking the boy with her. Themes include homelessness, deception, family, loss, connection.

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The Easthound

The Easthound: Short story by Nalo HopkinsonThis post-apocalyptic horror story by Nalo Hopkinson redefines the concept of puberty. A virus has swept the world, causing all who achieve adulthood to “sprout” into ravenous, werewolf-like beasts. To escape them, children hide in small groups. The story is told from the perspective of twin sisters, one of whom naively believes she caused the virus by inventing the word easthound. Their group are closely monitoring an older boy who is about to undergo the change and will soon have to leave them, when the unexpected occurs. Themes include violence, camaraderie, survival, childhood innocence, adult predation.

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A Silver Dish

A Silver Dish: Short story by Saul BellowThe central theme of this thought-provoking story from Saul Bellow is protagonist Woody’s relationships with his extended family. Although much of his week is spent fulfilling the sense of duty he feels towards them, he also makes time for carnal and other pleasures. A turning point in Woody’s youth was his con-man father (Morris)’s theft of a silver dish. Despite their differences, father and son remained close and Morris’s death affects Woody greatly. In the heart-warming denouement, he proclaims his love by climbing into the dying man’s hospital bed. Other themes: ethnic/religious allegiances, pretentiousness, humiliation, aging, death, duty, self-indulgence, solitude.

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A Face in the Dark

A Face in the Dark: Short story by Ruskin BondThe power of this very short horror story from Ruskin Bond is in the way the events described mirror what one might experience in a nightmare. As an alternative to supernatural forces, Bond cleverly presents a logical explanation for the night’s events: the way faces can appear ghostly by torchlight. Either way, the major theme of the story is fear when confronted with the unknown. A possible moral is that we shouldn’t judge people who look or dress differently due to their race, class, gender identity, religion, etc. Other themes include the supernatural and imagination vs. reality.

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Death by Scrabble

Death by Scrabble: Short story by Charlie FishYou know that a story which begins It’s a hot day and I hate my wife is not going to end well for one of them. In this story by Charlie Fish, a bored couple sit down for a “friendly” game of scrabble. As the competition intensifies, the man notices something strange. The words the couple put down on the board seem to be coming true in the room around them. To test the theory, he puts down the letters Q-U-A-K-E. As the ground begins to shake, he realizes too late that his wife has made the same discovery.

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Cap O’ Rushes

Cap O' Rushes: English folktale from Joseph JacobsSome people liken the beginning of this folktale to Shakespeare’s King Lear. A rich man asks his daughters how much they love him. One answers in a way he does not understand. He mistakenly thinks she doesn’t love him and throws her out of the house. She makes a cloak out of rushes to hide her fine clothes and finds a job cooking and cleaning. That is, of course, until she meets her true love at a ball and turns her bad luck into a ‘happily-ever-after’ ending. Sadly, this sweet-sounding tale may have a more sinister underlying theme.

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The Love Potion

The Love Potion: Short story by Herman BosmanA major theme of this Herman Bosman story is the importance of tradition, myth and storytelling in the lives of Boer settlers. The narrator begins by asserting that everyone in the Marico knows that juba-berry juice can make a woman fall in love with a man. He then relates a tongue-in-cheek story of how he once “helped” a shy policeman use the juice to win a girl’s heart. The ambiguous ending leaves it unclear whether the potion really worked. Other themes: love, fear of rejection, superstition/magic vs. reality, morality (lack of respect for the girl and her right to decide).

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Games at Twilight

Games at Twilight: Short story by Anita DesaiThis story from Anita Desai highlights what children did in the evening before the electronic age… played together outside! Although set in India, it could have taken place almost anywhere in the world. A sensitive young boy playing ‘tag’ with his siblings courageously hides out in a dark and threatening shed. He loses track of time and is shattered when he emerges to claim the glory and finds the other children have forgotten about him and moved on. Major theme: the disillusionment that comes with confronting your potential insignificance in the world. Other themes: identity, fear, courage, expectation, disappointment, humiliation.

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