about us

the problem

We believe that, particularly now, as we found this annual anthology, America has lost its cool. Accusation, envy, deception, and snarky exchanges have not only coarsened American discourse, they've caused the coolest people to fear, to seek cover from the fray, to play it safe by not writing and submitting short stories, or at best by typing up mere manuscripts that don't allow their storytelling instincts to sing.

The result, we've found, is that published short stories of late have felt--to us at least--like academic exercises and preachings to choirs more than they've felt like those startling oral tales your wisest, funniest aunt might share with you, or those nearly incredible anecdotes your life-of-the-party friend told as everyone within earshot went silent and felt their hearts beat harder.​​

our goal

Remember that twisty-turny story you once read that removed you from this world completely, that actually caused you to think Wow, or maybe even led you to say out loud, "That was a cool story"? We do. And we miss stories like that. And we want to encourage people of all ages (yes, we think teenagers and octogenarians can write cool stories) and social classes (yes, we think privilege and education can cause storytelling to become stilted) to write the kinds of stories they want to read.

We want America to be cool again. And we believe that the most earnest, unafraid, engaging storytelling--if it could be published and read and therefore given a chance--could make empathy and kindness fashionable again and thereby bring American coolness about. Hence our annual anthology.

us

mark wish (wisniewski)
publisher and founding editor

More than 125 of Mark's short stories have appeared in print venues such as Best American Short Stories, The Georgia Review, TriQuarterly, American Short Fiction, The Antioch Review, Crazyhorse, The Gettysburg Review, Fiction, The Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, Barrelhouse, The Yale Review, The Sun, Paris Transcontinental, and Fiction International, and have won distinctions such as the Tobias Wolff Award, the Kay Cattarulla Award, an Isherwood Fellowship, and a Pushcart Prize. Mark served as the Fiction Editor of California Quarterly, was the founding Fiction Editor of New York Stories and a Contributing Editor for Pushcart, and has long been known as the freelance editor who has revised the fiction of other writers, leading to its publication in dozens of venues including The Atlantic Monthly, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Missouri Review, The Hudson Review, and Best American Short Stories. His novel Watch Me Go was published by Putnam. 
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elizabeth coffey
editor and art director

Elizabeth is an award-winning art director at Random House, where she has designed book interiors for Barack Obama's A Promised Land, Michele Obama's Becoming, Rachel Maddow's Bag Man, and numerous other best-selling titles. She dabbled in poetry in the 90s and published in several small magazines. She is working on her first novel, a mystery about estranged sisters, and plans to use the pen name Elizabeth Coffey as a tribute to her grandmother Evangeline Coffey Harrington. Elizabeth has been Mark's go-to editor for virtually all of his published short stories and Watch Me Go.

ray
​​office assistant

Ray is simply the best office assistant ever.