About This Journal
From 1990 until 2014, the biannual journal Short Story published a grab bag of short stories, critical articles, essays, interviews, and book reviews. It represented a unique contribution to the literary world. Well, it’s back—with a new look and vision under the auspices of the North American Review. For a time, the two publications shared an institutional home at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and after a more than decade-long hiatus, the NAR is reviving its sister journal as an annual to make a home for an eclectic range of short fiction, craft essays, and other story-related material. Over the last few decades, creative writing workshops have been a place for young writers to showcase a variety of speculative work, from high-immersive fantasy to language driven metaphoric dystopias. To reflect this shift the NAR re-launched its Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize in 2018 with a focus on speculative fiction. In order to create an even wider space for a range of different kinds of stories, Short Story returns with an eye toward plot and a strong narrative arc and an emphasis on entertainment. Our promise is to be a venue open not only to literary stories, but also westerns, rom-coms, thrillers, horror stories, crime stories, sci-fi stories, tales, yarns, and other narrative modes, forms, and genres. All finalists for our annual Short Story Prize will be published.