by James Wallace Harris, 8/25/26
When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a science fiction writer because I loved reading science fiction. I began thinking about writing after subscribing to science fiction magazines in 1967 and learning how they paid writers. Science fiction magazines and anthologies were my introduction to the short story.
I’m pretty sure they introduced us to literary short stories in junior high, but they made no impact on me. In the 12th grade, I took a creative writing class. I can’t remember any of the stories I wrote for that class, or even the teacher’s name. In college, I also took creative writing classes as electives for my English major. In the 1990s, I got into an MFA program for creative writing. I still have some of the stories I wrote for it.
In all those writing classes, my teachers discouraged us from writing science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, and other genre-type stories. My teachers pleaded with us to write about what we knew. I didn’t tell them that what I knew most was science fiction.
In 2002, I went to Clarion West Writers’ Workshop for six weeks in Seattle, Washington. Its focus was science fiction, including a week’s instruction from Gardner Dozois, the editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction at the time. Saturday, I received a packet from Clarion West of my old stories. I haven’t had the heart to open them. It was not long after that I gave up hope of ever publishing a short story or writing a novel. Writing fiction was a lifelong dream that I never worked hard enough to make a reality.
In 2020, I joined a Facebook group that read one science fiction short story a day. For almost five years, I kept up with that pace. I had hoped it would inspire me to write again, but it never did.
Most years, around October, I get the latest volume of Best American Short Stories, believing it will inspire me to write again. That hasn’t worked either. However, it does show me what’s going on in literary fiction. It seems that since the 1990s, literary writers have sometimes embraced writing ideas and techniques from genre writers. But then, I feel genre writers have become more literary. I wonder how many of them go through MFA writing programs.
The short story was replaced by the television show in the 1950s. The short story used to be the primary source of 30- to 60-minute doses of fiction. That was the primary product of broadcast television. Streaming television has changed things. Its product is now eight to twelve 30- to 60-minute episodes that tell one story. People often binge-watch them. They’re novel replacements.
An episode of The Big Bang Theory or Law and Order is essentially a short story.
On the other hand, many people have switched to short videos that run a few minutes. They are the equivalent of flash fiction.
Evidently, the short story, whether written or filmed, is no longer appealing. Literary magazines and genre magazines struggle to find audiences larger than several hundred to a few thousand. That’s a shame, because fiction at that length is rather distinctive.
The variety of story types and writing styles is striking in any anthology. In the time it takes to read or listen to one average bestseller, you can read or listen to twenty short stories. A good short story makes an intense emotional impact on the reader. Novels do this too, but require a longer commitment. And I don’t know if all those extra words pay off any more.
The main reason I failed at writing was that I couldn’t create that emotional impact. Here is the next set of stories I read in The Best American Short Stories 2025. I’m going to try to entice you to read them by describing the setup for their emotional impact.
“Maritza and Carman” by Lyn Di Iorio
Maritza was taken in by Juancho after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. She didn’t know who she was or where she came from. Juancho let her work in his cafe, and over the year she found a kind of inner peace working in his garden. Then, Juancho saw Maritza’s picture in the newspaper. It was a picture of a policewoman named Carmen Sandin de O’Farrell. She had rescued people during Hurricane Irma, but was described as having died trying to save her daughter, Taina O’Farrell, in Hurricane Maria.
They contact Taina, who comes to visit. Carmen is told who she was, and that triggers some memories. But as Taina recounts how her mother saved her and her boyfriend, Carmen remembers something different.
Did Carmen lose her memory because of physical injury in the hurricane, or because of what her daughter did? Will she return to her old life?
“Gray, Cotton, White Lace Edges” by Isabelle Fang
May is a college girl who sells her worn underwear to men with fetishes. Then she gets a job working with Bridget on a reality TV show and decides her underwear-selling days are over. May has avoided meeting any of her customers, but her best customer, Bill, asks to meet her after she informs him that he will no longer be getting her panties in the mail. She puts him off by telling him she’ll be out of town on location for three months.
The TV show is about an older white man, John, who has divorced his imported Asian wife and is marrying 19-year-old Ally, who is flying in from the Philippines. May befriends Ally. Her job is to help pull off a wedding for the show, but she identifies with Ally because her father left her mom for a young woman like Ally.
The impact of all of this conveys the icky compromises women have to make with men. Yet, readers are surprised at the decisions the women make. May does meet with Bill, and the ending is an interesting surprise.
“Time of the Preacher” by Bret Anthony Johnston
Holland builds wooden fences, pergolas, decks, and even tree houses. He’s doing great business during Covid because everyone wants to isolate themselves but spend time outdoors. Holland is divorced and misses his ex, Mandy, who is about to remarry. Mandy texts Holland, asking him to come get a snake out of a house she’s renting. A house rented by a preacher who skipped out on her.
Holland goes right over, and they don’t find the snake. He wants to think Mandy just wanted his company and made up the story about the snake. The story is really about how Mandy sees Holland and how he sees her. Holland is not like the icky men in the previous story, but he’s disappointing to Mandy in other ways.
Love the ending, but wonder what it implies.
“Underwater” by Hannah Kingsley-Ma
Sam, the wife, is married to Sam, the husband. Sam, the man, has a twin sister, Lizzy. Sam, the woman, is jealous of her husband’s relationship with his sister. They might be too close.
Sam’s family is jealous that she spends all her vacation time with his family. Sam’s family is just as weird as her in-laws. Sam’s sister, Sarah, has a son who wants to saw off her legs.
This story is a comedy about strange relationships. It asks: who is fucked up? Or should ask: who is fucked up the most?
We’re only given more and more proof of weirdness. My favorite part deals with Lizzy’s weird dog, Dotty.
I’d love to see this story as a TV series.
“Drapetomania” by William Lohier
Drapetomania was a fake, racist mental illness proposed in 1851 by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright. He claimed that enslaved Black people who tried to run away from bondage were suffering from a disease.
William Lohier turns “Drapetomania” into an allegorical horror story.
Nina is in class when Jackson asks to leave class. He leaves and begins running. He keeps running until he dies. We’re told the world has been hit by a condition that makes black people start running and keep running until they die.
Nina has already lost a sister, Demetria, to this condition. Nina is introduced to a senior, Jai, who is a reporter for the local public radio station. She wants to follow Nina to cover the running mania. Nina takes Jai home to meet her mother and brother TomTom.
Jai’s father is Japanese, but her mother is Guyanese. She doesn’t know if she’s black enough to catch the mania.
From here, the story becomes bleaker and bleaker. “Drapetomania” is really a genre story, with a good plot. It has a surreal, nightmarish ending. There’s enough here to make a movie.
It shuddered and rumbled and moaned. Beyond TomTom’s lithe back I could see only a weltering sliver of sun. Runners, I realized. I edged into a sprint. The motel and the moon and the world behind me—it all fell away. Beside me Jai stumbled and slowed, but I couldn’t turn back. We were neck and neck, TomTom and I, blood and blood. The sun enraged the sky and I saw them, before us, haloed in the rising dust. Their feet played the earth like an enormous drum. We ran toward them, enraged, and sweat stung my eyes but I didn’t need to see TomTom to know what his face looked like. Mine looked the same.
Then we were among them, and I could barely see through the grit. Soon it blotted out the sky, and the trees, and left only a red sun and our persons. It was so beautiful, I lost my breath. My feet pounded against the ground until I could no longer feel them.
If “Drapetomania” were stretched out to novel length, would it have a greater impact? I don’t think so. The story isn’t realistic, but it does have great symbolic impact. I can easily imagine Holden Caulfield being so disturbed that he started running and kept running until he died.
Wrapping Up …
I’d love to have written any of these stories. There’s a reason that at least three editors have chosen them. The single most important thing I learned at Clarion West Writers’ Workshop was “great fiction is the accumulation of significant details.” It’s all those details that make us feel for the characters. I seldom could gather enough details to make my stories ignite.
I still have the fantasy of writing science fiction. I’ve thought for years, “If I could only write one good story that got published.” I even know the story and characters I want to write. I’ve attempted that story many times. But I can never finish it in any form that works as well as these five stories.
JWH
