Many thanks to all who entered the 2021 Short Fiction Competition. We appreciate the opportunity to read such bright and brilliant new work.
From nearly 2,000 submissions, guest judge and 2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason honored the following stories . . .
The editors are thrilled to announce the release of the Winter 2021/2022 Edition, designed by the acclaimed photographer Sylvia Plachy, with contributions from National Magazine Award finalist ’Pemi Aguda, National Book Award finalist Jim Shepard, and Tanizaki Prize–winner Haruki Murakami, among others.
Why did you accept the invitation to design the Winter 2021/2022 edition of All-Story?
You called at the right time—if you had called half an hour earlier or later . . . I don’t know. The timing was right: I needed a shorter, smaller project.
Any challenges?
The biggest challenge was to arrange . . .
The Budd Schulberg story “Your Arkansas Traveler,” first published in 1953, and his later film adaptation, A Face in the Crowd, directed by Elia Kazan in 1957, seem both very much of their time—in the language and homespun style of the lead—and prescient. Some may see in Lonesome Rhodes, the “just folks” country-singer character, echoes of Bill Clinton, also from Arkansas, but Clinton, though maybe possessing a cynical streak, never aspired to become a demagogue. The fellow that most of us think of when we think proto-demagogue now is Donald Trump.
Like Lonesome, Trump revels in “breaking the rules,” and Lonesome’s radio listeners cheer him on as he does so, as they believe . . .
