Coolest American Stories
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coolest american stories
(an annual anthology)

Interesting writing.

ORDER ​
COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2025

HERE:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Google Play

​
COOLEST 2022, 2023, and 2024 NOW IN AUDIOBOOK!
2022
2023
2024


Praise for COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES:
​“This baker's-dozen assortment contains a wide range of pleasures and surprises. The stories are tender, moving, electrifying, comical, and quirky. They are altogether cool.”
—PEN/Hemingway Award winner BOBBIE ANN MASON, author of Shiloh and Other Stories

​“Like dipping into people's lives for moments of joy and pain.”
—JENNY LAWSON, NYT bestselling author of Furiously Happy and Let's Pretend This Never Happened

​“The stories in this volume are exemplars of the finest short story craft in contemporary literature.”
--California Review of Books
​
“Above and beyond cool. Once I cracked this open, I was hooked.”
—ALEX SEGURA, LA Times Book Award winner, bestselling author of Secret Identity


​“Nothing short of a miracle, really, that despite the despair of Covid, such a wonderful anthology could emerge.”
—ANNE SERLING, author of As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling

“The best current fiction anthology on the market.”
—MARTIN OTT, author of The Interrogator's Notebook

“Unforgettable characters, memorable plots, and crackling prose. The tension hums on
every page.
”
—PEN/Hemingway Award Finalist REBECCA JOHNS, author of The Countess


“Edgy and exceptional stories for inspiration, entertainment, and to take in the drumbeat of the zeitgeist.”
—ELIZABETH McKENZIE, author of The Portable Veblen, longlisted for the National Book Award
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GOOD NEWS FOR COOLEST

A story by FRANCINE WITTE wins a Pushcart Prize
​(Pushcart 2026)

Don Winslow chooses 
TWIST PHELAN's "Good Shoes" for The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2025

Kelp Books signs a collection of 
BARBARA DEMARCO-BARRETT'S short stories

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine signs a story by 
TWIST PHELAN 

Ithaca's radio station WVBR 
interviews Mark Wish about COOLEST 2025

2 COOLEST 2025 authors sign with agents
after signing with 
COOLEST 


A story by MATHIEU CAILLER wins a Pushcart Prize (Pushcart 2025)
​
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine signs a story by 
DENNIS McFADDEN 
​

​DW GREGORY wins the West Virginia Fiction Competition 

COOLEST 2024 wins the National Indie Excellence Award for Anthologies 


MARK WISH'S NECESSARY DEEDS wins the International Book Award for Mystery/Suspense

Melville House signs the sequel to Pulitzer Prize finalist LEE MARTIN'S The Bright Forever

MARK WISH'S novel NECESSARY DEEDS is nominated for a National Book Award

Graywolf Press hires
T.E. WILDERSON as editorial assistant

Cornerstone Press signs a collection of DENNIS McFADDEN'S short stories
​

Level Best books signs GERALD ELIAS to a 2-book contract


DENNIS McFADDEN wins The Missouri Review's Perkoff Prize for best story

Amy Einhorn at Crown Publishing signs
CYNTHIA WEINER's novel A Gorgeous Excitement in a significant deal

Regal House signs DAVID EBENBACH'S novel Possible Happiness

​COOLEST 2023 wins the National Indie Excellence Award for BEST ANTHOLOGY
​
S.A. COSBY'S novel All the Sinners Bleed is published to high acclaim by Stephen King, Dennis Lehane, & the NYT

Tin House Books signs MORGAN TALTY'S first novel

MICHAEL HOPKINS'S short story collection Never Stop Exiting is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2025
​
MORGAN TALTY
 wins *all* these awards (!):
​• National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize
•New England Book Award

• PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection
• Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction

NIKKI DOLSON wins Barbara Neely Grant

DAVID BOROFKA reports two new book contracts:
• Johns Hopkins University Press signed his collection of stories, The Bliss of Your Attention
• His novel The End of Good Intentions was signed by Fomite Press



COOLEST 2025 contributors
Linda Bernal
Demond J Blake
Philip Cesario
Mathieu Cailler
Kathleen Furin
Brian Patrick Heston
Mehdi M. Kashani
Timothy Laurence Marsh
Lee Martin
Ed McManis
Twist Phelan
Beatrice Turner
Francine Witte
​
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