Short Fiction Competition

Many thanks to all who entered the 2020 Short Fiction Competition. We appreciate the opportunity to read such bright and brilliant new work. From more than 2,200 submissions, guest judge Téa Obreht has announced results.

Spring 2021 Edition

The editors are thrilled to announce the release of the Spring 2021 Edition, designed by the acclaimed artist Jeffrey Gibson, with contributions from Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Millhauser, PEN/Hemingway Award-winner Tommy Orange, and 2020 Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Competition-winner Deborah Forbes, among others.

Five Questions with Jeffrey Gibson

Why did you accept the invitation to design the Spring 2021 edition of All-Story?
It was an opportunity that I’ve not had previously, and I’m working on a book project for which I’ll be the editor. So I’ve been paying a lot of attention to print material lately, and I thought this would be a perfect chance to have some fun with the format of a publication. 

Some people thought good design would save the world.
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon

In 1918, Word War I ended. The German, Ottoman, and Austrian-Hungarian dynasties were torn apart. Europe was destroyed, physically and emotionally. Since the world was a blank canvas, some Modern Movement / Bauhaus artists, architects, designers, theater producers, and moviemakers proclaimed: “Together let us conceive and create the building of the future . . . [which] in one unity will rise one day toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like a crystal symbol of a new faith.” Go to it. Let’s do it.

To design is to make things. To make the invisible visible. To make the ordinary extraordinary. For everybody. Let’s try equality. No more hypocrisy. No more phony decorations. Make paintings for the people. Make clean, white buildings filled with sun, light, air, and chairs that look like sculpture. Make things that make our politics visible . . .