American Literature Anthology

Notable literary figures pay tribute to poet/writer Justin Chin with personal commentaries on works selected from his seven books. Justin Chin's fearless and fierce voice was resolute in relating his worldview, whether directly or through metaphorical language. As a queer Asian American, born and raised in Southeast Asia within a devoutly Christian, ethnically Chinese family of medical professionals, Chin's early life experience informed his writing and framed his point of view.

A young Black girl watches as her aunt’s multiple suitors disrupt her family’s privacy. The same girl, now on the cusp of adulthood, shares her family’s growing fears that her father has disappeared. Acclaimed author Ann Petry penned these and the other unforgettable narratives in Miss Muriel and Other Stories more than 70 years ago, yet in them, contemporary listeners recognize characters who exist today and dilemmas that recur again and again.

Even the saved struggle when navigating their way through love. This much could definitely be said for the Fold family's youngest child and only son, Chadwick. Looking for love was never on Chad's list of things to do, until he held Taya in his arms on a dance floor and watched God laugh at his plans. She was beautiful in a way that caught his eyes and his heart. Foreign feelings that wouldn't fade had him questioning his sanity.

From the remarkable Ha Jin, winner of the National Book Award for his celebrated novel Waiting, comes this collection of comical and deeply moving tales of contemporary China that are as warm and human as they are surprising, disturbing, and delightful. In the title story, the head of security at a factory is shocked, first when the handsomest worker on the floor proposes marriage to his homely adopted daughter, and again when his new son-in-law is arrested for the "crime" of homosexuality.

Alicia Erian's characters are brave, disarming, affectionate, and deeply flawed. They inhabit the not-so-very-wide space between a good intention and a bad outcome. The Brutal Language of Love challenges traditional notions of right and wrong with what has become Erian's signature—an achingly stylish humor and a deep understanding of the brutal truth about human nature. These surprising, provocative, and deeply resonant stories marked the emergence of a major talent.

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own. Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: In the American short story, literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look.

This classic collection includes seven life-changing stories with ironic twists of fate, which can inform the young about their choices in life and recall the choices older people have made between success and happiness, duty and pleasure, and much more. Includes a short, final summing-up chapter, envoi.

In ancient mythology, the Titan Prometheus was punished by the gods for bringing man the gift of fire - an event that set humankind on its course of knowledge. As punishment, Prometheus was bound to a rock. But in The Gift of Fire, those chains cease to be, and the great champion of man walks from that immortal prison into present-day South Central Los Angeles. Disheveled and lost, he is thrown in jail, where he meets lifelong criminal Nosome Blane....

Sasha is a single mother and the youngest of her two sisters. Drama followers her everywhere and her sister, Stacey and Randi are fed up with her short temper and untamed tongue. Their relationship with Sasha seems toxic due to her unbearable irresponsible lifestyle. She faces many trails but relies on her good looks to get her out of trouble. Until she finally gets a wake up call.

Alexander Shalom Joseph’s American Wasteland is a collection of stories about the contemporary day-to-day in America. It is said in the Talmud that one job of certain Jews is to justify the existence of humanity to God; in this collection, Joseph attempts to do just this with his stories, which speak to the everyday mundane and the vast richness in both meaning and meaninglessness that abound all around us. These stories, vivid in detail, portray a stagnant land full of longing and millions of lost people trying to make sense of a world which can seem both crushing and light.

A mother and daughter negotiate the Oregon Trail with grisly results; an elementary teacher watches the carnage of the Challenger explosion spill over into her own classroom. A possible prospector traveling west is drawn to an isolated inn where no one walks away hungry; a 1950s housewife shares the gruesome repertoire of behavior expected of a proper lady. Prohibition and women’s suffrage, the Civil War and the Vietnam War, the JFK assassination conspiracy and the Y2K hysteria.

Culinary creator, writer and community advocate, Sohla El-Waylly selects the best twenty articles published in 2021 that celebrate the many innovative, comforting, mouthwatering, and culturally rich culinary offerings of our country.

Set in the present, American Z is centered around a deeply rooted and disturbing evolution of the zombie in America, and the scientific T.S.O.M.B.I.E. [zom-bie] program. A powerful group of elitists, known as The Society, has been secretly controlling governments for years, and are now on the brink of being able to control humanity itself. One man believes he is destined to stop them and is willing to do whatever it takes, including betraying those closest to him. American Z is sure to slowly eat away at your conscious, long after putting it down.

In The Best American Erotica 2002, Maggie Estep relates the surprising sexual happenings in a detox clinic, Francesca Lia Block explores the aquatic fantasies haunting a surfer, and Ernie Conrick introduces a tennis star and sex symbol who surrenders to an unusual coach. In these 23 stories you will also find cutting-edge work from other luminaries and from the Internet, where the next wave of erotica has matured into some of the most enticing writing around.

Side-splittingly funny, spine-chillingly spooky, this companion to a Newbery Honor - winning anthology The Dark Thirty is filled with bad characters who know exactly how to charm. From the author's note that takes us back to McKissack's own childhood when she would listen to stories told on her front porch...to the captivating introductions to each tale, in which the storyteller introduces himself and sets the stage for what follows...to the 10 entertaining tales themselves, here is a worthy successor to McKissack's The Dark Thirty.

Termed the Uncle Tom's Cabin of the southwestern Indians and the first protest novel of California, Ramona is the story of 3 cultures - Indian, Mexican, and Anglo - locked in combat. The upheaval and injustice are humanized through the romance of a beautiful half-Indian orphan who grow up as the ward of Señora Moreno in privileged surroundings, then falls in love with an Indian and joins him in a life of poverty and tragedy. The Ramona Pageant in Hemet, California, based on this romance, has played each year since 1923, reenacting the transition period between Mexican traditions and the new U.S. and state governments.

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own. Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: In the American short story, literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look.

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own. Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: In the American short story, literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look.

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own. Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: In the American short story, literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look.

For this special edition, Susie Bright has gathered human sexuality in all its diversity: pleasure and desire in all its forms. Featuring erotic stories by: Bret Easton Ellis, Poppy Z. Brite, William Harrison, Michelle Tea, Aimee Bender, and Molly Weatherfield.