Rachel Swearingen is the author of How to Walk on Water and Other Stories, winner of the 2018 New American Fiction Prize (October 1, 2020). Her stories and essays have appeared in VICE, The Missouri Review, Kenyon Review, Off Assignment, Agni, AmericanShort Fiction, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2015 Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize in Fiction, a […]
Fiction
Interview with Rachel Swearingen, Author of How to Walk on Water and Other Stories
Dance, Ghosts, and the End of the World: An Interview with Emily St. John Mandel
by Nathan Winer
Emily St. John Mandel is a novelist originally from British Columbia. The author of five novels, her fourth, Station Eleven (2014), tells the story of life before and after a world-shattering pandemic, and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner award, as well as the winner of the Arthur C. Clark […]
George Saunders on A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
by Brianna Di Monda
There’ve been plenty of books on craft published by acclaimed writers before A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, but none have been infused with such belief in the capacity of fiction to change its readers, such revelation of the tricks of the craft, or such empathy for future writers. George Saunders has been […]
Cool Uncle
by Emmett Knowlton
All summer long Gideon’s nephews had been terrorizing him, waking him with wet willies, reminding him what a loser he’d become. “Do a flip!” they shouted at him in the mornings as he watched them by the pool. “Do some push-ups!” they barked whenever he came back from a run. “Come on, Giddy,” they sneered. […]
The Only Thing Missing Was the Howling of Wolves
by Rachel Swearingen
The following is excerpted from Rachel Swearingen’s debut story collection, How to Walk on Water. Her stories and essays fiction have appeared in VICE, Agni, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. A recipient of the 2018 New American Fiction Prize, Swearingen has also won the 2015 Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize in Fiction and […]
Interview with Salvation Day Author Kali Wallace
by Chase Erwin
Kali Wallace was born and raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She attended Brown University, where she took an undergraduate degree in Geology, and the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she completed a Ph.D. in Geophysics. Additionally, she is a graduate of the prestigious Clarion Workshop for SFF writers. Her short fiction has appeared in a […]
Sam Cohen Interviewed by Raki Kopernik: Queer Jewish Writers
In Sarahland, a collection of stories woven together by characters named Sarah, Sam Cohen brilliantly and often hilariously explores the ways in which traditional stories have failed us. The cast of Sarahs finds ways to love the planet and those inhabiting it, and they discover new possibilities for life itself. In each Sarah’s refusal to adhere […]
Sell Outs: 1970 – Love Story: The Year When a Screenplay-turned-novel Almost Broke the National Book Award
by Kirk Sever
Welcome to Sell Outs: 50 Years of Bestsellers, the feature where we pore over the best most popular fiction in America from the last half-century, one year at a time. * For our first installment, we visit an all too familiar setting: a United States fed-up-with and angry about government ineptitude and civil rights inequalities. […]
Year-end Wrap-up: Books the MAYDAY Editors Dug in 2020
Believe it or not, we found time to enjoy books during this totally normal year. For some of us, we discovered work written long ago, while others read more recent publications. Either way, books kept us company and helped us escape the despair of endless Zoom meetings. Thanks for letting us share some of the […]
He Went That Way
by Nicholas Cormier III
They approach in a tactical formation. I hear boots, that familiar sound from basic training. Shuffling feet out of step. The numbers are unclear, more of them than me. Sit. That’s the instinct. No victory to be had in the fight. There’s a fight. They push me over. I crawl out into the middle of […]
