QUESTION: Short Stories / Anthology Ideas?

[Lindsay Lombardi]

Looking for an interesting collection of short stories, either an anthology, or single stories that High School students would enjoy.

The more modern the better.

-Lindsay

[Alan Teasley]

YA author Robb Thomas has a collection called Doing Time: Notes from the Undergrad. A group of high school students has to do a community service project as a requirement for graduation. Each of the ten stories tells about one of the students. I recall them as well-written and discussion-provoking. Read the Amazon.com reviews and responses to see if you think your students would like it. Also, almost every year Don Gallo brings out a collection of short stories around a particular theme. He commissions well-known YA authors to write the stories (and profits from the collections go to the ALAN foundation (no relation).

[Alan Teasley]

Michael Cart also has several short story collections--a bit edgier than Gallo's. One is called "How Beautiful the Ordinary" and deals with issues of identity and sexual orientation (2009). Other collections are "Love and Sex" (2003) and the Rush Hour series: Face (2005), Reckless (2006), Sin (2004), and others.

[Andrea Brown]

Chris Crutcher has a book of loosely tied together short stories called Angry Management. Kids are placed in a counseling group of sorts, and there's a story about each member of the group. There's a bit of character overlap with some of his other books too, which might up the interest factor is kids have already read him.

[Ryan Goble]

Have you checked out the McSweeney's (David Eggers) & Zoetrope (Francis Ford Coppola) collections. They both will have a lot of "hip" up to the minute stories. Also you might keep an eye on the Best American anthologies - they can have some cool stuff. Just some thoughts.

[Bill Lundgren]

"The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction" is superb and very accessible for high school readers

[Amanda Hunter]

Button Button by Richard Matheson is really good and my students really enjoyed it this year.

Also, Akashic Books has a series of contemporary short stories in anthologies based upon international cities. Some are a bit too graphic, but many are just dark and twisted enough to capture students interest... titles include Manhattan Noir, Bronx Noir, Detroit Noir...pretty much any city you can think of.

[Barbara A. Smith]

Lindsay- You might try searching ibooks. I am amazed by what's on there and how much is free or reasonable. Not sure what your students have access to or if ebooks are a possibility but I love the new ipad for reading espc. since you can highlight and mark up text.

[Melissa LynnPomerantz]

Ethan Canin's Emperor of the Air has some great stories as does Rick Bass' The Watch. I use a lot of stories from Selected Shorts (available on podcast)--favorites include "St. George" by Gail Godwin, and "The Hector Quesadilla Story" by T. C. Boyle. I look at Tin House, New Yorker, Harper's and McSweeney's for other pieces. One that I start with every year is "The Other Man" by Nicholas Montemarano (sp?) that gets into the relationship between fiction and truth.

[Shirley Durr]

Life is Funny by E. R. Frank is a collection of linked stories about students in a Brooklyn high school. It covers several years and deals with real-life issues (school, personal, home) with which my students identify. The students are from different ethnic and economic backgrounds. The stores are harsh and tender.

[Jeanette Lans]

I've in the process of reading a collection of short stories by Roddy Doyle (author/screenwriter of 'The Commitments') called 'The Deportees'. So far they stories have been engaging and Doyle has the amazing capacity to capture the essence of the Irish in each highly personal story. I was motivated to obtain this book following a viewing of the film adaptation of one of the stories, 'New Boy' which can be seen below.

[Scott McCloskey]

Sudden Fiction: International is a great source for short-short stories. I've used "The Falling Girl" by Dino Dybek, "On Hope" by Spencer Holst, "Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood, and "There's a Man in the Habit of Hitting Me on the Head with an Umbrella" by Fernando Sorrentino with success.

[Shirley Durr]

If you have struggling readers, they might enjoy Nikki Giovanni's Bronx Masquerade. Each story ends with a poetry jam style poem written by the character who tells his/her story. I've used it for Creative Writing classes as well as for students who claim to like only "real" stories and hate poetry. Another collection is Sharon Flake's Who Am I Without Him?: Short Stories About Girls and the Boys in Their Lives. It's a Coretta Scott King Award winner. I've turned several non-readers into readers by giving them the title story about a girl in an abusive relationship. The rest of the stories are equally gritty. My students liked them all but I like only the first one.