Showing results by narrator "Jacob Patalive" in All Categories

The transporting stories in this year’s The Best American Mystery and Suspense are populated by those who exist on the fringe of our society and want more than what life has dealt them: A haunted veteran turned career criminal is on the run. An injured fighter turned bouncer seeks vengeance for his lost love. An assassin on his last job finds himself questioning his life choices and breaks all the rules to understand his final victim.

“Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,” writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. “The most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.” The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises.

It’s been years since anyone really thought about Hayley Aldridge. A child star turned television royalty, Hayley spent years in Hollywood partying and being plastered across the front page of all the tabloids before quietly disappearing after a whirlwind marriage and divorce and very public breakdown. Once the tabloids wrung every last drop out of the drama, they moved on to the next It Girl. But Hayley is still here.

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.